County Commission’s slings and arrows add little to anti-Yucca fight

If only Tuesday's County Commission meeting had been one of those summer blockbuster superhero action movies, the commission's collective criticism of the Yucca Mountain Project might have packed a bigger punch.

Zap. Boom. Pow.

Nevada saved from the forces of evil in two hours, including credits.

As it turned out, the commission's gesture was more like a good scolding from Ben Stein.

Sincere, but droning.

Granted, the marathon fight by featherweight Nevada against the behemoth Department of Energy's nuclear waste repository plan has gone on too long to provide us with many surprises. More than $6 billion has been dumped into the proposed facility 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas since that spot in the Nevada desert was singled out for study in 1987. Since then, Nevada politicians from Clark County to Capitol Hill have been unanimous in their vilification of the plan to bury more than 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. (Escalating cost projections set the final price tag at as high as $80 billion. I'm betting the over.)

Nevadans have won several rounds over the years, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has blocked its funding and stamped it one gigantic road kill, but its supporters march on. On Tuesday, the DOE submitted its Yucca license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has three years to review the 17-volume, 8,647-page monster weighing in at 110 pounds.

"This application represents the culmination of over 20 years of work by some of the nation's leading scientists, engineers and technical experts," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. "We have done our level best."

But the DOE's best will never be good enough for Nevada, where 75 percent of the citizens oppose the dump and many think it will be dangerous and -- dare it be said in this slumping economy -- lower property values. (Interestingly, those who oppose Yucca don't appear to dislike it so much they've ruled out voting for John McCain. Give or take a political waffle, he favors the project.)

The tireless anti-Yucca brigade counters that the process is riddled with hundreds of examples of flawed science and unfairly singles out Nevada. Even though a federal court ruled the DOE must develop a 1 million-year safety standard, a practical impossibility, that hasn't stopped the DOE.

While Reid and the rest of Nevada's congressional delegation have fought the political battle in Washington, Irene Navis of Clark County's Nuclear Waste Division has been busy stirring it up on the local level. At times it's hard to tell whether the county entity is more than a well-funded cheerleader for the underdog Yucca fighters, or plays a more important role; but through the years the Nuclear Waste Advisory Committee and the County Commission have never failed to throw pebbles at the giant.

Before voting Tuesday to continue fighting the good fight legally and with public relations, Commission Chairman Rory Reid remarked that through the years Clark County had issued seven resolutions criticizing the Yucca project.

Imagine. Seven tersely worded statements and still the DOE keeps coming.

What next, stern rebukes? Hard stares? The silent treatment?

Sorry for the momentary lapse of cynicism. I know sarcastic shrugs and ironic eye-rolling go generally unappreciated in the anti-Yucca camp. Their job is hard enough without smart alecks cracking wise from the cheap seats.

Commissioners Chris Giunchigliani, Chip Maxfield, and Susan Brager joined in the collective jeer as they listened to Navis mark the solemn occasion with a renewed vow to continue to fight.

But how best to do that from the sidelines of the debate? The county already has a division and a legal liaison with the district attorney's office. Navis suggested expanding the legal effort by adding an outside attorney while increasing public awareness of the dangers of the project.

She also noted that the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which has slated 319 miles of railroad track to help move the spent nuclear fuel to its expensive hole in the ground, also was worthy of the county's federally funded time and attention.

And so it went on what a cynic would consider a dark day in Nevada's Yucca Mountain fight.

Except that, in Nevada, no one listens to cynics on this issue.

And the county never runs low on anti-dump resolve.

Take that, forces of evil.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.