President Obama's Energy Secretary, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. Steven Chu, signed a death warrant for the ailing Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump on Thursday when he told senators that the Southern Nevada site is no longer an option for storing the nation's stockpile of deadly nuclear waste.
In other words, Yucca Mountain is dead.
Chu's rebuff of the toxic project came in a sharp exchange with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and followed Obama's decision to slash Yucca costs to "those necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal."
"I'm pleased that President Obama and Secretary Chu are holding firm on their commitment to kill the dump," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has led the fight against Yucca Mountain.
Carson City's Republican Congressman, Dean Heller, praised the president for recognizing that "this project is a waste of taxpayer dollars and a threat to the health and safety of all Nevadans." Amen!
Nevertheless, Yucca Mountain proponents probably won't give up on their fight to turn our state into the nation's toxic waste dump. The Reno Gazette-Journal, which downplayed the original budget story in an inside page "news brief," granted much more space to local public relations consultant Randi Thompson, who argued that the dump is a good deal for Nevada.
"With our state in financial crisis, why does our congressional delegation cut $100 million from Yucca?" she asked.
Like my friends Ty Cobb, Sr. and Chuck Muth, Ms. Thompson thinks that federal largesse could provide a quick fix for Nevada's budget woes.
"Yucca's budget, when operational, will be $1.5 billion a year for 30 years," she wrote.
That reminds me of James Carville's insulting quip during the Bill Clinton-Paula Jones scandal about dragging $100 bills through trailer parks. Show the rubes the money and they'll sign on, no matter what. But that's not going to happen this time.
President Obama, who is taking some well-deserved heat for attempting to redistribute the wealth through a huge federal government economic stimulus package, deserves credit for keeping his campaign promise to shut down Yucca Mountain.
This is a stark contrast to the way former President George W. Bush betrayed the Silver State by approving the toxic project after promising to base his decision on sound science. I apologize for using the phrases "Yucca Mountain" and "sound science" in the same paragraph.
Earlier, I criticized influential Reno political blogger/columnist Ty Cobb Sr., whom I greatly respect. While I continue to oppose Ty's attempts to keep Yucca Mountain alive, I think his idea of exploring nuclear waste reprocessing is well worth considering. If the French can do it " and they do, quite successfully " why can't we? Reprocessing nuclear waste at several sites around the country would cut the amount of waste by 95 percent and provide an additional source of alternative energy, which makes sense.
I also join former Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan, who chairs the state's Nuclear Projects Commission, in questioning Gov. Jim Gibbons' commitment to the fight against Yucca Mountain. Gibbons, desperate to balance the budget without raising taxes, wants to decimate the staff of our Nuclear Projects Office, which coordinates the battle against the proposed dump.
"I don't know where the governor is coming from," said Bryan in a recent Las Vegas Sun interview. "This isn't the time to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. (Yucca Mountain) is at a very critical stage and Nevada has to be fully prepared," he added. I agree and urge Gov. Gibbons to speak out against this toxic project in defense of the health and safety of all Nevadans. Speak up, Governor! We deserve to hear from you on this vital issue.
- Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, has consistently opposed the Yucca Mountain project since he began writing this weekly column in mid-1996.