Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, August 16, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
August 16, 2004
NRC outlines proposal to test nuke waste casks
By Suzannne Struglinski
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The government could test nuclear waste containers destined for Yucca Mountain by running a train into one and then engulfing it in fire.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff sent a proposal to the three commissioners on July 27, outlining a latest plan to test nuclear-waste containers, known as casks, that could transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
State officials, who are still evaluating the proposed plan, say the tests will do nothing to help understand the casks.
In May the commissioners asked their staff for a plan on how to test shipping containers using real scenarios. The commission now usually relies on computer models for safety tests required for a cask to get approval for use.
The staff has proposed colliding a locomotive with a rail cask attached to a rail car, then the cask would be placed in "a fully engulfing fire" for 30 minutes.
"The staff notes that the probability of occurrence of a real-world accident with a spent nuclear fuel cask similar to the proposed demonstration test scenario is small," according to a staff memo.
Bob Halstead, Nevada's transportation consultant, said the proposal does not satisfy what the state and the public have requested of the commission.
"This is not a test, really it's a demonstration," Halstead said. "This isn't going to provide the data needed to benchmark the computer models. This is the kind of thing that looks good in a film."
Halstead also pointed to the absence of truck cask testing. Truck casks are different than rail casks and would need their own tests, he said. It is much more likely the waste will be moved to Nevada via truck because a new rail line may not be built in the state on time and 25 nuclear power plants will need to move their waste via truck to a rail line to get it to Nevada.
Commission spokeswoman Sue Gagner said it is not known exactly when the commissioners will each vote on the proposal. Their votes will not be cast at a meeting, but instead are "notation votes," which means each commissioner will write how they voted and why.
It is also unclear how much a test would cost and how much money the Energy Department would give to the commission to conduct the test.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 16, 2004
Letter: Kerry cannot be trusted on Yucca Mountain dump
Regarding Yucca Mountain, John Kerry told a Sun reporter during a visit to Las Vegas that, "I've actually voted to stop it. I have voted against it." ("Kerry, in LV, pledges to fight Yucca dump," May 17, 2004).
Unfortunately, Kerry's selective memory only provided half of the story. The other half begins with his vote for the "Screw Nevada" bill in 1987. Without that critical piece of legislation, Yucca Mountain would be a mere sentence in a history book about a proposed project that never happened. Instead, Nevadans have spent 20 years fighting to keep deadly nuclear waste out of our backyard.
As if voting for the Screw Nevada bill wasn't enough, Kerry then voted over a 10-year period to waive environmental standards, increase funding and expedite the Yucca program. Quite ironic, considering that he told the Sun, in the above referenced article, that a president could stop the Yucca project by "halting federal money going to the repository or by forcing government branches such as the Environmental Protection Agency to acknowledge scientific studies that show the project might be unsafe."
Members of the press, who took Kerry at his word and apparently made no effort to independently verify the candidate's voting history, described Kerry's record on Yucca Mountain as "pure" and "consistent." We have now learned that John Kerry's record on Yucca Mountain reeks of do one thing, say another. The people of Nevada now know better than to take John Kerry at his word.
John Ensign
Editor's note: The writer is a Republican who represents Nevada in the U.S. Senate.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 16, 2004
Letter: Bush avoided meeting residents
Sen. John Kerry met with Las Vegans at the Thomas & Mack, which has a capacity approaching 18,000, while President Bush held his visit in a local carpenter's hall with smaller, very limited seating. Tickets to Kerry's open meeting were readily available, while tickets to the Bush meeting were limited and not openly distributed to the public at large.
President Bush's apparent limited access to Las Vegans to discuss current issues, including Yucca Mountain, is not something that could be placed in his resume as an example of a profile in courage. I say shame on the president for cowering away from citizens in Las Vegas. The president can meet citizens in large venues in other cities and states but not in Las Vegas. Why?
It seems to me that if the Thomas & Mack is accessible for Sen. Kerry's supporters, it should be easily accessible to the president of the United States.
Virgil A. Sestini
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 16, 2004
Political Notebook: Stump speech events boil down to numbers
Crowd estimates vary from one moment to next
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
Since size often matters more than substance at political events, here's a look at the differences in crowd estimates at last week's visits tied to the presidential race.
Hours before candidate John Kerry took the stage Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center, Democratic Party officials said the crowd would be 8,000 to 10,000 if the arena's lower sections and floor were filled.
But that number would fluctuate wildly in the arena, which holds more than 19,000 for basketball, but which had none of the pull-down bleachers for floor seating and only two upper-tier sections open.
Minutes before Kerry appeared, officials had upped the estimate to 11,000. Somehow after his speech, it was 13,000 to 15,000.
The Review-Journal reported the crowd at more than 12,000. The Las Vegas Sun reported the size at as many as 15,000. Kerry's Web site put it at 13,000.
After Tuesday's estimates, reporters tried to hand count the crowd of about 300 at the Valley View Recreation Center for Kerry's next event. When Kerry campaign spokesman Sean Smith was asked, he smiled and suggested: 15,000 to 18,000.
The Democratic protest of President Bush's Thursday visit had size estimates that ranged from a low of 250 from Las Vegas police up to 2,000 from Democrats, who eventually settled on 1,300. KLAS-TV, Channel 8 went with about 1,000. The Review-Journal just gave the ranges and didn't even try to tick people off with that one.
During his two-day visit to the state, Kerry couldn't stop himself from using the typical East Coast -- and wrong -- pronunciation: Ne-vah-da.
But on Wednesday, he finally corrected himself after someone at the Valley View Recreation Center stressed the short A way of saying the name.
"I gotta stop saying Nevada the way they say it in Massachusetts," Kerry said, using the locally preferred pronunciation. "At least I caught it. I'm getting there."
Bush, who used both pronunciations in his previous visit to Las Vegas, hit the preferred way every time Thursday.
Kerry record
Democrats like to call Yucca Mountain a proposed dump.
Reporters refer to it as a repository.
But Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski called it the Yucca Mountain Depository in a statement issued Thursday to condemn Kerry's past record on the project.
Since many in the Battle Born state think taking nuclear waste goes well beyond the motto: "All for our country," Murkowski just as easily could have called it a suppository.
'No nukes' stance
Yucca Mountain received widespread national press last week for the first time since 2002 when Congress voted to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the project.
So it makes sense that Democrats were out in force with their no nukes in Nevada pins. They gave one to Kerry, who wore it for the hourlong discussion about Yucca Mountain, but not in his other appearances around Southern Nevada.
On Thursday, as Republican Congressman Jon Porter stood on McCarran International Airport's tarmac waiting for President Bush's arrival, he was asked where his pin was.
"I am a walking no nukes in Nevada pin," he said.
Stand-up acts
The art of a stump speech goes something like this: Open with a joke, get into specific issues and why you're better, and close on an uplifting message for the country.
Both Kerry and Bush did exactly that in their Las Vegas speeches last week.
Kerry said he knows the election is important on the jobs front because: "There is nothing worse than an unemployed flying Elvis."
Bush mentioned first lady Laura Bush's recent events in Las Vegas, saying she appeared on Jay Leno's show the next night.
"She said something along the lines, 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' I was interested in hearing her say that," Bush said.
Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or ENeff@reviewjournal.com.
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Salt Lake Tribune
Monday, August 16, 2004
Yucca slips, Skull Valley stock rises
Will new delays for Nevada site mean more nuclear waste in Utah?
By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
The latest round of face-to-face presentations are under way on licensing a nuclear waste storage site in Skull Valley, about 50 miles from Salt Lake City.
The hearing is taking place behind closed doors in Washington to protect sensitive nuclear safety information from getting into terrorists' hands. But the real action on the nation's nuclear-waste problem continues to play out in plain view in the dynamic between the temporary Skull Valley storage site and the federal repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev.
That's where the federal government wants to build underground disposal for up to 77,000 tons of reactor waste and the highly radioactive discards from nuclear bomb-making programs.
The thinking goes that further delays on Yucca Mountain would increase pressure on the federal government to allow the Utah project, a joint venture of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and a consortium of out-of-state utilities called Private Fuel Storage, or PFS.
And lately, Yucca Mountain has run into a few potential obstacles.
The possible snags affirm what proponents of the Skull Valley site have said all along: The nuclear industry needs an interim alternative to Yucca, which has been under discussion for more than 20 years.
"It points to the need for temporary storage," said PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. If the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board signs off on the Skull Valley project after this new round of hearings, waste could start coming to Utah by 2007.
Meanwhile, even though the Energy Department has promised to open the Nevada repository by 2010, many doubt the federal government will be able to meet the deadline.
Martin calls the Energy Department's effort to license Yucca Mountain in four years "extremely optimistic." The PFS proposal, though temporary and far less complex than plans for the permanent Yucca repository, recently entered its eighth year of federal licensing review - PFS originally expected it to take a couple of years - and the earliest the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) could issue the license is next January.
Bob Loux, head of the Nevada state government office devoted to derailing the Yucca Mountain plan, bluntly doubts that Yucca Mountain can secure a license in half the time.
"I don't think there's any way in the world that the NRC is going to be able to complete this [licensing] hearing process in four years," he said.
Loux has many reasons to believe there will be more delays for Yucca Mountain, including:
l A Washington, D.C., appeals court last month rejected a regulation requiring the Energy Department to build the repository so that it would be safe for 10,000 years, saying that it should stand up even longer. Two past changes to that standard have each delayedthe site by eight months, Loux said.
l A funding squeeze looms because the Energy Department wanted $880 million for next year's work on Yucca but the Bush administration budgeted only $131 million.
l The Energy Department has failed to complete an electronic document system that must be done to the NRC's satisfaction at least six months before commissioners will accept a license application for the Yucca Mountain project.
l The nation may have a new president next year in Democrat John Kerry, who restated his opposition to the Nevada repository while stumping last week in Nevada.
As these events unfold around Yucca Mountain, Skull Valley rarely comes up as an alternative, even though PFS continues to advertise storage space in the nuclear industry trade media.
The consortium has always billed itself as a solution to a backlog of reactor waste that is accumulating at more than 60 sites around the nation.
As planned, the facility would be big enough to hold up to 4,000 steel-and-concrete containers of spent fuel - about 10 million rods - on concrete pads sprawling across 100 acres of the Skull Valley Goshute reservation. The waste would be shipped over rail lines, mostly from reactors east of the Mississippi.
Utah political leaders have been the Skull Valley project's most aggressive and vocal critics. But so far they have not succeeded in stopping it.
Lawmakers passed anti-waste legislation in 1998 and 2001, but last month a federal appeals court struck them down.
Republican 1st District Rep. Rob Bishop has sponsored federal legislation that would use wilderness protections to block rail shipments from traversing the eastern edge of the Cedar Mountains. The legislation, first conceived by then-Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, appears to be bogged down in a Senate defense bill.
"It took a great deal of effort by the delegation to get to where we are right now," said Adam Elggren, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, "and I understand that negotiations are in a delicate stage."
Hatch, along with fellow Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, voted two summers ago to override Nevada's objections to Yucca Mountain and get that project going on the premise that the sooner the Nevada dump is built, the less likely the Skull Valley storage would be needed.
State Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, is not sure what the state will do next. He criticized then-Gov. Mike Leavitt for a "bet-the-farm legal strategy."
