** FILE ** In this June 25, 2002 file photo, the view from the summit ridge of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump near Mercury, Nev.,looking west towards California. For two decades, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas known as Yucca Mountain has been the sole focus of government plans to store highly radioactive nuclear waste. Thursday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate hearing that the Yucca Mountain site no longer was viewed as an option for storing reactor waste, brushing aside criticism from several Republican lawmakers. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta, File)
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina says his home state and Georgia need the Obama administration to reverse its decision to abandon a long-sought disposal site for nuclear waste in the Nevada mountains.
Graham was among officials and business leaders from communities near the Savannah River Site who addressed a presidential advisory panel on nuclear waste Friday in Augusta.
The panel heard from Graham and others that a 2009 decision to halt work on the Yucca Mountain disposal site for nuclear waste has hurt their communities. That left nowhere designated to relocate radioactive waste from the Savannah River Site, the former nuclear weapons complex on the Georgia-South Carolina border.
Business leaders say abandoning Yucca Mountain left an impression that the Savannah River Site is now a permanent waste dump.