Thursday, April 28, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Resolution urges government to end nuclear waste plan

Legislators worry about effect on tourism

CARSON CITY -- A Nevada legislative panel was asked Wednesday to back a resolution that urges federal lawmakers to oppose plans for storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

No vote on Assembly Joint Resolution 4 was taken.

Senate Natural Resources Chairman Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, said the high-level nuclear repository planned by the U.S. Department of Energy could hurt tourism in the state.

Rhoads said people from out of state have asked him about the planned dump, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and have said they will not come to Nevada if the repository is in operation.

"They're pretty scared of it," he said.

Another panel member, Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, who between legislative sessions works as a waitress, said she fields questions about the project from tourists.

Assemblywoman Genie Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, chief sponsor of AJR4, raised the tourism issue as she went through concerns about the Yucca Mountain Project.

Ohrenschall was backed by Morgan Baumgartner of the Nevada Resort Association, who said hotel-casinos also fear the dump could hurt their business.

The resolution, already approved by the Assembly, asks federal decision-makers to give up on Yucca Mountain because it is "an ill-advised project based on bad science, bad law and bad public policy, a choice that ignores better, less expensive and safer alternatives, a choice which hinders, not helps, national security."

Despite delays and spending cuts, Energy Department officials have said recently that the Yucca Mountain plan is alive and well and that support from the Bush administration remains strong.

Bob Loux, chief of the state Nuclear Projects Office, said the project "is failing rapidly."

Recent problems with the government's plans for the repository include criminal investigations to determine whether workers on the project falsified data.

Also, a court decision has forced a rewrite of radiation safety standards for the site, and the DOE has scrapped a planned 2010 completion date without setting a new one.