State urged to keep fighting

CARSON CITY -- Although heartened by the Obama administration's opposition to a high-level nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain, a state panel fighting the project was told Wednesday it can't let up on its efforts.

"We really can't relent until we know for certain we've accomplished what we set out to do," Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams told the state Nuclear Projects Commission.

Adams said the proposed federal repository "is on its way to dying" but added the problem, "like a prisoner on death row, is now we've got endless appeals" aimed at keeping the federal Department of Energy project alive.

President Barack Obama's 2010 budget calls for scrapping all spending on Yucca Mountain except for what is needed to answer questions on the license application "while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal."

Bruce Breslow, the state commission's new executive director, said he believes that given the administration's stance "a political decision will lead to the licensing application being withdrawn before any hearing begins some time next year."

Bob Halstead, a longtime transportation consultant to the state commission, said the DOE in January released a plan for transporting the waste across the country, but added the plan is badly flawed.

"Nowhere in the plan does DOE mention that spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste are dangerous," Halstead said in a report to the commission, adding that many train and truck shipments would come through the Las Vegas area.