LAS VEGAS, Nevada, April 10, 2002 (ENS) – Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn Monday vetoed President George W. Bush’s recommendation to bury the nation's high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain "as a wake-up call for America." The Republican governor said this is, "the day when the rest of America will begin to realize that Yucca Mountain is not just a Nevada problem, but a national one that affects every American."

Yucca Mountain (Photo courtesy DOE)

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to use Yucca Mountain for the disposal of 77,000 tons of high level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from throughout the United States and 42 countries. Currently, the waste, generated by power reactors and nuclear weapons production, is stored in temporary surface storage facilities located at 131 sites in 39 states.

Never before has a state been given the power to veto a Presidential decision. In 1982, Congress gave Nevada the unequivocal right to veto the President’s recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

By his veto, Governor Guinn threw the Yucca Mountain decision to Congress. The lawmakers now have 90 legislative days to either overrule his veto by a simple majority of both houses, or let it stand, sending America on the hunt for another permanent nuclear waste repository.

Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn (left) joins Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons on Capitol Hill to fight Yucca Mountain. (Photo courtesy Office of the Congressman)

"Let me make one thing crystal clear – Yucca Mountain is not inevitable, and Yucca Mountain is no bargaining chip,” Governor Guinn said Monday in an address at the University of Nevada. “And, so long as I am governor, it will never become one.” Guinn takes his case to Washington this week.

“Yucca Mountain is not safe, it is not suitable,” the governor declared, “and we will expose the Department of Energy’s dirty little secrets about Yucca Mountain.”

Mountains of documents record 20 years of extensive scientific studies of Yucca Mountain - its geological composition, movement of water through its rock and the likelihood that any highly radioactive waste buried there will be safely contained for at least 10,000 years as required by law.

But President Bush reads those documents differently than does Governor Guinn. In a February 15 letter to Congressional leaders announcing his decision, the President said that proceeding with the repository program "is necessary to protect public safety, health, and the nation's security because successful completion of this project would isolate in a geologic repository at a remote location highly radioactive materials now scattered throughout the nation."

"Nuclear energy is the second largest source of U.S. electricity generation and must remain a major component of our national energy policy in the years to come," Bush wrote. "The cost of nuclear power compares favorably with the costs of electricity generation by other sources, and nuclear power has none of the emissions associated with coal and gas power plants."

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley of Nevada, a Democrat, agrees with the Bush administration that the United States should get away from dependence on foreign oil supplies, but she says the problems of waste disposal make the nuclear power solution too dangerous.

"This administration's solution to the nuclear waste problem is to transport 77,000 tons of toxic nuclear material across 43 states and bury it in a hole in the Nevada desert 90 miles from a major population center," she said in Las Vegas last week. "The cost is outrageous! We hear everything from $56 billon to ready Yucca Mountain to $309 billion. No one knows the exact amount."

Calvert Cliffs on the shore of Chesapeake Bay is one of the 103 operating U.S. nuclear power plants. (Photo courtesy NRC)

President Bush's decision was applauded by Joe Colvin, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear industry. "After almost two decades of exhaustive scientific evaluation showing that the site is suitable to isolate and safely dispose of used nuclear fuel, the federal government is acting responsibly and taking steps to fulfill its obligation to the American people," he said.

In his letter of recommendation to the President, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said national interests that require development of a repository include, "energy and national security, homeland security, nuclear nonproliferation policy, secure disposal of nuclear waste, and ongoing efforts to clean up the environment at former nuclear weapons production sites."

In addressing homeland security, Secretary Abraham said, "More than 161 million people live within 75 miles of one or more of these sites. The facilities housing these materials were intended to do so on a temporary basis. They should be able to withstand current terrorist threats, but that may not remain the case in the future. These materials would be far better secured in a deep underground repository at Yucca Mountain."

But Governor Guinn said Monday, “The fact that the Yucca Mountain decision was made without any analysis of the transportation risks to the 123 million Americans in states through which this dangerous waste will travel is the dirty little secret."

Nevada Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat, revealed on April 2 that "no government tests have been conducted on full size containers intended to transport high level radioactive waste across America’s roads, railways and waterways." Reid has placed on his website a map showing in detail, state by state, the road and rail routes that could be used to transport the waste to Yucca Mountain.

Mock nuclear waste transport cask painted in protest by the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana (Photo courtesy CAC)

Senator Reid has also learned that testing for damage caused by fire has been largely preformed and analyzed by computer simulation alone. “The NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] is relying on small-scale tests of model truck and train containers, and on computer simulations rather than full-scale physical tests of these nuclear waste casks,” said Senator Reid. “I'm shocked.”

“I am stunned by this news,” said Nevada Senator John Ensign, a Republican. “It just goes to show that the NRC isn’t using real world tests for real world scenarios. With something as deadly as nuclear waste, no one can depend solely on simulated fires on computer screens. The NRC has not done its job; it hasn’t done what it needs to do; and we’re not sure that, in real world situations, like the Baltimore tunnel fire, that the casks can remain intact.”

Nuclear engineer Denis Beller, who serves as intercollegiate programs coordinator for the Advanced Accelerator Applications Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, sees the 77,000 tons of radioactive waste as an opportunity to place Las vegas on the map of world class research.

One emerging process is called transmutation, a technology that could transform highly radioactive waste into a usable generator of power that is not life threatening. "The question," Beller said, "is can we make it an economical and safe energy source? We think we can."

But before any waste reaches Yucca Mountain, it must get past the hurdles of three lawsuits filed on various Yucca Mountain issues by the state of Nevada. Citing more than $100 million the nuclear power industry has spent to promote the project, Governor Guinn asked all Nevadans to contribute at least $1 to the Nevada Protection Fund, which has recently topped $6 million. To donate, visit http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved.