Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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State of Nevada
September 13, 2004
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Times
Dear Editor:
Ed Feulner believes (“Wasting a Good Solution,’ Sept. 9) the safety of the Yucca Mountain repository has already been determined, so we should eschew “politics’ and “get Yucca open.’ He´s wrong. By law, the Energy Department must yet demonstrate Yucca´s safety in a three-year trial before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He absurdly claims that “the water table at Yucca is contained, so if there´s a leak, it won´t contaminate the water supply anywhere else.’ Great, it will only kill Nevadans: The water below Yucca supplies the entire Amargosa Valley, the nation´s largest organic farming region and the source of 80-percent of Nevada´s milk—to say nothing of its future value being only 75 miles from Las Vegas, the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States.
In June, a federal appeals court ruled that the Government had “unabashedly rejected’ sound science in setting the safety standard for Yucca, ordering it to meet the standard required of every other repository program in the world. It is the nuclear industry and its Heritage Foundation allies who now want to force-feed a “political’ solution, since porous geology makes Yucca too leaky to meet the standard. A less repugnant result than sacrificing Nevadans would be to leave the waste safely stored where it is until a suitable new site is found.
Brian Sandoval
Attorney General
State of Nevada
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Las Vegas SUN
September 14, 2004
State threatens criminal action over Yucca's safety problems
Sun Washington Bureau
Attorney General Brian Sandoval on Monday put the Energy Department on notice that Nevada may pursue criminal charges against department contractors at Yucca Mountain for not protecting workers.
Nine contractors are named in an amended class-action lawsuit filed Sept. 1, originally filed earlier this year, on behalf of workers who have, or may soon have, diseases such as silicosis brought on by breathing toxic air in Yucca tunnels.
The lawsuit alleges the contractors did not protect workers even though they knew the work was dangerous, in an effort to save time and money. The lawsuit was filed by the firm Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch & Cynkar, the same firm hired by Nevada to lead the state's legal effort to halt the Yucca project.
In a letter to the department's Office of Inspector General, Sandoval signalled that the matter may also be the subject of a future criminal investigation by the state.
"The state of Nevada will also be closely following this matter to determine if it warrants action by state authorities," Sandoval wrote.
Sandoval said the class-action suit "raises grave issues of possible corruption, malfeasance, and deliberate violations of law by Department of Energy contractors."
The class-action suit said the department had estimated that 1,200 to 1,500 workers may have been exposed to significant amounts of silica and carcinogenic dusts that cause lung diseases.
The companies are vigorously defending themselves against the lawsuit, Bea Reilley, spokeswoman for Bechtel SAIC Co., LLC., and the contractors named in the lawsuit, has said. She could not comment on the specifics of the lawsuit. But she said the Yucca silica case would not prove to be one of the nation's worst such cases, as lawyers for the workers have described it.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2004
Sandoval may act on Yucca dust issue
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada might pursue allegations that Energy Department contractors failed to protect Yucca Mountain workers from toxic dusts and covered it up afterward, state Attorney General Brian Sandoval said Monday.
Sandoval said he is troubled by issues raised in an amended lawsuit filed Sept. 1 on behalf of former workers who have contracted silicosis and other lung diseases they blame on their work in the tunnels bored into the mountain ridge from 1992 to 1997.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, seeks consideration for class-action status on behalf of "thousands" who worked in and visited the tunnels dug as part of the government's nuclear waste repository effort.
"I have reviewed the lawsuit and believe it raises grave issues of possible corruption, malfeasance and deliberate violations of law by Department of Energy contractors," Sandoval said in a letter to Gregory Friedman, the Energy Department's inspector general.
The workers blame their lung ailments on inhaling dust laced with silica, including erionite, a cancer-causing fibrous mineral. The lawsuit alleges that Yucca contractors disregarded early warnings about possible worker overexposure to harmful dust.
"Thousands of people working or visiting in the tunnels apparently were exposed to potentially life-threatening levels of silica and other carcinogenic dusts," Sandoval said. "Some of the workers have already contracted silicosis."
Sandoval said the lawsuit is detailed and extensive, mostly drawn from DOE and contractor records. He said the state will determine whether the matter "warrants action by state authorities."
Bob Loux of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects said state authorities might start criminal investigations of the firms involved.
"If their actions were willful and knowledgeable, I suspect there would be violations of state law," Loux said.
Sandoval told Friedman the allegations "clearly warrant a thorough investigation by your office, which I assume is already under way."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2004
Steve Sebelius: A dissenting opinion
On Sunday, with two months to go before Election Day, my esteemed colleagues at the Review-Journal threw the newspaper's support to President George W. Bush.
