Crystal Wosik Miss Nevada says "we just have to take one for the team" and take nation's nuclear waste

Hoping for world peace is one thing. Supporting the construction of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in Southern Nevada is quite another, especially if you're a Nevadan.

Miss Nevada Crystal Wosik apparently tried to put to rest any concerns about the safety of the proposed nuclear repository during Thursday's preparation for Saturday night's Miss America pageant in Las Vegas.

The matter came up during her interview with the judges, according to Nancy Ames, Nevada's state pageant director.

"They asked her what she thought about Yucca Mountain and she told them that it has to go someplace, and that (Yucca Mountain) was the best-built facility in the country," Ames told the Reno Gazette-Journal in a story posted on the newspaper's Web site Thursday afternoon.

"Then they said something like, 'But what if people could die?' And she answered that, 'We just have to take one for the team.' That's just Crystal. She's pretty outspoken," Ames said.

The Energy Department plans to use Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository to entomb 77,000 tons of nuclear waste about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and Nevada's congressional delegation have been united in trying to derail the plan in Congress and the state has filed several lawsuits in an attempt to block construction.

Wosik, 23, of Las Vegas, will compete Saturday night at the first Miss America pageant to be held outside of Atlantic City in about 85 years of the event.