Nevada families overwhelmingly oppose Yucca Mountain for one simple reason: it’s not safe. That is why we have a 25-year record of opposition to Yucca Mountain that remains as strong as ever. Polls show more than 75% of residents want to continue fighting the proposal.

Nevadans recognize the danger of burying nuclear waste 90 minutes from Las Vegas, Nevada’s
economic engine that is home to more than two million residents and a destination that draws 40 million visitors annually.

President Bush and others who would tout the project’s progress should keep in mind Yucca Mountain’s bloated $90 billion price tag, history of chronic delays, failed quality assurance program, and the long list of scientific and technological shortcomings that plague the project. These include worker e-mails uncovered with statements such as: “In the end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy and the ones that were actually used,” and “If they need more proof I will be happy to make up more stuff.”

The list of unresolved issues surrounding the proposed dump also includes:

• Lack of a final EPA radiation standard. This issue is a key basis for determining Yucca Mountain’s performance, yet the Department of Energy (DOE) filed its license application without finalization of this important safeguard.

• Violent earthquakes and volcanoes have rocked Yucca Mountain in the past and there is no reason to think these threats cannot strike again.

• No canister currently exists that is capable of storing waste. Plans also call for billions of dollars in drip shields to be added by robots that have yet to be invented.

• Transportation Dangers: 50 million Americans will be at risk from thousands of nuclear waste shipments, each being a prime target for terrorists. Accidents will leave families and communities vulnerable to threats and millions of dollars in potential clean-up costs.

• Yucca Mountain is decades behind schedule: Waste shipments were supposed to begin arriving in Nevada in 1998. Today, that date has slipped to 2020 or beyond and it will be 2050 or later before all current waste is shipped.

• No water. The State of Nevada, which controls this precious resource, has denied DOE’s request for water to build and operate Yucca Mountain. The ruling was based on scenarios which show the dump polluting key drinking water supplies.

• The price tag for Yucca Mountain has ballooned to more than $90 billion, making this project a prime example of Grade “A” radioactive pork.

• Waste does not have to be moved. Waste can safely remain on-site for the next 100 years in dry cask storage. Costs a fraction of Yucca Mountain’s price tag and avoids transportation risks. Interest in U.S. reprocessing plants raises questions of how many times waste would be moved. Leaving waste on-site while options are debated leaves open future alternatives to burying in Nevada.

• Yucca Mountain will NOT eliminate nuclear waste at plants where power is being generated. As long as a nuclear power plant is operating, nuclear waste will remain. We are not creating one repository to hold all waste for all time; we are just creating one more place where toxic nuclear waste will be stored.

• Yucca Mountain is already full. No new waste from even a single new nuclear power plant can be sent to Nevada without lifting the cap now in place. This is a key point in light of calls for dozens of new nuclear power plants to be built in coming years and shows why nuclear power is not a clean source of electricity.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under Politics .