This is most unfortunate.
Bush's record in the four years since winning a majority of votes on the U.S. Supreme Court -- if not the country -- has been an abysmal failure, especially in the prosecution of the war on terror, which many cite in polls as his strongest credential. And especially in Nevada -- victim of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump -- the reasons to vote against the president are more plentiful than consultants working the campaign of Bush rival U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
The Review-Journal would have you believe that Kerry's anti-Yucca stance is an eleventh-hour conversion for the purposes of winning the battleground Silver State. But even if that's true (and prior Kerry votes on the matter suggest it's not) Kerry still surpasses Bush. If the newspaper really believes that a non-burial cure for nuclear waste is just 50 years away, then Kerry's the clear winner, as only Kerry has suggested chucking the idea of Yucca in favor of researching ways to dispose of the waste more safely.
Bush, by contrast, has uttered a string of non-sequiturs and pushed the dump with unusual vigor. If he's re-elected, the dump is on for sure. If Kerry is elected, there's at least a chance it will be stopped.
The Review-Journal worries about regulations affecting the environment, land use and the workplace, and a foreign policy "designed to please no one but the Spaniards and the French." (No knock on Kerry is complete without comparing him to the French, the ultimate attack on manliness.)
But Kerry would be a welcome relief to an administration that has let polluting, logging and power-generating industries write their own regulations. (I'm guessing, of course, because Vice President Dick Cheney still refuses to release the list of people who helped him craft the administration's energy policy.) Kerry at least would pursue clean air, clean water and healthy forests initiatives, programs that would evoke more John Muir than George Orwell.
As for foreign policy, Kerry understands something that Bush clearly doesn't: America is not alone in the world. It's better to work with as many allies as possible toward a common goal rather than pursue a belligerent, go-it-alone foreign policy that makes more enemies than friends. There are times when America might have to go it alone, but Bush hasn't encountered a single legitimate instance. For him, going it alone is the rule, rather than the exception, and that is a dangerous thing.
The Review-Journal tells us that Kerry gave comfort to the enemy by speaking out against the war when he returned from fighting it. But Kerry did the right thing by trying to end a war birthed on a lie, carried on by ignorance and ended only after far too many died. Would that he deigned to speak out against the Iraq war in the same way, because the parallels are striking.
We're asked to believe that having Bush, Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the job after 9-11 was a comfort. In fact, it should be anything but. Bush and Cheney consistently linked the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, when no one has ever produced evidence to prove it. (The editorial curiously omits a single mention of Iraq.) Bush, Cheney and Powell all used suspect intelligence to lead the nation into war, and all have engaged in pathetic justifications of their actions since. Rumsfeld, who has been heard to say that attacking Iraq post-Sept. 11 was better because "there are better targets in Iraq," has been tarnished by prison abuse scandals that at least one report traces to his office suite. It's highly unlikely a Kerry team could do any worse; at the very least, they'd try to fight the right war and not a sidestep into imperialistic nation-building.
And let's dispense right now with the fiction that Bush's leadership has stayed the hand of al-Qaida since 9-11. "There's a reason there has been no second attack here -- he has the enemy scurrying from hole to hole," the editors write. Well, then, was it former President Bill Clinton's leadership that prevented another domestic attack from the first World Trade Center bombing until Sept. 11? And does anybody believe that any U.S. president -- Bush, Kerry or anyone else -- will ever go soft on terrorists "and give the gibbering mullahs time to rebuild their strength"?
"A great man is not a perfect man, but rather a man who finds the strength to overcome his own flaws, and then to lead others to unlikely triumph over great adversity and great odds," the newspaper concludes. But the problem is, Bush hasn't overcome his flaws; he's indulged them. And the world is a more dangerous place for it.
Bush for president? The Review-Journal has never been more wrong, and heeding its advice has never been more dangerous.
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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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 13, 2004
4,000 cheer Edwards at Reno campaign stop
Anjeanette Damon
In a brisk speech to more than 4,000 Reno supporters, Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards laid out his case for America to elect John Kerry president, accusing President Bush of making a mess in Iraq and siding with corporations against the American family.
“He has had choice, after choice, after choice and every time he has stood with the drug companies, the insurance companies and the oil companies of America,’ Edwards told the cheering crowd from a stage outside Morrill Hall on the University of Nevada, Reno´s Quad.
“Isn´t it about time we had a president that will actually stand up and fight for you?’