"It's now looking like that bet is not very wise," he said. "Where does that leave us?"
He worries that even if the Legislature steps in to deal with Skull Valley soon, it may be too late to have any control over the site because it's on sovereign lands.
Utahmay also have missed the chance to negotiate financial benefits for living with the risks it poses.
Still, he said, "I am not pessimistic. I'm not fatalistic."
Ultimately, it could be that Skull Valley never materializes into a viable option because the licensing process falls through or the numbers don't add up for potential customers.
Rod McCullum, who follows waste management for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, wonders how many companies would want storage in Skull Valley, regardless of what happens to Yucca Mountain. He notes that the storage crisis PFS is banking on has instead become more of a financial and legal crisis for the federal government.
Reactor owners have filed 65 suits against the Energy Department for missing its original disposal-site deadline in 1998. They already have won one of those cases.
Meanwhile, many have expanded storage at their reactors to avoid the expense of moving it before the government is ready to haul it away. There is room for more than 500 casks at 28 sites now.
"The companies don't have a crisis," McCullum said. "The government does."
Finally, there is the possibility that the state will succeed in shooting down the license before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The three-person panel, an expert review board of the NRC, is analyzing argumentsthat the waste casks will hold up even if a military jet crashes into the site. Skull Valley is on the path of thousands of flights between the Utah Test and Training Range and Hill Air Force Base.
Washington, D.C., attorney Joe Egan warns that a license for PFS is no sure bet. A member of Nevada's legal team that has worked with Utah in trying to derail the PFS project, he said Utah's lawyers have a strong case. Even with political and economic pressure to deal with the waste backlog, the consortium might not be able to prove the casks will withstand the impact of a crash, he said.
"If they can't make the numbers, the licensing board is not going to give them a license," Egan said. "It's not political pressure. It's the regulations."
He added: "Anyone who thinks it's over is deluding themselves. It's not over.
fahys@sltrib.com
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Charleston Post Courier
August 16, 2004
Stay the course on N-waste site
President Bush should be applauded for his continued support of a permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada, where polls suggest it is widely opposed. In a speech in Las Vegas last week, Mr. Bush described his support of the project as "based upon science."
Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry, who has voted both for and against the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain over the last 16 years, declared that if elected "there's going to be no nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain."
In comments quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Democratic presidential candidate said the nation "deserves a president who believes in science. It's not just the science of Yucca Mountain, it's the science of global warming, it's the science of stem-cell research and the possibility of the future."
Sen. Kerry should be relieved that scientists recently concluded that metal alloy casks in which waste would be stored would not be subject to corrosion at Yucca Mountain, as reported last year. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board told Department of Energy officials last week that further study had convinced them that casks being corroded by calcium chloride, which was their initial fear, "appears unlikely," according to The Associated Press.
The remote site has been studied exhaustively for two decades, and while its absolute perfectibility as a storage site for all eternity can't be guaranteed, it is certainly a far better location than the dozens of scattered sites where nuclear waste is now stored.
And the federal effort to provide a safe national repository for nuclear waste follows a congressional mandate for such a site. Because of extensive delays toward that end, the federal government is being sued by power companies that generate electricity at nuclear plants, and are having to maintain waste storage on site.
The repository also would provide for storage of defense waste, including 37 million gallons of highly radioactive waste at Savannah River Site near Aiken. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., noted that Sen. Kerry's position "would destroy over two decades of work on a national repository to provide secure, long-term storage of nuclear waste materials." He added, "From an environmental and national security perspective, it is imperative we have a central repository to store our nuclear waste."
The president's position on Yucca Mountain isn't likely to help him in a state that is viewed as up for grabs in the election. It is, however, all the more persuasive for that.
There are still numerous regulatory hurdles for the Yucca Mountain project to surmount before it can serve as a waste repository. It shouldn't be scuttled after years of study because of political opportunism.
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San Jose Mercury News
August 16, 2004
Kerry disappoints on energy, economy
I was disappointed to see Sen. John Kerry repeat his opposition to the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain last week in Nevada (Page 7A, Aug. 11).
I had been hoping that Kerry would announce something really bold as part of his alternative energy plan to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. I was hoping that he would propose establishment of a program to make nuclear power safe and ubiquitous throughout our country. It can be done to even higher safety standards than the French have accepted in using nuclear power for 80% of their electric production.
Dan Lenehan
Los Altos Hills
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National Review
August 16, 2004
Dead and Buried
Jonah Goldberg
The crazy debate over Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appeared in the April 8, 2002, issue of National Review.
The year, by the old A.D. reckoning, is 12,002. But Lothar has no way of knowing that, since Western civilization — and calendars — had gone the way of the dodo thousands of years before his grandfather was born. Lothar is the leader of a tribe looking to settle down and try their hand at agriculture. He has steered well clear of what used to be Las Vegas, because a fearsome people lives there — amidst the ruins of what all assume was a noble civilization, due to the fact that everyone seemed to eat out of one long communal buffet table. Lothar finds a spot in the shadow of a rust-colored low-slung mountain covered with lizards, scrub brush, and rocky soil. The gods have told him through a vision that this arid and desolate solar anvil is the perfect place for his people to start a new life. They dig many wells, but they all come up dry; finally, they find water. They use it for their crops and drinking water.
And here is the news that scientists, environmentalists, and Nevada senator Harry Reid feared ten millennia earlier: By settling down on a spot no human society found acceptable during the last 10,000 years, Lothar and his people will have increased their exposure to radioactivity by less than the amount you or I receive when flying in an airplane for twelve minutes.
Seriously: Critics of constructing a subterranean repository for nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain argue that if the fictional Lothar decides to live in this godforsaken patch of desert 100 centuries from now, he must not be exposed to more radiation per year than you or I receive from a single chest x-ray. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agree: Their minimum standard is for containment of the waste for no less than 10,000 years — at which point, even if the waste did seep into the groundwater and make its way back into the environment, its radioactivity would have decayed enough to be safe.
A little perspective is helpful. The first known city-state, in Mesopotamia, was formed about 5,000 years ago. Human beings switched from their hunter-gatherer existence, it is believed, somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. The lifetime of the United States, from the Declaration of Independence to the latest Britney Spears album, constitutes 2 percent of that time span. Which is to say: A lot can happen in the next 10,000 years.
"I hope you wore lead underwear," said a blackjack dealer when I told him I had just visited Yucca Mountain. A cab driver in Las Vegas implored me, in his best X-Files stage whisper, to "tell the world" what was going on "out there in the desert."
Critics of Yucca Mountain are fond of saying the site is "just 90 miles from Las Vegas" (though the more hysterical opponents start dropping the number of miles or saying it's "just outside Las Vegas"). But the truth is, Yucca Mountain really is "out there in the desert." Ninety miles of classic desert nothingness separate Yucca Mountain and Las Vegas. You don't pass through miles of suburbs or small towns, just Joshua trees, mountain ranges, the occasional coyote, and — what the hell was that?!
"Those are the Thunderbirds, they practice here," explained my guide as a squadron of F-16s blew by in tight formation. That's another thing you pass on the way to Yucca Mountain: Nellis Air Force Base, the self-described "home of the fighter pilot." Nellis is essentially where the Air Force practices blowing things up and killing things with the flying portion of America's arsenal of democracy. (From everything I've read, they're very good at it.) Nellis is the home of the Air Warfare Center, the Air Force Weapons School, and the international combat-training exercise known as "Red Flag."
I bring this up for two reasons. First, the Thunderbirds were really cool. Second, if you are concerned about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear waste, where would you want to keep it? Option A: Scattered across 39 states, in 131 locations, near dozens of population centers, and accessible by thousands of roads and waterways? Or Option B: Stored neatly in a defensible pile under thousands of feet of rock 30 seconds from a squadron of F-16s and B-52s? Yucca Mountain is already secure from al-Qaeda types because it abuts the highly classified Nevada Test Site, where we have blown up hundreds of atomic bombs. To date, the only way to breach security at such a facility is to make a lavish contribution to Bill Clinton's reelection campaign and, thankfully, that's no longer a likely scenario.
Nevada's leading politicians — including Democratic senator Harry Reid and Republican governor Kenny Guinn — claim that terrorism is an ad hoc, post-9/11 excuse for storing nuclear waste in their state. They're probably right, considering the administration's tendency to see everything through the prism of terrorism. But just because it's convenient doesn't mean it's not valid. People who advocated tightened air defenses on December 6 could hardly be faulted for including Pearl Harbor in their arguments after December 7. Every day, we hear new revelations about how much al-Qaeda wants a "dirty" nuclear bomb.
And besides, the last people who should be complaining about arguments made out of desperation are opponents of Yucca Mountain. The politics of the issue are straightforward: Nevadans don't want nuclear waste in their backyard and environmentalists don't want nuclear waste anywhere. The bizarre upshot of this marriage of convenience is that environmentalists are disparaging the normally sacrosanct EPA and lauding federalism, while generally pro-nuclear Nevada sounds more like the Sierra Club every day.
Their desperation is understandable. The logic and necessity of putting this waste in Yucca Mountain is, basically, an unstoppable force. America's 103 nuclear power plants provide 20 percent of our electricity. Roughly 42,000 metric tons of nuclear waste have piled up around the country like dirty socks in a bachelor's apartment. The federal government is required by law and necessity to do something with the stuff. Since the 1950s the U.S. has owned all nuclear waste; in 1998 the Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that the federal government has an "unconditional obligation" to take the waste off the hands of utilities. In short, the waste can't stay where it is for much longer; and, as a nuclear-waste lawyer explained it to me, there are 98 senators who don't want the junk in their states, but only two senators who don't want it in Nevada.
There's one more inconvenient fact for the opponents of Yucca Mountain: "There is no Plan B," says Allen Benson, the spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project, during our 7 a.m. orientation the day of my tour. By this he means: If Congress says no to Yucca Mountain, there won't be another hamper for our radioactively dirty laundry available for decades. Indeed, even if all opposition ceased tomorrow, it wouldn't be until 2008 that the first canisters would make it into the tunnels of Yucca Mountain. So, for a new site to be chosen, studied, and approved — with an anti-nuke movement emboldened by success at Yucca — could easily take 50 years.
This would probably deliver a mortal blow to the nuclear-power industry, because the old plants are getting, well, old (there hasn't been a new one built since 1979); and nobody's going to build any new plants until the question of how to deal with waste is settled. If this problem can be solved, there will be lots of new, cleaner, and more efficient plants — in no small part because the U.S. is under pressure to emit fewer greenhouse gases, and nuclear energy emits none. Environmentalists still hate it and have actively lobbied to exclude nuclear from any formulas for reducing greenhouse emissions. Both the nuclear industry and the anti-nuclear industry understand all of this, which is why Yucca Mountain has become, in effect, a proxy war over nuclear energy in general.
This is why the arguments have become so shrill and, often, absurd. Opponents claim that the area is "geologically unstable," in the words of The Nation. Britain's Independent was hysterical: Under the headline, "Bush to Dump Nuclear Waste in Earthquake Zone," the "reporter" called Yucca Mountain a "geological nightmare" and lambasted Bush for flying in "the face of scientific opinion."
