Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Virginia law firm
to represent state
in fight over Yucca
Contract that pays up to $4 million during the next year to try to stop waste dump OK'd
By SEAN WHALEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- A Virginia law firm will continue Nevada's legal fight against construction of a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the Board of Examiners decided Tuesday.
The firm of Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch of McLean, Va., will be paid up to $4 million over the next year to present Nevada's case for why the Yucca Mountain Project should be stopped, said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Nuclear Waste Project Office.
Four separate legal challenges have been scheduled for oral argument Oct. 3 in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, he said.
The contract with the law firm was approved by Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, the two members of the board present for the examiners meeting.
Loux, in a telephone interview, said the source of the funding for the contract is $2 million appropriated by the Legislature this session for the Yucca Mountain fight, $1 million appropriated previously by lawmakers and some federal funds.
The federal money will be used for scientific research in support of Nevada's position that the planned repository represents a threat to the state's underground water resources, among other concerns, he said.
The firm charges $450 per hour.
Joseph Egan, chairman of the firm, is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained nuclear engineer who once worked at a nuclear power plant.
The contract, which runs through Sept. 30, 2004, is a continuation of a deal first approved with the firm by state officials in September 2001.