Edwards, a North Carolina senator who made his fortune as a trial attorney, began life as the son of a blue-collar mill worker and was the first in his family to graduate from college. He and Kerry have based their campaign on ending the “middle class squeeze,’ which they say is caused by hikes in the cost of health care, college tuition and gas prices.
But Edwards took time Monday to attack Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on Iraq, saying Kerry is the stronger candidate to bring stability to the region by building an international coalition.
“We will restore the image of America that all of us love,’ he said. “America the shining light, beacon of freedom, democracy and human rights that the world looks up to. That beacon will be lit when John Kerry is president.’
Edwards also took Cheney to task for telling voters that terrorists would attack America again if Bush isn´t re-elected.
“This statement was intended to divide us. This statement was calculated to divide us,’ Edwards said. “And to divide us on an issue of safety and security for American people, here´s the truth: It´s un-American.’
Reached by telephone after the speech, Earlene Forsythe, Nevada Republican Party chairwoman, accused Kerry and Edwards of voting against legislation that would have helped reduce health care and prescription drug costs.
She added that she thinks Bush better reflects what Nevadans want in a leader.
“I think he´s in alignment with the American people,’ she said. “When 9/11 came, the whole world has changed and he had to devote a lot of his effort toward the terrorists and fighting the terrorism globally.’
Before Edwards´ speech, the Bush-Cheney campaign put out a prepared statement by two Nevada doctors that criticized Edwards for opposing caps on jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits.
The statement also included comments from state Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, who said Kerry´s environmental policies would hurt the mining industry in Nevada and cost jobs.
Northern Nevada black, Hispanic and American Indian leaders spoke before Edwards´ address.
“We are standing with you today, with the Democratic Party, because we are the party of inclusiveness,’ said Arlen Melendez, a Vietnam War veteran and chairman of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony. “We are the party that represents people of all walks of life.
“This country needs new leadership that will meet with groups that represent Native Americans, blacks, Latinos and Asians,’ Melendez said.
Emma Sepulveda, a UNR literature professor and president of Latinos for Political Education, led the crowd in a chant of “No mas Bush,’ or “No more Bush.’
“The message from the Latino community is that we don´t want a president who speaks Spanish to us, but turns around and supports English-only legislation,’ she said.
Melendez said the Bush-Cheney campaign´s criticism of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry´s war record has divided the country and caused divisions “even among our Vietnam veterans.’
“That should never happen. We should never question the honor or the medals of our veterans,’ Melendez said.
Edwards´ Reno speech was a medley of excerpts from his now famous “Two Americas’ speech — written when he was a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination; the address he gave during the Democratic convention; and stump speeches he´s been delivering on the campaign trail over the past couple of weeks.
Other than praising U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Edwards´ only reference to the Silver State was on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
“When John Kerry is president of the United States, there will be no nuclear waste dumped at Yucca Mountain,’ he said, repeating a promise Kerry has made in Las Vegas.
Edwards closed with a call to action, conjuring images of a single mother worried about her future, a brother who is collapsing under debt and a soldier in Iraq. His message to them: “Hope is on the way.’
Immediately after the speech, Edwards flew to Portland, Ore. He did not take questions from Nevada reporters.
Margo Bender, a Reno nurse and Kerry supporter, said Edwards´ speech touched all of the points she is concerned about: education, health care and the war in Iraq.
But for the first time a candidate from the Kerry campaign has visited Reno, Bender thought his speech was too short.
“I thought it would last longer,’ she said. “But I´m glad for anything. Nevada is such a conservative state, I felt alone. Now, I know I´m not. People are energized.’
Don Kowitz, 54, of Reno, came to the event to help him decide how to cast his vote. He´s a Republican, who voted for Bush in 2000, but he hasn´t been happy with the president´s leadership style, calling it “aggressive and in-your-face.’
After the speech, Kowitz said he still hadn´t made up his mind, but thought Edwards “made some good points.’
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Nevada Appeal
September 14, 2004
State approves $16 million for new tax system
Geoff Dornan
Nevada officials on Monday voted to release $16.3 million for the Department of Taxation to fund a new Unified Tax System vendor contract and implement new taxes approved by the 2003 Legislature.
Taxation Director Chuck Chinnock told the Board of Examiners, which consists of Gov. Kenny Guinn, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, most of the money, $11 million, will go to the vendor implementing the new tax computer system.
But Chinnock said more than $2.6 million will pay for 46 additional positions in his department needed to handle the workload in tracking down and registering businesses in the state so that they pay the new business tax. They are in addition to 55 new positions approved by the Legislature.
