Yucca Mountain Project has DOE seeing double

Nevadans who fear the Yucca Mountain Project might have twice as much to worry about now.

The Department of Energy is almost doubling the size of the proposed repository as it completes new environmental studies and long-term cost estimates of burying nuclear waste in Nevada.

The department on Thursday issued a draft study that the project's director said analyzes the potential environmental effects of a repository built to hold up to 135,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste.

Energy Department officials also are finalizing long-range cost estimates for Yucca Mountain on the assumption it could be expanded at some point, project Director Ward Sproat said.

The repository project's price tag could total in the range of $77 billion, a 35 percent increase from a 2001 estimate.

"Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This is not a bad dream; it's a nightmare."

A federal law passed in 1982 set the Yucca Mountain capacity at 70,000 metric tons.

MONDAY

Firefighter accused of taking drugs

A 35-year-old paramedic was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on 22 felony counts related to a string of fire station and ambulance burglaries in his search for narcotics.

After one theft, Samuel Bond, the Clark County firefighter and paramedic, left a note, according to a police report. "I took your medicine. I have a bad problem. Please forgive me," the note said.

Narcotics detectives caught Bond running from an ambulance at Desert Springs Hospital on Sept. 30.

TUESDAY

Mother says girl 'safe and healthy'

The mother of the girl whose sexual assault, captured on videotape, sparked a nationwide manhunt for the suspected perpetrator said through her attorney that she is cooperating with the investigation and that her daughter is doing well.

"My daughter is safe and healthy," the mother said in a statement read by her Las Vegas attorney, Jerry Donohue.

He said the victim, who is now 7, has never shown signs of physical abuse and doesn't remember the incident, which took place when she was 3.

WEDNESDAY

Developers want federal land opened

Fearing that Las Vegas slowly is running out of land for development, business leaders suggested that Congress expand the amount of federal land in Clark County that could be opened to builders.

Members of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce floated the idea in meetings with Nevada lawmakers in Washington.

"We are starting to run out of land to be developed in Southern Nevada," Steven Hill, president of Silver State Materials, told Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

THURSDAY

State won't help homeowners

Nevada homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes won't be getting any financial help from the state, but they could find mortgage banks are more willing to renegotiate terms on problem home loans.

About 35 Nevada-based home-lending professionals from companies including Bank of America, Countrywide Home Loans and Wells Fargo Bank held a summit with Gov. Jim Gibbons to discuss ways to ease Nevada's growing foreclosure rate.

Their solutions revolved around reconfiguring delinquent loans and mounting a statewide consumer education effort. None of the ideas involved a bailout using state funds or grants to assist homeowners.

The state can't force private businesses to alter mortgage contracts with customers, Gibbons said, but lenders attending the summit said they're willing to re-examine the terms of mortgages on the cusp of foreclosure.

"I'm convinced the way out is addressing each individual problem one at a time," Gibbons said.

FRIDAY

Worker dies on Strip project

An iron worker plunged to his death at Project CityCenter.

The fourth fatality this year at the $7 billion MGM Mirage project on the Strip is being investigated by Nevada's Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The man was working on the main resort tower about 8:50 a.m. when he fell 50 to 60 feet, a Clark County Fire Department spokesman said.

COMPILED BY MICHAEL SQUIRES

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