Thursday, May 13, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Reno Yucca rail hearing attracts fewer participants

RENO -- A retired engineer said Wednesday that Nevadans must realize the dangers of America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil and back nuclear power and the Yucca Mountain repository project.

Artemon Johnston, an 81-year Reno engineer who once worked on a rocket propulsion project at the Nevada Test Site was among the 41 people who attended a four-hour meeting on the U.S. Department of Energy proposal to construct a 319-mile railroad line from Caliente to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The federal government wants to open the repository in 2010 to house 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel now in ponds outside nuclear power plants. The rail line would cost nearly $1 billion.

Last week, 114 people attended a similar hearing in Caliente, and 91 people and 60 people attended hearings in Amargosa Valley and Goldfield, respectively.

Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman, said he could not account for the low turnout in Reno. He said the turnout in Goldfield was equivalent to 10 percent of the entire Esmeralda County population.

The DOE plans a similar hearing between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday at Cashman Center in Las Vegas.

At one point Wednesday, Citizen Alert Northern Nevada Coordinator John Hadder was the only one in the room with a dozen DOE employees.

Hadder said citizens should insist on numerous duplicative scientific experiments to determine that the casks that carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain cannot be breached.

Bob Fulkerson, state leader of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, noted he has opposed Yucca Mountain for 20 years. He vowed to fight it for as long as he lives.