In fact, almost no credible scientist in the world considers Yucca Mountain unstable, and, as the Energy Department is fond of pointing out, the Yucca Mountain Project has been the most scientifically studied and reviewed enterprise in human history. True, there are earthquakes in the region. But the scientifically illiterate don't understand that earthquakes don't do much damage 1,000 feet below solid rock. Think of a whip cracking: The tip flails about, but the handle barely moves.
Opponents also point out that there has been volcanic activity in the past in the area. Again, no credible scientist is particularly concerned about that either. In fact, it's good news that there's been volcanic activity in the past, because that makes it a lot less likely there will be some in the future. The forces responsible for eruptions are moving westward, away from Yucca Mountain. "Don't buy property in Bishop, California, in 40,000 years," explains my guide, a senior engineer at Yucca Mountain.
Nevada politicians and other opponents are also trying to scare the bejeebers out of the rest of the country by decrying the "mobile Chernobyls" that would carry the waste to Yucca Mountain. This is the reddest of all herrings. There've been over 3,000 nuclear-waste transports since 1964, without a radioactive release. (FYI: Nuclear waste doesn't "spill," because it's cooked into dry little pellets.) Some critics try to conjure a terrorist threat to the transports, but these are actually less of a target than the current temporary facilities — because they aren't sitting ducks. Even if some group were to catch up with a transport, and then hold off the U.S. military for a prolonged period, they still couldn't get at the waste: Even with all of the right tools, it takes a full day to get these things off their transport beds.
Yucca scientists — and the thousands of kibitzers looking over their shoulders — have run every conceivable scenario through their models. Huge planes crashing into Yucca Mountain, nuclear attacks, tsunamis, catastrophic failures of every kind, even the return of disco. Nothing scares these guys — except water: Water is the enemy. For a week, a year, a century, we can keep water out of almost anything. But when you start talking about a drip like the one from your kitchen sink lasting thousands of years, water can get through rock. And, even more inconvenient, neutrons — and other particles thrown off by radioactivity — love water more than Chesapeake Bay retrievers do.
This is why almost all of the manmade stuff intended for Yucca Mountain is designed to stop water. On its own, Yucca's rock can fend off the earthquakes and nuclear attacks. But technology is needed to slow the pace of water. Yucca Mountain was selected because all scientists agree that a geologic repository must be dry. Sitting next to Death Valley, Yucca Mountain gets, on average, seven inches of rain a year. Ninety-five percent of that rain either evaporates or is consumed by the ecosystem. Some of the remaining 5 percent — less than four-tenths of an inch per year — can, after at least a thousand years, reach repository depth. Indeed, almost all of the serious concerns about Yucca Mountain revolve around how long it will take that water to reach the containment area.
And, even according to the alarmists, it will take a very long time. First of all, the rock and tuff around Yucca has been dry for millions of years. Water, especially under very little pressure, doesn't move through dry rock very well. Also, because the containment area is surrounded by fissures and faults that serve as natural rain gutters, most of that tiny amount of water would move around the container, not into it. To date, scientists have found no evidence that any water actually makes it into the tunnels at repository depth; also, remember, the actual waste packages will be very hot for the first few hundred years — around 400 degrees — and extreme heat repels water.
But let's assume that, after a few thousand years, the incredibly unlikely happens and some water manages to penetrate the containment area. This water would then hit a thick titanium drip shield. It would have to eat through that. It would then hit the waste canisters. Current designs for these things include a wad of corrosive-resistant metal, and then another wad of stainless steel. Okay, let's assume Super Water makes it through that. It would then hit the waste. The nuclear waste itself consists of water-resistant ceramic pellets with metal cladding. But let's assume the water dissolves the pellets and the now-radioactive water eats through the bottoms of the waste packages and hits the floor. It would then have to go through 800 feet of dry rock and tuff, which contains minerals called zeolites, which are natural filters of radioactivity. After 800 feet the nucleotides would hit 1,000 feet of wet rock; and then, finally, they'd hit the water table.
Uh-oh.
Well, not really. Another attribute of Yucca Mountain is that it sits on a completely self-contained "hydrologic basin." The water under Yucca doesn't go anywhere. Sure, there are a few hundred people living around Yucca, but we'd have an early-warning system of, say, 5,000 years to get them evacuated if there were a problem. But even if the groundwater were contaminated, the worst that would happen is that someone living 18 kilometers from Yucca Mountain, drinking the water and eating crops grown in the ground, would receive about 150 additional millirems of radiation a year. That's a bit less than the radiation you would get from living in La Paz.
And another thing: The best projections say that this worst-case scenario would only take place 480,000 years from now. You see, this waste isn't particularly dangerous after the first few hundred years. Moreover, the whole project is intended to make the waste retrievable for anywhere from 50 to 300 years after it's put in the ground. Most scientists believe we'll get better at making nuclear waste less dangerous; if scientists discover a better way to store or neutralize it, we will be able to go back in and get it.
This is why Sen. Reid and other opponents are so dishonest when they cite a recent study from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that declared some of Yucca's scientific modeling "weak to moderate." Reid said, "I can't believe the administration would settle for weak to moderate science as a basis for this decision." But the review board was looking at the modeling for thousands of years from now; of course we don't know for sure how these waste packages will hold up in 10,000 years (though the Yucca scientists believe all of their models are very conservative). Reid's position is essentially that until we test a waste package for that long we can't be confident it will work.
What's more important is that the review board said there was no reason not to move forward with the Yucca project. Reid, who has all but accused Dick Cheney of using Enron executives to smuggle hazardous nucleotides into the Cheerios of Nevada's children, should be applauded for wanting to protect constituents like Lothar tens of thousands of years from now. But I have bad news for him: Lothar's a Republican.
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Provo Daily Herald
August 16, 2004
Making and testing more nukes a bad idea
The Daily Herald
Our nation's greatest security challenge is shutting down global terrorist networks, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing the likelihood that they are someday used by other countries or terrorists.
Even as President George W. Bush rightly calls upon others to foreswear nuclear weapons, he is asking Congress to approve a costly and counterproductive campaign to research new, more "usable" nuclear weapons designed to destroy underground, nonnuclear targets. Such weapons have no practical role in dealing with terrorist networks and their devastating power makes them inappropriate against nonnuclear targets.
What's more, the development of new types of nuclear bombs could also lead to renewed testing at the Nevada Test Site.
Bush administration officials say there are currently no plans to resume nuclear testing. They also claim that no decision has been made to move from the current research phase to development of new types of nuclear weapons. Though the administration may not have made a formal decision to build and test a new weapon, there is ample evidence that suggests it is preparing the way to do so.
The administration wants Congress to appropriate an additional $30 million a year to reduce the time needed to resume testing to 18 months. The Bush administration continues to oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Earlier this year, the Energy Department outlined a five-year, $500 billion spending plan for research and development of a new high-yield nuclear weapon called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and it has begun research on a new nuclear weapon capable of destroying chemical and biological agents in storage.
The administration also claims that these new weapons projects will only "slightly complicate" U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts. That's an understatement. The reality is that new U.S. nuclear weapons development or testing will only give former adversaries and proliferators -- such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India -- an excuse to follow suit.
Thankfully, congressional Republicans and Democrats -- including Utah's delegation -- have begun to raise serious questions.
The House Appropriations Committee voted to cut funding for proposed new nuclear weapons projects. In its June report, the committee said it is unconvinced by the Department of Energy's "superficial assurances" that it only wants to study the nuclear penetrator.
Next month, the Senate appropriations committee, including Utah's Sen. Robert Bennett, will have its chance to weigh in. Bennett announced that he is introducing legislation that would reinforce Congress' role in reviewing any presidential proposal to renew underground nuclear weapons testing and to establish additional monitoring stations for possible radiological effluents. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson has introduced similar legislation in the House.
But the legislation is largely symbolic. Concerned members of Congress must take more decisive action to stop the administration well before the president proposes a resumption of testing.
Proponents of the new weapons say that by enhancing earth penetrating capabilities and reducing yields of nuclear weapons, adversaries may believe than an American president might actually be willing to use nuclear weapons to take out leadership and weapons targets. But the notion that nuclear weapons can be developed to destroy targets with little collateral damage is highly misleading and dangerous.
To contain the fallout of a relatively small 5 kiloton nuclear bomb, it would have to be detonated about 350 feet underground -- nearly 10 times the depth that current warheads can be made to penetrate the earth.
The proposed nuclear penetrator is far larger, with a yield likely to be more than 100 kilotons. Though it would be detonated a few meters underground, this bomb would produce wide-scale fallout that would contaminate and kill civilians, as well as U.S. military personnel in the area.
The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had a blast equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT. Even if smaller weapons were used against suspected chemical or biological weapons sites, small errors in intelligence and targeting could disperse rather than destroy deadly material.
Nuclear weapons should not be seen as simply another weapon in the United States' vast arsenal. So long as nuclear weapons exist, their role should be limited to deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others.
U.S. leaders must act decisively to prevent renewed nuclear blasts -- whether they are underground test explosions in Nevada or in future war in a foreign land. They can start by eliminating expensive and unnecessary new nuclear weapons projects and reconsidering ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Daryl G. Kimball is executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 15, 2004
Columnist Jon Ralston: Yucca teases and heartaches
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.
•••
Weekend Edition
August 14 - 15, 2004
Like a wallflower magically transformed into the belle of the ball, Nevada has been invited onto the presidential dance floor for the first time.
And as two suitors waltzed with the state last week, the Democrats took John Kerry by the hand and showed they knew how to lead, while the Republicans swooned before the president and demonstrated they were willing to fall into his arms again.
A political phenomenon as rare as Halley's comet is occurring here. And whether or not Yucca Mountain matters in your vote for president, the performances of the White House hopefuls and the local pols is telling. Two decades of nuclear waste dump politics have been reversed -- instead of being impotent, the state now has immense power as both candidates cannot afford, as so many have done, to ignore this puny state and its five electoral votes.
The facts are ineluctable, no matter how each side tries to spin it.
Bush returned last week with the confidence of a political Lothario who had his way with the state in 2000. He had a one-election stand by promising he would consider the dump's science. After getting what all presidential candidates want -- the state's electoral votes -- Bush developed amnesia about that pledge.
Kerry arrived in Nevada last week with his inconstancy exposed and was forced to explain why anyone should believe his willingness to be faithful now. Pressed by the state's Democrats, Kerry was more specific than any president or presidential candidate has ever been in committing to Nevada -- he insisted the dump will not happen on his watch, that he will veto any attempt to change radiation standards and he will not allow the project to be submitted for licensing. That's a pretty ironclad pre-nup, if you ask me.
The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans here is significant, too. The Democrats have been disingenuous and foolish; the Republicans have been craven and criminally negligent.
You cannot paper over Kerry's record on the dump. The Democrats tried to portray their man as the state's greatest friend on this issue; then when confronted with his mixed record, they spun themselves into a frenzy.
Here are the facts:
Kerry is a senator from the Northeast who, like his regional colleagues, needed a solution to the nuclear waste problem for parochial reasons and fully supported getting the waste to Yucca Mountain starting in 1987. Despite expressed reservations, when the final votes came for narrowing the sites from three to one, Kerry voted to do so. The Democrats here tried to say it wasn't significant, but even Kerry acknowledged last week that it was a substantive vote.
