A Message From The Executive Editor

Why Yucca Mountain is wrong

By Steve Green / In Business Las Vegas

Nevada's tourism-centered economy was just turning the corner in the rebound from the Sept. 11 terrorism when it was blindsided again in February.

Nevada was not hit by terrorists, but by President George Bush as he designated Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the lone, permanent burial site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

Nevada politicians jumped into action, vowing to block the dump in Congress -- or failing that, in court. They also asked Nevadans to donate money to the fight, saying millions of dollars were needed for anti-dump advertising, public relations and lawsuits.

Then, much to our surprise, not much happened.

The casino industry did make a donation of $750,000 -- a token effort given the industry's revenue, profits and substantial stake in the outcome. A handful of business leaders stepped up with some money. But it was only a handful.

We at In Business were stunned at the lack of interest among the casinos and other Nevada businesses in fighting the dump.

We wrote stories quoting a lot of business people who, generally, said they had more important things to worry about or really didn't understand Yucca Mountain and how it would affect Southern Nevada.

We're now hearing from some business people who think the nuclear scheme is a done deal and is not worth fighting. We're hearing from many residents of Nevada and surrounding states that Yucca just isn't important to them.

The owners of this newspaper remain committed to fighting Yucca Mountain and awakening the general public and key decision makers to the crisis at hand. That's why we've been publishing public service announcements urging Nevadans to contribute to the state's anti-Yucca fund.

And that's why this week's In Business includes this special report on Yucca Mountain.

We can't compete with the nuclear power industry's lobbying money. But as journalists who care about this community, we can expose as many readers as possible to the truth about Yucca and nuclear waste. If we can help raise a few dollars, or help change a vote or two, we'll have helped.

In these pages you'll learn:

--The nuclear power industry's growth plans and profit goals are behind the plan to send its waste to Nevada and a so-called temporary dump in Utah. Neither state has nuclear power plants.

--Why shipping the industry's nuclear waste to Nevada and Utah makes the waste more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than leaving it at existing reactor storage sites.

--Why Yucca, even if approved, can't solve the problem it's intended to. It can't prevent waste from continuing to pile up for decades at existing nuclear industry storage sites all around the nation.

--That Yucca Mountain has not been proved safe or capable of storing nuclear waste and that to solve this problem the Energy Department will rely not on Yucca's geologic barriers to radiation, but on waste casks.

The government's argument means, by definition, that thanks to this engineered solution the waste can be safely stored anywhere in casks and doesn't need to be transported.

These are Nevada's arguments against the dump.

You'll also learn that, despite a few voices to the contrary, Nevada isn't for sale when it comes to nuclear waste. We're not interested in compromising our lives in exchange for nuclear waste jobs. We don't want federal money to compensate Nevada for accepting the nuclear industry's garbage and exposing our children and their children to potentially deadly radiation.

And you'll read arguments that it's morally wrong to force a state to accept an out-of-state industry's poisons -- poisons vulnerable to leakage, accidents, sabotage, theft and terrorist attack.

Once you're as informed as we are about the dangers of Yucca Mountain to Nevada and the West, we hope you'll take some action. Call your U.S. senators, write letters to your local newspapers and perhaps use the public service announcement on this page to learn how to donate money to Nevada's anti-Yucca fund. Finally, you can pass along this special report to others you know who may be in a position to join this fight.

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