FILE - In this April 9, 2015, file photo, people walk into the south portal of Yucca Mountain during a congressional tour of the proposed radioactive waste dump near Mercury, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Recent California earthquakes that rattled Las Vegas have shaken up arguments by proponents and opponents of a stalled federal plan to entomb nuclear waste beneath a long-studied former volcanic ridge in southern Nevada.
Gov. Steve Sisolak and members of Nevada’s congressional delegation have called on the U.S. Energy Department to do a complete re-evaluation of the seismic dangers of the Yucca Mountain dump site.
The letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry was drafted n the wake of the strong earthquakes that just hit Southern California. The letter explains that those quakes were strongly felt in Southern Nevada and in the area around Yucca Mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
“These significant recent earthquakes so near to Yucca Mountain show one of the many geologic problems with the site as a nuclear waste repository,” said Sisolak.
The letter said those quakes, “emphasize the necessity of reexamining the seismic hazards present at Yucca Mountain and specifically their linkage to seismic events in California,” the letter states. The letter backed by the state geologist and seismologist point up the need for additional studies to determine whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for nuclear waste disposal.
The letter says the 5.6 magnitude quake Little Skull Mountain quake appears to have been triggered by the California quake the previous day and is the largest recorded in the immediate Yucca Mountain area.
Sisolak was joined in signing the letter by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen as well as Congress members Dina Titus, Steven Horsford and Susie Lee — all Democrats — as well as Republican Mark Amodei.
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