Kerry and the locals continue to be dishonest when they label his subsequent votes -- until he joined Sen. Harry Reid in 2000 and 2002 as a Yucca opponent -- as merely procedural. They were not, including 1996 and 1997 votes with prime dump proponent Frank Murkowski, the GOP energy chairman, to kill Nevada delegation attempts to determine how radiation standards would be set and to empower governors with waste routes to bar shipments from their states. And through 1999, Kerry continued to write letters with his pals from the Northeast urging Murkowski and Congress to move forward with Yucca Mountain.
Kerry finally acknowledged last week that he was for the dump until more and more scientific evidence came in and he decided to side with the state. That is at least defensible and credible, whether or not his real motivation was, after the battle was lost, to side with Reid for partisan reasons.
As for Bush, the only thing more incredible than his patronizing attitude toward Nevada is the cathouse full of Republican leaders here who continue to give it away for free. With the political calculus all in their favor, what concession did Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and the GOP delegation members extract from the president to continue to support his candidacy here?
"Well, I appreciate your opinion," the president said he told the Nevada folks, metaphorically patting them on the heads, "but I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow this process to be appealed to the courts and to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
Allow it to be appealed? This is what the state's Republicans are proud they got Bush to say -- that the president will follow the law and the Constitution. Halleleujah!
And people want to impeach GOP Controller Kathy Augustine for pressuring employees to work on her campaign? If ever there were an impeachable offense, this malfeasance of duty by the state's Republican guard is it. Let that be their legacy -- that they, to use the president's verbiage, allowed it to happen.
But no one ever seems to pay any penalty, except perhaps Nevada voters, who have endured a plague of rhetoric and promises from our politicians on Yucca Mountain.
Here's what should happen: If the Republicans cannot wring any significant concessions from the president before the election, they should agree to forfeit their offices. And if Kerry wins and then doesn't halt the project, the Democratic leaders here should resign.
After years of Nevadans being courted and trifled with, that kind of personal responsibility and commitment is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 15, 2004
Editorial: Don't mess with ... Nevada
Las Vegas Sun
Weekend Edition
August 14 - 15, 2004
On Thursday President Bush campaigned in Las Vegas for two hours, close on the heels of a nearly two-day stay here earlier in the week by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Bush had a tough act to follow, because Kerry reaffirmed his previous commitment to stopping a nuclear waste dump from being built in Nevada if he is elected president. Bush also was on the defensive because Kerry reminded Las Vegans that in 2002 he voted against the Bush plan to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a plan that Congress ultimately approved.
Bush obviously had a lot to address on Yucca Mountain, the most critical issue confronting our state. "This is a vital question, and we need to keep facts, not politics, at the center of the debate," Bush said. One of the most important facts is that Bush, during the 2000 presidential campaign, issued a statement saying he would use sound science, not politics, to decide whether to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But even though there were nearly 300 unanswered scientific questions about the project, Bush still went ahead with his plan to bury man's deadliest waste in this state. It's clear that he broke his word to Nevadans and that he is the one playing politics with Yucca Mountain.
But the president, in an effort to deflect attention away from the reality that in 2000 he misled the residents of this state, tried to paint Kerry as the untrustworthy one on this issue. That's right, the same John Kerry who voted against Bush's nuclear waste burial plan apparently is the candidate we should be worried about. Bush said that Kerry hadn't always voted against the Yucca Mountain project. But, as Nevada's Democratic Sen. Harry Reid has pointed out, Kerry always has been there for Nevadans when we needed him.
On important votes involving Yucca Mountain, Kerry has sided with Nevadans. Besides his key 2002 vote against Bush's Yucca Mountain plan, in 2000 Kerry voted to sustain President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have made it easier to send nuclear waste to Nevada. Kerry has explained that as time has passed he learned more about the dangers of the Yucca Mountain project, which has made him a steadfast opponent.
It also was interesting on Thursday how Bush portrayed himself as listening to the concerns about the project raised by the state's top Republicans -- Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sen. John Ensign and Attorney General Brian Sandoval. "They made themselves very clear," Bush said. "And I said, well, I appreciate your opinion, but I will -- I'll tell you what I'll do. I will allow this process to be appealed to the courts and to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
Bush "will allow" an appeal through the courts? Does he think he is king, not president? And it's not as if he could tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission not to review the project, either. The law already says that the commission will decide the dump's fate when it reviews the Energy Department's application.
It's also troubling that the Republican governor and the GOP members of the congressional delegation are, as they put it, willing to "agree to disagree" with the president over Yucca Mountain. As if Yucca Mountain is just like any other issue. It also is disingenuous for these Republicans to suggest that Kerry, if elected, couldn't be counted on regarding Yucca Mountain. They know better, which is why it's so pathetic to see them making excuses for Bush.
What is becoming more apparent as the campaign gets closer to Election Day is that Kerry understands and shares the concerns of Nevadans regarding Yucca Mountain. The opposite is true of Bush, whose arrogance on this issue could cost him this state's votes in November. And, if the election is as close as the 2000 election, it could cost him the White House also.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 15, 2004
Letter: Leaving nuclear waste in place is safest strategy
Las Vegas Sun
Weekend Edition
August 14 - 15, 2004
In his letter of Aug. 10, Charles Lanzrath asked Kerry supporters to explain to him where high-level nuclear waste would go if not Yucca Mountain. I'd like to inform Mr. Lanzrath that John Kerry would leave it where it is, for many reasons.
At the top of the list is the fact that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable place for something as deadly as nuclear waste. Earthquake fault lines, volcanic activity in the area and a water table that could be contaminated should the canisters leak over time are some of the reasons why burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be dangerous. Add to that list the dangers of transportation -- moving the waste across the country by truck, rail or barge in this age of terrorism is crazy.
The on-site storage facilities currently in use are by far the safest way to keep nuclear waste out of harm's way. Sometime in the future there probably will be a safe way to dispose of the waste, but until then the best way to keep it secure is to keep it where it's at.
I hope this answers Mr. Lanzrath's question, and I hope he now will vote for John Kerry. I know I will.
Leslie Farris
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Las Vegas SUN
August 15, 2004
Letter: A vote for Bush is a vote for waste
I would implore Gov. Kenny Guinn and Sen. John Ensign to encourage all Nevadans not to vote for President Bush. If our elected officials are truly looking out for the citizens of this state, then they most certainly would not want nuclear waste being shipped here.
Gov. Guinn and Sen. Ensign are Republicans, but they should show some courage and oppose President Bush for the benefit of Nevada. Any Nevadan voting for Bush is voting for nuclear waste. If they can live with it and all the danger, well, so be it.
But Republican voters and state Republican officials should ask themselves: Because you belong to a certain party, are you going to vote for somebody who will hurt your state?
Clem Sienkiewich
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 15, 2004
Week In Review: Bush, Kerry use stump speeches to discuss Yucca Mountain
Yucca Mountain figured prominently in speeches the two major presidential candidates delivered in Las Vegas last week.
John Kerry, in particular, made opposition to the proposed nuclear waste repository seem the very cornerstone of his candidacy.
During his 36-hour visit, he called for the Bush administration to halt the licensing process for the repository, located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Kerry said he would establish a blue-ribbon panel of experts to recommend how to best store and dispose of the nation's nuclear waste.
He pledged that, if he is elected, "there's going to be no nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain."
On Thursday, President Bush stood by his decision to locate a repository at Yucca Mountain.
He said the issue has been developing over the years and mentioned the 1987 congressional vote to exclusively study Yucca Mountain as a potential repository. Implied, but not spoken, was Kerry's vote in support of that bill.
The president addressed Democrats' accusation that he violated his pledge during the 2000 campaign that any decision on Yucca Mountain would be guided by "sound science."
"I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner. And that's exactly what I did," Bush said.
Bush and Kerry are locked in a tight race nationwide, but the outcome in many states is foreordained.
So the candidates are focusing their energies on states where the outcome remains in question. Nevada is one of those states.
A July opinion poll conducted for the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com found Bush leading Kerry by 3 percentage points.
That was within the margin of error, and the momentum was Kerry's, having narrowed a lead that once stood at 11 percentage points.
Of those polled statewide in July, 57 percent said Yucca Mountain would have no influence on their vote and 6 percent said it would make them more likely to back Bush.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 15, 2004
Steve Sebelius: What's with the clapping?
So President Bush is going to allow the anti-Yucca Mountain lawsuit to go forward?
Thank God. Otherwise it would have ... gone forward anyway! The president has no more power to stop that lawsuit than he does to compel the sun to rise in the west and set in the east.
But when Bush uttered his non-concession concession on Thursday, the crowd that had gathered to see him at the Carpenters Union International Training Facility applauded. Bush said, after all, that he listened to his scientific advisers make the case for Yucca, and when they were done, he made his decision based on that science, just as he'd promised. (More applause from the crowd.)
What about poor Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, who came to the Oval Office with other Nevada representatives to point out all the science that said Yucca was a bad idea? Or the science that wasn't finished yet? He had to at least know there was a dispute about the scientific merits of Yucca Mountain. And what about the common-sense notion that it's easier to keep nuclear waste secure at various plants around the country than to give dirty bombers thousands of moving targets?
We're sorry. Couldn't hear you. Applause was too loud.
While we're waiting for the clapping to die down, let's address one political point: Bush simply could not have avoided talking about Yucca Mountain, because his opponent, John Kerry, had just spent two days here chatting about it. Kerry promised to veto any attempt to lower radiation standards. He also vowed to kill the project outright and to fund a new "Manhattan Project" to deal with the waste question.
Sounds good. In fact, even Sen. John Ensign says Kerry is better for Nevada than Bush -- on that one, narrow issue.
Wait, the applause is dying down a bit. Let's hear what else the president has to say.
"Now my opponent decided to turn Yucca Mountain into a political poker chip," the president says, sending a chuckle rippling through the crowd. "He says he's strongly against Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times. My point to you is that if they're going to change one day, they may change again."
And the crowd is clapping madly once more. That darn John Kerry. He's such a flip-flopper.
Or is he? Kerry has cast some procedural votes that advanced Yucca. But The Associated Press points out that, "Each time Kerry has faced the simple choice of voting whether or not to send waste to Yucca Mountain, he has voted against it." He did vote for the infamous "Screw Nevada" bill in 1987, a vote he now says was simply in favor of studying the Yucca site, the results of which didn't turn out so well.
Here's Bush again, whipping the crowd into a frenzy: "I think we need some straight talk on this issue!" he says. And the crowd gives him a standing ovation!
Wait a second. When Bush had his turn to give Nevada some "straight talk," he signed the bill that put Yucca Mountain on the fast track! Was that the "straight talk"? Besides, we already heard some straight talk last week, from Kerry: "Not on my watch."
Fortunately for Nevada, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that the current radiation safety standard for 10,000 years is inadequate; some of the waste will still be hazardous for 300,000 years or more. The ruling may end the dump before Kerry gets his chance.
Thank God that President Bush has allowed that court case to go forward.
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 15, 2004
Editorial: 'They may change again'
Speaking in Las Vegas on Thursday, President Bush insisted he made his decision to approve the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump "based on science."
"We need to keep facts, not politics, at the center of debate," the president said. Though if Nevada had more votes than the states with nuclear waste piling up, of course, there wouldn't be any debate.
But Mr. Bush was most cogent when he warned, "Now my opponent decided to turn Yucca Mountain into a political poker chip. He says he's strongly against Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times. É My point to you is that if they're going to change one day, they may change again."
Indeed. Challenger John Kerry changes course more often than a skiff fighting a headwind back up the Vineyard Sound. While his recent words on Yucca Mountain may have sounded sweet -- once he figured out how to pronounce the proposed dump site -- a politician's constancy must be judged based on his past performance.
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Nevada Appeal
August 15, 2004
Sound science should not be a sound bite
President George W. Bush visited the Silver State this week, and didn't back down on his decision to create a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
"I said I would make a decision based upon science, not politics. I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner and that's exactly what I did," Bush told a crowd of supporters in Las Vegas.
But this rhetoric sounds suspiciously like that used about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war in Iraq. Investigations on this subject show that evidence contradicting the evidence of weapons was ignored as the Bush Administration built its case for war.
The same could be said about Yucca Mountain. Despite the "sound science" pledge, opponents of Yucca Mountain have shown numerous instances where scientific information was ignored, and policies and procedures changed to move the Yucca Mountain project forward. Instead of looking to see if there were problems, the Department of Energy weeded out contradictory information in its recommendation to Bush.
Of course, this is election season, and the rhetoric is flying fast and furious over this issue. Bush made his statements yesterday to show that he made the right decision, while challenger John Kerry has voted on both sides of the issue.
The danger exists for Yucca Mountain to be turned into a political football, and no matter which sides wins, the science could very well be ignored. And when you are talking about handling the most dangerous material on the planet, we need to pay attention to the people who know the most about this waste.
It's time for sound science to become a standard for determining the fate of nuclear waste in this country, not just a sound bite.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 14, 2004
Kerry´s faux pas eliminates pronunciation as Nov. issue
Their stand on Yucca Mountain may or may not determine which of the presidential candidates wins Nevada´s five electoral votes in the November election, but there is one issue that won´t play a role: the candidates´ pronunciation of the state´s name.
Democratic candidate John Kerry made sure of that last week, when he followed President George W. Bush´s lead in calling the state Ne-VAH-da during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. (He reportedly struggled with Yucca, too.)
Bush made headlines here when he made the same faux pas during his first visit to the state as president last November. What should have been a minor, humorous story quickly snowballed as Nevadans weighed in on the “issue’ of the correct pronunciation, the Spanish version that Bush used or the Middle American alternative that most Nevadans prefer. It would be hard to argue that politics didn´t play at least a minor part in the ensuing controversy.
Yet, it appears that no one was paying attention at Sen. Kerry´s campaign headquarters, where someone just might have wanted to warn the candidate about Nevada sensitivities.
Perhaps that´s what happens when you have a Texan (by way of Connecticut and New England´s finest schools) and a Massachusetts native sharing top billing on the campaign trail. Denizens of both regions pronounce a lot of words, not just Nevada, in ways that other Americans find mysterious. (And then there´s the vice president who doesn´t seem sure about how to pronounce his own name: Is it Chayney or Cheeney?)
Perhaps speechwriters for both men will take notice now that folks who live in Nevada — folks who are being reminded ad nauseam that they live in a “swing’ state — care about how their state´s name is pronounced and will remind the candidates the next time they come for a campaign visit.
That way, voters can cross Ne-VAH-da off of their list of issues finally. Now, about Yucca Mountain…
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 14, 2004
Letters for August 15
Kerry will fight to stop Yucca Mt.
Thank you for your July 29 editorial regarding Yucca Mountain [“Keep on fighting Yucca Mt., despite feeling it´s inevitable’]. To borrow from Yogi Berra, it ain´t over till it´s over, and Nevada officials should keep holding the line against the Bush administration´s misguided efforts.
I would, however, disagree with the editorial´s suggestion that there is not much difference between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry on Yucca Mountain. The Bush administration has made Yucca Mountain a priority, ignored the safety warnings of its own scientists, and put Nevada´s families at risk. Kerry has a clear voting record against disposing of waste at Yucca Mountain, and he has vowed to fight it as president.
The outcome of the next election will determine what happens with Yucca. Voters should take a look at the record and make an educated decision in November.
Barbara Kuznicki, Reno
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Los Angeles Times
August 15, 2004
Routes to Waste Site
Re "Kerry Would Block Nevada Waste Site," Aug. 11: I am always confused by the negative attitudes toward the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. Has anyone considered — assessing the amount of money already spent — building dedicated access roads or rail spurs to the site without going through complaining communities? With no other visible choices it seems that intelligently disposing of nuclear waste would go a long way in solving part of our energy crisis at a relatively small sum to build these alternate routes.
Melvin Schrier
Rancho Palos Verdes
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Carlsbad Current Argus
August 15, 2004
WIPP contractor pursues new projects
By Victoria Parker-Stevens
Current-Argus Staff Writer
CARLSBAD — As the last container was built for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, workers at a local manufacturer looked to the next big project — and one was there.
The Engineered Products Department built TRUPACT-IIs, the large shipping containers seen on WIPP trucks.
As the end of the contract period loomed, there were worries about the company´s future in Carlsbad. After all, a number of WIPP contractors had downsized early this year, including the largest, Washington TRU Solutions, which eliminated 45 positions.
EPD had a smaller voluntary workforce reduction and the cooperation of flexible employees, said Mike McNamara, new general manager of Washington Group International´s Government Technical Services Division, of which EPD is the largest part.
EPD´s workforce is currently at around 130 people — a level similar to a few years ago.
“We needed a new core product,’ said McNamara, who is spending a lot of time in Carlsbad as acting EPD plant manager.
Enter a $4 million contract to build a different type of nuclear waste container.
Awarded a couple of months before the last TRUPACT was completed in June, the contract is for an initial 900 silo containers for Fluor Fernald Inc.
The containers will be used to transport sludge from silos at the Fernald Plant in Ohio. Made of ½-inch carbon steel, each container stands more than 6 feet tall and is 76 inches in diameter. The production was split among three companies.
EPD plans to produce 70 containers a week by early next year, with three shifts a day at its facility east of town along U.S. Highway 62-180, McNamara said.
EPD also has a facility in the Carlsbad industrial park, which handles stainless steel work. The facilities together have a manufacturing area of more than 110,000 square feet.
To prepare, EPD employees themselves have undertaken a major construction project, including tasks such as putting in cranes and painting the roof a lighter color to help day-shift workers deal with the heat.
“The workforce sees that it´s an investment for the long term,’ McNamara said, noting several thousand more containers could be ordered.
In June, EPD was also awarded a contract from Columbia Westinghouse to manufacture stainless-steel containers for fuel assemblies, used in commercial nuclear power production.
The initial order was for 35 containers, with the potential for as many as 900, McNamara said.
Also this year, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers green-lighted a new EPD quality assurance program that will allow the manufacture of spent nuclear fuel prototype canisters for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada.
These projects aren´t the only ones at EPD. At any given time, work is being done on more than a dozen products, McNamara said, with contracts estimated at $16 million.
While some of EPD´s work is commercial, much is under government contract and related to nuclear waste cleanup.
Products include waste boxes, overpack containers, plutonium stabilization packaging and gloveboxes used for working with radioactive materials.
On a smaller scale than the TRUPACTs, EPD has also manufactured a couple of other types of WIPP containers, including for remote-handled waste the federal Energy Department would like to ship to the site.
Private industry can be leery of government contractors because they feel they aren´t competitive, but EPD strives to automate as much as possible to lower costs, for example, by using robotics, McNamara said.
He said Carlsbad´s remote location is also not impossible to overcome, especially as EPD´s products are shipped all over the world.
EPD prides itself on having the best machinists in the Southwest and a high-tech workforce with a lot of longevity, McNamara said.
And, “with a large farm and mining community, there´s a real hands-on mindset here,’ he said.
The company has been in Carlsbad for more than 20 years. Before the mid-1990s, it was a locally owned business called Gregory Enterprises.
EPD is able to assist local businesses — such as those in the oil industry — with machining, welding, engineering and testing, McNamara said.
The company has 18 acres for activities like drop testing and can handle non-destructive examination with things like gamma and X-ray equipment.
“We can do any test here, including helium leak testing,’ McNamara said. “The equipment for that is very expensive to keep.’
He said EPD also checks with area businesses when it purchases materials, and if it can come close on price, EPD will purchase locally.
Since EPD works in the nuclear industry, local businesses can be assured its quality assurance and control departments are of the highest quality, McNamara said.
“High-integrity containers require high-integrity people,’ he said.
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KVBC
August 13, 2004
Former Governor, Senator, Speaks About Bush, Yucca Mountain
During the campaign stop yesterday, President Bush said he still believes in the Yucca Mountain project. His belief is based in science. It's also at odds with most state and local officials. As Yucca Mountain Reporter Mitch Truswell shows us, those presidential comments convinced a former governor and senator to speak out today.
Presidents can make a difference on issues such as Yucca Mountain. That's the opinion of many people, including former US Senator from Nevada Richard Bryan. After hearing what the President said about Yucca yesterday during his campaign stop, Bryan says President Bush is no friend to our state. "Anyone with a room temperature IQ can only conclude President Bush is against Nevada. He's for the high level waste dump and that if re-elected to another term, he will do in the second as he did in the first."
During his visit yesterday, President Bush admitted his view on Yucca Mountain differs greatly with many elected leaders in Nevada, some of whom are also Republicans. The President said he will not intervene in the issues currently before the courts. "I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow this process to be appealed to the courts and Nuclear Regulatory Commission and I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
Richard Bryan says there are other issues to consider as well. Will the President work to weaken health and safety standards when it comes to nuclear waste storage? Bryan says Senator John Kerry will not. There are a couple issues still to be decided about Yucca Mountain. Three judges are currently looking into whether the Department of Energy released all it's documents on time concerning the repository, as required by law. A recent court of appeals ruling said the current 10 thousand year radiation safety standard may not be adequate.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 14, 2004
Kerry, like Bush, gets quick lesson on how to say ‘Nevada´
Don Cox
The man who is president, George W. Bush, learned his lesson and so, apparently, has John Kerry, the man who wants to be.
It´s “Ne-va-da,’ not “Nev-ah-da.’
The man who knows the difference — state archivist Guy Rocha, a nonpartisan stickler for correct pronunciation of Nevada — cringed after Kerry got it wrong this week, just as he cringed last year when Bush screwed it up.
“It´s not about politics,’ Rocha, whose office is in Carson City, said Friday. “All it came down to was how to pronounce the name of this state. That´s all it came down to.’
It sounds simple. But, for the president and his chief rival, it wasn´t.
Kerry got a bad review for repeatedly saying “Nev-ah-da’ during a speech in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The next day, he was saying “Ne-va-da.’
The Massachusetts senator also said he would stop
nuclear waste from being shipped to a repository at Yucca Mountain, which he pronounced as “YOO-kah’ instead of the preferred “YUK-ah.’
Rocha, watching television, noticed.
“I saw him on Tuesday, he got it wrong,’ Rocha said. “By Wednesday, I saw him in a meeting, it was ‘Ne-va-da.´ During the course of the time he was here, there was enough stuff that by Wednesday he was getting it right.’
Rocha, an expert on Nevada´s traditions and quirks, was criticized nationally after he responded to questions about Bush calling the state “Nev-ah-da’ in a Las Vegas speech in November. When Bush visited Reno in June, he said “Ne-va-da.’
Rocha noticed.
“It´s interesting, with all the flap about not getting it right and coming to Reno and getting it right,’ Rocha said.
A lot of people get it wrong, not just presidents and presidential candidates. When the University of Nevada men´s basketball team won two games in this year´s NCAA tournament, the state´s name got national attention.
“I saw people correcting people (on television) during the NCAA basketball,’ Rocha said. “When people were mispronouncing it, people were correcting them.’
When Kerry came to Nevada, aides advised him.
“We say it a million times,’ said Sean Smith, Kerry´s spokesman in Nevada. “It seems to be a New England or Southern kind of dialect. They can´t spit out ‘Ne-va-da.´ ’
Kerry is from Massachusetts. Bush is from Texas, but attended Yale University in Connecticut.
“You grow up thinking it´s ‘Nev-ah-da,´ like most Southerners do,’ said Chris Carr, executive director of the Republican Party in Nevada, a native of Louisiana who learned to say “Ne-va-da’ on an airplane flight from his home to Las Vegas several years ago.
Rocha hopes presidential candidates will do the same.
“When you come to a given place, your aides and advance people need to know how those people refer to themselves,’ Rocha said. “In ‘Ne-va-da,´ you don´t call it ‘Nev-ah-da.´ ’
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 14, 2004
Letter: Word play
To the editor:
Regarding Richard Lake's Aug. 11 article on John Kerry's pronunciation of "Nevada": All I can ask is, "Slow news day"?
I was at the Thomas & Mack to see Sen. Kerry. There were more people in attendance than at the Democratic convention. It was the most energized political crowd I've ever seen. Do you think anybody cared about Sen. Kerry's pronunciation? He's from Massachusetts, for cryin' out loud. That's how the man talks.
The big news is, he's against Yucca. George W. Bush is for it and he pronounces "Nevada" properly. (Unlike the word "nuclear.") Small comfort when the first shipment of nuclear waste arrives on our doorstep.
Brian Rouff
Henderson
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USA Today
August 14, 2004
Kerry campaign stepping up attacks on Bush
Richard Benedetto
WASHINGTON — Attacks against President Bush by John Kerry and groups supporting the Democrat's election have become a little sharper and more frequent over the past week or so.
Perhaps they are frustrated by Kerry's inability to build a clear lead after two weeks of coast-to-coast campaigning with running mate John Edwards.
Polls show that despite all that largely triumphant touring — and news trumpeting continuing violence in Iraq, chaotic oil price fluctuations and an economy whose growth seems to have slowed — Bush and Kerry continue to run neck and neck.
Or maybe they want to soften Bush up before he goes into his nominating convention, which begins Aug. 30 in New York and hopefully cut down on any bounce he might get.
Whatever the reason, the anti-Bush barrage appears to be building. This past Thursday offers a case in point.
Only 12 minutes after Bush and his wife Laura appeared on CNN's Larry King Live, the Kerry campaign dashed off this statement to the media:
"The president spent an hour on TV and didn't talk about jobs or his plans to get the economy going. It's the latest proof that this president is completely out of touch with the priorities of this country and has no plan for turning things around."
But while the Kerry camp waited until the end of the program to send out that criticism, it dispatched another missive while the show was still airing, jumping on something Bush said to King.
"Tonight, President Bush called Kerry's service in Vietnam 'noble,' " the Kerry statement said. "But in the same breath, (he) refused to heed Sen. (John) McCain's call to condemn the dirty work being done by the "Swift Boat Vets for Bush." Once again, the president sidestepped responsibility and refused to do the right thing. His credibility is running out."
"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," as the group identifies itself, is a political group that officially operates independent of the Bush campaign. It has attacked Kerry's Vietnam record.
Kerry has several such groups operating in his behalf. And their attacks on Bush often have been sharper than those of the Kerry campaign itself.
The Democratic National Committee launched a $2 million radio ad campaign Thursday to be aired in 10 battleground states. Its key point: "It's beneath the office of president. ... President Bush is attacking John Kerry on terrorism and once again his facts are wrong."
And an environmental group, Northwest Old Growth Campaign, sent out a news release announcing that it would protest the president's Friday appearance in Medina, Wash. The group said it would display part of a tree stump it said is a slice of a 440-year-old Douglas fir recently cut down as part of a federal timber sale in the Willamette National Forest.
"George W. Bush has received millions from the timber industry and the payback is the weakening of protections for our nation's forests," the group's statement said.
Another release on Thursday by the Kerry campaign charged that "Bush broke his pledge to Nevada" by supporting use of Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste storage. Bush campaigned in Nevada Thursday.
This is not to say the Bush campaign has been going easy on Kerry. It attacked Thursday as well, accusing Kerry of raising taxes. But the Kerry campaign also was out Thursday saying Bush's plans would hike taxes on the middle class.
Friday was a new day, but the Kerry attacks began early:
• "Bush Oregon event exposed," said the headline on one Kerry campaign e-mail.
• This one came from the Democratic National Committee: "BUSH WHOPPER."
Meanwhile, the DNC announced that Chairman Terry McAuliffe would hold a "Friday the 13th GOP Convention conference call" with reporters at 11:13 a.m. to "wish the Republicans luck with the job ahead in New York."
Could be Democrats are worried about that convention, after all.
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ShortNews
August 12, 2004
Bush tries to win back Nevada voters angry over nuclear dump
Nevada, a state George W. Bush won in the 2000 presidential election, is now a battleground state as some voters are angered over a decision to locate the nation's nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Bush rallied Republicans there today.
According to recent polls, the issue is a matter that stirs up such strong feelings that it is giving Sen. John Kerry some headway there. Bush has tried to paint Kerry as switching sides on the issue of whether to place a waste dump at Yucca Mt.
But though Kerry voted for some provisions to allow dumps in the state, he always voted against the simple measure of locating the nation's nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Republicans say the issue is Kerry's only advantage in Nevada.
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New York Times
August 14, 2004
For Kerry, When Scenery Changes, So Do the Jokes
By Jodi Wilgoren
CENTRAL POINT, Ore. — When it comes to the old saw about all politics being local, Senator John Kerry takes a Borscht Belt approach.
At a sweltering rally here Thursday evening in the Southwest corner of the state, Mr. Kerry observed that many in the crowd of some 10,000 people were wearing "shades" and exclaimed, "You look like a band of beavers," Oregon's state animal. Then the Democratic presidential nominee showed off his savvy on the small-town sports rivalry between nearby North Medford and South Medford high schools.
"I'm going to take a lot of tough positions here today," he promised, "but I am not going to choose between the Black Tornados and the Panthers." In case anyone was not yet convinced that Mr. Kerry was paying attention to where he was, he held aloft a locally grown pear and exulted, "I am smart enough to leave with some of these!"
So it went on Mr. Kerry's cross-country tour these past two weeks. Same speech, different opening joke at each stop.
Thursday morning in Carson, Calif., he told the crowd at California State University, Dominguez Hills, "If I had gone to college in L.A. five miles from a beach, in perfect weather, I never would have graduated." Tuesday night, in Las Vegas, he had a litany of one-liners, saying he would follow the "winning streak" of hometown heroes Andre Agassi and Greg Maddux and take lessons in how to run from the championship basketball team of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose arena he was standing in.
"They tell me there are 15,000 or more people here," Mr. Kerry said, glancing up at the crowd. "I'm happy to hear that because I took the over on 11,000."
Get it? Gambling joke? Vegas?
Wait, there's more. "We have to get this economy moving," Mr. Kerry said a bit later, "because there is nothing worse than an unemployed flying Elvis."
Asked aboard his campaign plane Thursday night where he gets this material, Mr. Kerry hurried back to his cabin without answering.
Next morning, David Wade, Mr. Kerry's traveling press secretary, explained that these tantalizing tidbits grow out of local notes layered into the candidate's daily briefing books, which he peruses before each event. The yucks were heightened during this coast-to-coast swing, Mr. Wade suggested, because Mr. Kerry was often accompanied by his stepsons, Chris and Andre Heinz, whose impressions of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Bush crack up Democratic crowds.
"When he's on a bus traveling with a couple of fulltime comedians in Chris and Andre, they have fun on that bus, they make this stuff up," Mr. Wade explained. "He has a much funnier family than he has a funny staff."
The local crowds generally eat it up, their laughter and applause drowning out the collective groan from the traveling press corps. But the perils of going local are, well, getting it wrong.
Mr. Kerry was taken to task in Wednesday's Las Vegas Review-Journal for mispronouncing Nevada (it's Ne-VAH-da, not Ne-VAD-uh) and its Yucca (he said YOO-kah instead of YUK-ah) Mountain. "I've got to stop saying Ne-VAD-uh the way they say it in Massachusetts," he said the next day. "Ne-VAH-da."
Earlier, after a day and a half in Ohio, Mr. Kerry apparently missed the crossing into Michigan, where he was booed for saying, "I just go for Buckeye football."
"That was while I was in Ohio!" he tried to recover. "Now, I know, I'm in the state of Michigan. You got a great big M and a powerhouse of a team."
Mr. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, made a similar goof a few weeks back, when she tried to get points in Cleveland for being from Pittsburgh, perhaps forgetting the Browns-Steelers and Indians-Pirates rivalries.
Which brings us to Williams, Ariz., where Mr. Kerry's 15-car chartered train pulled up Monday night near the end of its five-day, five-state tour.
"Hellooooo, Nevada!" Mrs. Heinz Kerry said, prompting a nudge from her husband. "Arizona," he corrected.
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PBS
August 13, 2004
Shields and Kristol
Lehrer speaks to political analysts about recent developments in the presidential campaign and President Bush's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss of Florida to head the CIA.
Candidates Trading Criticism
JIM LEHRER: Is this flip-flop thing, of course, that has been an overreaching complaint about Kerry, that it applies... the president is trying to apply it specifically to the vote on going to war in the first place. Is that getting traction on Kerry, against him?
WILLIAM KRISTOL: I think so; I have been a little skeptical of it in the sense that I don't think people care much if he voted one way in 1987 and changed their mind in 1995.
If there is a sense, though, that he is not strong in facing up to the fundamental threats facing the country, I think it could have an effect, and the president mentioned this Yucca Mountain issue, which is the nuclear waste --
JIM LEHRER: In Nevada.
WILLIAM KRISTOL: Which basically everyone realizes has to be done and Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards voted for in the Senate and now Sen. Kerry has gone to Nevada and said, well, as president, I'm not going to ship the waste to Yucca Mountain.
I'm going to leave it in 103 different places around the country where it is much more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, et cetera, et cetera. The New York Times - The Washington Post - so I don't think this is a terribly controversial thing. Kerry has gone to make a bid for Nevada's five electoral votes in Nevada.
Needless to say, they don't want all the waste, nuclear waste in the country in Yucca Mountain even though there are scientific studies showing it is safe. It is a trivial issue in a sense except in Nevada. And maybe Kerry has made a smart move in going for Nevada's five electoral votes. But I wonder if that kind of thing, that the Bush campaign can't use pretty effectively to say this is a guy, Governor Bush ran for president in 2000 - he had every incentive to get Nevada's electoral votes. He didn't say I'm not going to send the waste to Yucca Mountain. Sen. Kerry has pandered really to Nevada in this instance. And I wonder if that kind of thing won't have an effect.
JIM LEHRER: What about the taxes thing, Mark? We just ran a clip of Kerry today picking up on the CBO report, the Congressional Budget Office report, saying that the tax cuts benefited the wealthy more than the middle class. Is there traction in that issue for Kerry against the president?
MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think there is not only traction; I think there is open field.
JIM LEHRER: Open field?
MARK SHIELDS: Open field. I really do. And I don't think Bill disagrees with me on this. The only test... there are only two tests for an economic policy, a tax policy in a democracy. One is does it work? Does it extend prosperity? And two is, is it just, is it fair? The Bush policy fails on both grounds. It's not producing jobs.
Its 32,000 jobs is just abysmal after turning the corner, after three tax cuts, after he got everything he wanted from the Congress. And reality is it turns out it is not fair; that the people at the very top, the top 1 percent get $78,000 back this year.
And the reality is, Jim, that it has gone disproportionately. Two-thirds of all the tax cuts have gone to the top 20 percent. And that hasn't worked, the trickle down just hasn't worked.
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St. George Daily Spectrum
August 14, 2004
Nation doesn't need new nukes
No, a thousand, million times no. No, in the name of humanity.
No more nukes.
The most important issue facing the nation is not whether Sen. John Kerry truly earned his Purple Hearts in Vietnam. It is not whether President Bush was a scofflaw during his tenure as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. It is not Iraq, and it is not the economy.
It is an impending vote in Congress expected to come some time after Labor Day to approve two nuclear weapons studies.
There's $66.5 million now on the table to research new nuclear weapons, including the so-called "Bunker Buster," and the president plans to spend $484.7 million for a five-year research program on the effectiveness of such weapons.
If this is a threat by the administration to bluff Iran and North Korea, he had better get back home and learn how to better hold his poker face by playing a couple of hands of Texas Hold 'em.
If there is a serious thought that unleashing even one small nuclear device would not have moral and ecological repercussions around the globe -- particularly in light of Bush's decision to reserve the right to pre-emptively strike any supposed threats to U.S. security -- this country, my friends, is about to make the biggest blunder in its long and cherished history.
I mean, who shoots marbles with a bowling ball?
There are two weak-sauce measures that will be proposed this congressional year -- one by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, the other by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that are well-intended and would put some hurdles in the way of resumed nuclear testing. But, there hasn't been an obstacle this country hasn't overcome when it comes to developing and testing new weapons systems, especially when it has already lifted a self-imposed ban on developing smaller nuclear weapons of less than five kilotons.
Since 1992, the United States has not been a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It has launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. You can bet there are plans on the drawing board to take similar action in Iran and North Korea, whether they are ever employed or not. And, most importantly, of all the countries that have developed nuclear weapons over the years, which is the only one to ever use them?
The president has also criticized Kerry for his stance against using Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a nuclear waste repository, even though science has not yet proclaimed its safety and our brightest officials cannot guarantee the security of sending the dangerous nuclear byproduct across the country by truck and rail.
We already have enough nukes and a sufficient number of aircraft and missile systems to deliver them.
We don't need any more.
Not in the name of technological superiority, not in the name of democracy and, certainly, not in the name of humanity.
Contact Ed Kociela, senior writer, at 865-4522, or via e-mail at ekociela@ thespectrum.com.
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Las Vegas SUN
August 13, 2004
Back-to-back campaign visits show Nevada's battleground status
By Christina Almeida
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's role as a battleground state was never more clear than this week as President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry rolled through the state within a day of each other, hoping to pick up swing voters in the race for the White House.
Many in Nevada consider the state to be "ground zero" for the November election. National polls show the presidential race tightening to a dead heat, forcing both candidates to focus on the 18 states in which neither holds a clear advantage.
A poll of likely Nevada voters in late July showed the race essentially tied.
"If you look back at the 2000 election, if (Al) Gore would have won Nevada, Florida would not have mattered," said Adriana Martinez, chair of the Nevada Democratic Party. "Neither side is taking anything for granted. Our five electoral votes matter."
The steady stream of visits - unprecedented for Nevada - from Bush, Kerry, Vice President Dick Cheney and an array of Bush administration officials awarding grants and making announcements is a powerful statement of how important the state is, campaign officials say.
"It says a lot about how close the race is here and how both sides think they can win," said Sean Smith, Kerry campaign spokesman in Nevada.
Bush's visit to Las Vegas on Thursday was his second this year and third since becoming president. First lady Laura Bush has visited twice.
Kerry spent Tuesday and Wednesday campaigning in Nevada as part of his post-convention swing through the battleground states. It was his third trip to Las Vegas this year, and during a meeting with local reporters promised a return trip as well as one by his running mate, Sen. John Edward of North Carolina.
Cheney is scheduled in Elko on Saturday, his fourth trip to Nevada in eight months. It comes just two weeks after he addressed the Disabled American Veterans national convention in Reno.
"We think it's important for Nevadans to hear directly from the president and the vice president about their optimistic agenda for the next four years," said Tracey Schmitt, Bush campaign spokeswoman.
In 2000, Bush narrowly carried the state, 49.5 percent to 46 percent. Bush visited Nevada once that campaign year; Gore twice.
"This is the first time we've gotten this kind of attention," said David Cherry, communications director for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "We are ground zero among Western states."
The unpopular issue of locating a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has helped energize the state Democratic Party and boost voter registration. Democrats hope to use the issue and a promise by Kerry to kill the project to beat Bush in November.
This week Kerry repeatedly voiced his opposition to the nuclear dump and cited a long record of voting against Yucca Mountain in the U.S. Senate.
"Not on my watch. No," Kerry told thousands of cheering supporters at a Tuesday rally in Las Vegas.
Kerry and the Democrats charge Bush broke a 2000 campaign promise to the state that he would base a Yucca Mountain decision on "sound science."
"Yucca Mountain to me is a symbol of the recklessness and arrogance with which they are willing to proceed with respect to the safety issues and concerns of the American people," Kerry said.
Bush told an invited crowd of 1,300 at a Las Vegas union training center on Thursday that he stood by his decision.
"I said I would make a decision based upon science, not politics. I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner and that's exactly what I did," Bush said.
Bush accused Kerry of pandering to Nevada voters by playing both sides of the issue.
"Now, my opponent is trying to turn Yucca Mountain into a political poker chip," Bush said.
Republicans point to Kerry's approval of a 1987 bill that included the so-called "Screw Nevada" provision limiting studies for a nuclear dump site to Yucca Mountain. The provision was part of a $17.6 billion budget package, and Kerry voted several times to yank the provision from the bill. He also voted against the project in 2000 and 2002.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Bush's visit to Las Vegas a sign of desperation.
"If the vote was held today, the Republicans would lose the state of Nevada badly," Reid said.
He pointed to the ever-shrinking separation between the number of registered Republicans and Democrats in the state. The last count showed the Republican advantage had shrunk to a mere 1,282 voters, a fraction of a percent.
For their part, Nevada voters are enjoying the spotlight.
"It's about time," said Jeanette Cohan, a 79-year-old Las Vegas resident who attended Kerry's town hall meeting Wednesday.
"We have a community that is growing," said Irv Alter, a 69-year-old retiree from Las Vegas who attended the same event. "Even though we have five electoral votes, it could possibly be the turning point in this upcoming election."
---
On the Net:
Bush-Cheney '04, http://www.georgewbush.com
John Kerry for President, http://www.johnkerry.com
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Pahrump Valley Times
August 13, 2004
DOE accused of cutting corners for repository
By Steve Tetreault
PVT Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Nevada officials lodged a new complaint Monday that the Department of Energy is cutting corners to license a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
DOE is "walking away" from a pledge to resolve 293 outstanding technical issues before it files a repository license application later this year, the state's nuclear director charged in a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Bob Loux, head of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, focused on comments made earlier this summer by Joseph Ziegler, the licensing director for the Yucca Mountain Project.
Ziegler told NRC officials in a July 23 letter that further questions they may have about unresolved technical issues will be answered in the department's license bid, or after the license paperwork is handed in.
But Loux said that approach violates NRC rules that require the agency be given "sufficient information" before DOE hands over a licensing package.
Under those circumstances, Loux urged NRC chairman Nils Diaz to reject the DOE's application when it is submitted. The NRC had no immediate comment.
The Energy Department wants to file an application with the NRC by the end of the year, although there are questions whether it will be permitted to do so in the wake of a July 9 federal court ruling invalidating the project's 10,000 year radiation health standard.
Staffs for the DOE and NRC had developed a list of 293 issues they agreed should be addressed before licensing, including questions about corrosion of waste-bearing canisters, earthquake and volcanic activity near the site, and the chemical environment within repository tunnels where waste will be stored.
According to Ziegler, 105 of the technical issue agreements were resolved, while another 159 were in stages of review. The Energy Department planned to supply at least some information about the remainder by the end of August, although NRC reviewers generally ask follow-up questions.
DOE spokesman Allen Benson said Monday that project staffers need now to focus on completing the license application, a 5,000-page package outlining the case to store nuclear waste at the Yucca site.
"At some point we have to stop answering questions and write the application," Benson said. "Any information the NRC wants will be provided. We have to complete preparing the license application and information may be addressed after the submittal."
But Loux said that resolving the key technical issues" "is at the heart of the case that DOE must put forward for the safety of the Yucca Mountain
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Pahrump Valley Times
August 13, 2004
The road to waste
Pahrump, Tonopah See Bulk of Transports
PVT
It was reported last week that in the second quarter of 2004, Nye County's two population centers hosted the bulk of the load of low-level nuclear waste transported to the Nevada Test Site. Of 723 loads shipped from California, Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee 716 traveled through either Tonopah or Pahrump with only 7 shipments being transported through the Las Vegas Valley or other routes.
Of the 723 loads shipped, 408 traveled through Tonopah in those months along Highway 95 or Highway 6. Coming through Pahrump during those months on Highway 160 were 308 loads. The eight trips through Las Vegas Valley required over dimensional permits issued by Nevada Department of Transportation and approved by Nevada Highway Patrol prior to use. Of the 408 loads that came through Tonopah approximately 371 traveled through Smoky Valley on Highway 50.
The waste is transported to the Nevada Test Site near Yucca Mountain, near Amargosa Valley and is buried in large open pits designed by the federal government for storing the waste. The 723 shipments totaled 1,146,775 cubic feet of low-level waste coming from energy generators and labs in nine states.
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Pahrump Valley Times
Bradshaw announces resignation
Official Who Built Nye's Yucca Oversight Calls It Quits
By Doug Mcmurdo
PVT
Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities Director Les Bradshaw leaves the employ of Nye County Sept. 7 - and when he does 13 years of institutional memory leaves with him. He's confident someone will step in and fill his shoes upon his retirement, but who that might be is anybody's guess at this point.
Bradshaw began his career in Nye County in 1991 as a deputy district attorney under then District Attorney Art Wehrmeister. He was promoted to chief deputy district attorney and by April of 1993, he accepted a position as the manager of the county's Yucca Mountain Repository program, taking over for Steve Bradhurst, who had served as a repository consultant.
During fiscal years 1996 and 1997 Congress declined to fund Yucca Mountain Project oversight funding because the federal government was "upset with the state," Bradshaw said, alluding to most of Nevada's strong opposition to Yucca Mountain.
Without funds to continue repository oversight, Bradshaw escaped limbo in March 1996 when he took on the role of county manager in the wake of the termination of Bill Offutt, who had been fired amid disturbing allegations of widespread sexual harassment. "I was a caretaker for the county during the time oversight money wasn't available," said Bradshaw.
In 1998 the federal government reinstated the funding and the county's repository office was back in action. "We geared up and moved the office to Pahrump," explained Bradshaw, adding with a knowing smile: "I actually resigned as county manager instead of getting fired."
But even while Congress slammed shut the cookie jar, Nye County wasn't completely out of the Yucca Mountain loop. During the two-year shutdown Nye County officials were successful in asking the Energy Department for funding to establish an independent scientific investigations program under the late Nick Stellavato. The funding was used to drill wells in the path of Yucca Mountain groundwater on its way to Amargosa Valley 20 miles south. "We put instruments down to monitor groundwater conditions," he explained.
The focus of the group's work has been on the obtainment of better figures regarding the Energy Department's groundwater model, and to look at various characteristics at the site 50 miles northwest of Pahrump where the government intends to store thousands of metric tons of the nation's high-level nuclear waste created at commercial and government sites in 39 states. The idea has always been to improve the quality and quantity of information available.
"The objective of all that was to have the best possible model to predict how the water flows under Yucca Mountain to Amargosa Valley - and give us a better idea of where and how fast that water goes," said Bradshaw.
The casks that will contain the waste will eventually deteriorate, he further explained, but exactly when that would happen is open to speculation, hence the emphasis on groundwater flow pattern.
"Where will the water go," he asked rhetorically. "And who has a well in the path of radionuclides?"
From Bradshaw's perspective, nobody alive today - or even in the next century or two - need worry about the potential threat. "It will be hundreds if not thousands of years in the future. There's no immediate threat to the next several generations, or even any rational scenarios."
If Bradshaw sounds like he's confident, it's because he is. "Our aim is public assurance," he said. "The well monitoring program is designed to give people the surety there is no danger, and the monitoring program will give us proof positive if the repository is working or not."
Even if a canister or a series of canisters breach and spill their deadly contents into the groundwater, Bradshaw said the monitoring wells would detect the problem and contaminated water could be treated. "People don't want their water treated, they want credible assurances that they are safe."
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., performs similar work. Air is monitored and wells down grade from the caverns where waste is stored are monitored with vigilance. Human whole body counts are also taken. "The same thing is being envisioned for Nye County so, by golly, if there is leakage the DOE can take immediate action," Bradshaw said.
If Bradshaw's plan is followed after he leaves, Nye County will always have a seat at the table when it comes to Yucca Mountain. That means county employees would have access to scientists. "That's the only way the public will be able to accept the repository," he explained. "They have to know it's safe through their own evaluation of the evidence."
That evidence is more than 20 years in the gathering - and the federal government has been generous in giving Nye County the means to evaluate its own science. Since the mid-1980s Nye County has received roughly $18.5 million in oversight funding. An additional $18 million has been forked over in the last decade to fund the independent scientific investigations performed by a host of private consultants - scientists - retained by commissioners.
The bulk of the scientific funding has gone into drilling said Bradshaw. "(Drilling) is a good way to spend a lot of money in a short period of time," he said.
The government, by Bradshaw's estimation, has spent more than $7 billion on the project; he said Nye County used its cut to develop a credible and nationally respected program.
In fact, Bradshaw considers the program his most significant achievement while in Nye County. He said viable socio-economic programs have come on line as a result, and most of the data compiled by Nye scientists is considered admissible as evidence when the Energy Department files its license application to build and maintain the repository. The application must be submitted in December.
Another high mark in Bradshaw's career involved the Payments Equal to Taxes program. PETT funding is paid by the federal government for the land value of Yucca Mountain. The first payment was made in 1994, the second in 1998, the third in 2001. The next payment is due in 2005.
Collectively, PETT has brought in more than $88 million, or the equivalent of 40 percent of the county's general fund revenue in years the payments were made. "We've been able to do many good things," said Bradshaw. "In my view the board (of county commissioners) has been very responsible with PETT; virtually all of the money has gone into community betterment."
Bradshaw also said the county hasn't been careless when it uses PETT funding to shore up the county's general fund. He said $3 million of the county's $50 million annual general fund this year is PETT money, a relatively insignificant figure that wouldn't bankrupt the county should the federal dollars disappear.
By comparison Toelle County, Utah uses special payments from the Army as its general operating funds and if those payments go away that county is "upside down," which is not the case in Nye.
The county government buildings in Pahrump and Tonopah were built with PETT funds at no cost to local taxpayers, school buses have been purchased, $4 million was dedicated toward the construction of Rosemary Clarke Middle School, chunks of money have been dedicated to parks and recreation, and Nye Regional Medical Center in Tonopah was kept open through PETT funding and Pahrump Medical Center also benefited from the payments.
Ambulances, police sedans, heavy equipment for the road department and road paving and chip sealing were also paid through PETT. "The commissioners haven't spent money on things that don't have lasting value." Another huge capital improvement project to benefit from PETT is the Community College of Southern Nevada Pahrump Learning Center, and a proposed two-plus-two CCSN campus in Pahrump will be built in part through PETT funding if the board of Regents ultimately approves the project.
"I've been very happy to serve Nye County for 13 years," said Bradshaw. "It's been an interesting journey. I started as a law clerk for Judge Bill Beko, went to the D.A.'s office, worked as county manager and then the repository. I've been involved in virtually all major functions of county government." He said there "are plenty of good people and firms" to take over where he left off, and he sees the work he helped start continuing into the future.
But on Sept. 7, the day Bradshaw celebrates his 60th birthday, he will attend his last county commission meeting his last day on the job. "I don't plan on being too serious that day," he said with a grin.
Soon thereafter he and his wife Pauline will spend time on church work, humanitarian service, family togetherness and working on their personal relationship. They will live "in a nice country place we have" in Wellington in Lyon County, not far from Yerington. "Pauline is a nurse practitioner and she wants to build that up. I might practice a little law ... but not too much."
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Pahrump Valley Times
August 13, 2004
Kerry says Bush broke his word about Yucca
By Nedra Pickler
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS -- Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry, making a play for a state that supported President Bush four years ago, accused the president of breaking his word with a plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada.
Kerry said the president broke the promise he made in the 2000 race to ensure science and not politics determined his decision whether to ship waste to Yucca Mountain. Bush approved Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear dumpsite after winning the presidency, even though many scientific studies remained unfinished.
"It's about promises kept and promises broken," Kerry said during an appearance at a school along the route that the waste would be shipped.
He made his own campaign promise: "When John Kerry is president, there is going to be no nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Period," he said.
Kerry remained focused on Yucca Mountain while campaigning in Nevada, even as other events dominated the presidential campaign. But at a rally attended by thousands Tuesday night, he defended himself from Bush's charge that he has changed his position on the Iraq war.
"I voted to stand up to Saddam Hussein, but I thought we ought to do it right," Kerry said. "I thought we ought to reach out to other countries, we ought to build an international coalition."
He did not speak about Bush's selection of Florida Rep. Porter Goss to head the CIA, instead responding by written statement from his campaign headquarters in Washington.
Kerry's statement called for quick Senate hearings on Goss' nomination but kept the heat on Bush to name a national intelligence director and follow other recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.
For years, Nevada has been fighting plans to move the nation's used reactor fuel to Yucca Mountain.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt accused Kerry of flip-flopping on Yucca Mountain because Kerry has voted for some measures that included provisions that would have allowed nuclear dumps there. But every time he has faced the simple choice of voting whether or not to send waste to Yucca, Kerry has voted against it.
Kerry said he is concerned about the safety and security of storing the waste 90 miles outside of Las Vegas at a mountain that sits atop the region's major water supply. Kerry also noted seismic activity has been measured at the mountain and could pose a safety threat.
A federal appeals court last month rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standard for the repository, which could doom the project. Kerry promised at the rally, "If they try to change the standards on radiation at the EPA and they send it to my desk, veto pen. Gone. Out."
Kerry said he would leave waste at nuclear sites around the country while he instructs the National Academy of Science to study how the world should deal with nuclear waste and storage.
Kerry and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Nevada voters should choose Kerry for another reason - he saved the life of one of their senators.
Kerry and Reid recalled how, on was July 12, 1988, Nevada Republican Sen. Chic Hecht was attending a weekly GOP luncheon in the Capitol when a piece of apple lodged in his throat. Kerry, running late for the corresponding Democratic luncheon, was just getting off an elevator when he saw Hecht buckled over in the corridor. He rushed over and performed the Heimlich maneuver.
"I suspect that I was late for that meeting and I walked out of that elevator because there was a higher power that said that was the moment that I was blessed to be there for Chic Hecht," Kerry said.
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
August 13, 2004
BulletinWire: Nuclear fuel foul-up
Following the discovery that a potentially dangerous concentration of uranium was present in the ash of an incinerator at a Columbia, South Carolina, nuclear fuel plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced it was fining the plant´s operator, Westinghouse Electric Company, $24,000.
Enough uranium had collected in the incinerator, which burns contaminated waste, to present a “significant increase in the likelihood of a nuclear criticality event,’ according to the NRC. Westinghouse acknowledged its responsibility for allowing the uranium to build up and blamed the mistake on a miscommunication between employees who knew of the potential for uranium to build up in the incinerator and those who did not.
“There is a weakness in this organization, which we are addressing,’ said Mark Fecteau, the plant´s manager. “In hindsight, you can see we had opportunities to catch this’ (The State, August 10).
Although Westinghouse averted disaster despite the “weakness’ in its organization, the JCO fuel production plant in Tokaimura, Japan, was less fortunate. In 1999, ill-trained employees were at fault when a criticality accident occurred while they were misusing a precipitation vessel to prepare nuclear fuel.
“Although it is difficult to believe, [the employees] apparently did not understand that the amount of intermediate-enriched uranium that could be safely poured into the vessel was smaller than the safe amount of low-enriched uranium, the material they were accustomed to working with. Yokokawa, the supervisor, told investigators later that he didn´t even know what a ‘criticality´ was,’ reported Edwin Lyman and Steven Dolley in the March/April 2000 Bulletin.
After it was discovered that the company operating the JCO plant had been using illegal procedures, the role of Japan´s regulatory Science and Technology Agency in the accident came into question. “Although the company´s part in the accident is beyond dispute, the agency also deserves part of the blame,’ concluded Lyman and Dolley.
Similarly, the NRC´s role in the Columbia incident also came into question, considering that the recent incident was not the first time Westinghouse has let uranium accumulate dangerously in the incinerator. “A recent NRC inspection report found that Westinghouse exceeded criticality safety limits in incinerator ash six times from 1996 to 2004,’ according to The State.
Whether or not it deserves any of the blame, the NRC deserves no credit for dealing with the problem, Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, told The State.
Bulletin Resources
Accident Prone, by Edwin Lyman and Steven Dolley, March/April 2000
Additional Resources
Westinghouse Fined For Uranium Buildup, TheState.com, August 10, 2004
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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