He said his staff and the Legislature anticipated up to 150,000 businesses but now believe the total number they must contact to see whether they should pay the tax will eventually reach 300,000.
The board also approved a lease with Clark County Aviation that will provide 51 acres near McCarran International Airport for a new Armory complex. Miles Celio of the Military Department and State Lands Administrator Pam Wilcox told the board this is the first step in purchasing the land rather than leasing it.
Celio said the federal government wants to see the land agreement completed before releasing $13 million toward the $23 million project.
Guinn pointed out the remaining $10 million will have to come out of an extremely tight Capital Improvement Projects budget this coming biennium.
The board voted to raise the cap on the legal contract between the state and the Washington, D.C., law firm Egan & Associates from $4 million to a maximum of $10 million. Egan & Associates represents the state in its protest against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project. The board also extended the contract through the end of September 2005.
Sandoval told fellow board members any actual expenditures in the legal battle over the dump will be brought back to the board but that the limit must be increased now to allow lawyers to proceed with preparations for upcoming legal appeals. He said the Department of Energy is going to submit its application for a license to operate the dump before the end of this year.
Finally, the board was advised the Department of Corrections has approved a contract to permanently close and demolish Unit 3 at Warm Springs Correctional Center. The prison structure is a modular building more than 25 years old and has become uninhabitable, officials said. Prison crews will take down the building. A vendor will do the rest in return for salvage rights to its steel.
Contact Geoff Dornan at nevadaappeal@sbcglobal.net or 687-8750.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 14, 2004
Kerry to follow today's visit to LV by Bush
By Jace Radke
<jace@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
In a week of campaign visits to Nevada, President Bush was scheduled to make a campaign stop in Las Vegas today to speak with National Guard soldiers.
Bush's visit will be followed by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, who will also speak at the National Guard Association Conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center after he arrives Thursday.
Vice President Dick Cheney was expected to make a speech in Reno on Thursday, and Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards, delivered a 25-minute speech to about 4,000 at the University of Nevada, Reno Monday.
Their visits are just the latest in a string of high-profile campaign events in the state.
Nevada has been named a battleground state -- one of 20 states considered a tossup -- and the campaigns are spending a significant amount of time and energy in the state.
Campaign officials say more visits and events will be planned in Nevada.
On Monday, Edwards criticized the Bush administration's economic and foreign policies and repeated a pledge that Nevada Democrats believe will help the Kerry-Bush ticket carry the state that Bush won in 2000 after Bill Clinton claimed it twice before.
"When John Kerry is president, there will be no nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain," Edwards said to loud applause.
Edwards said President Bush should apologize for Cheney's comments suggesting a Kerry-Edwards administration would leave the country vulnerable to new terrorist attacks.
"The vice president actually said if you don't vote for Dick Cheney and George Bush, if there's another terrorist attack, basically it is your fault," Edwards said from an outdoor stage at UNR.
"This statement was intended to divide us. It was calculated to divide us. And to divide us on an issue of safety and security for the American people -- here's the truth -- it is un-American," he said.
"The president of the United States should be willing to say it's wrong."
The Associated Press reported that before Edwards' speech, police stepped between about 30 Bush-Cheney backers and a dozen Kerry-Edwards supporters who waved signs, chanted and shouted back and forth at each other at a protest organized by the National College Republicans on the edge of the quad .
Gregory Green, 24, a UNR student, wore a large yellow flip-flop sandal around his neck to ridicule what he said was Kerry's frequent change of positions on important issues.
"I don't know how people can know what policies Kerry stands for because he's changed his position so many times on so many issues, like war," said Green, who said he served five years in the Air Force in Iraq.
On Monday the Army's first female three-star general, retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, stopped in Las Vegas to campaign for Kerry and talk about Bush's military record.
"John Kerry decided to come speak to the National Guard in Las Vegas, and Bush then said, 'It sounds like a good idea to me too,' and now he's coming as well," Kennedy said at a rally at a downtown chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "We're going to hear a lot about how President Bush will claim success in Iraq, but more than 1,000 soldiers losing their lives is not a success."
The National Guard Association represents about 45,000 current and former Guard officers, and the group's convention runs through Thursday, when Kerry is scheduled to speak.
Jon Summers, spokesman for the Democratic Party in Nevada said protesters would be in front of the convention center by 11:30 a.m. today for Bush's arrival in Las Vegas.
Also today the Democratic National Committee was scheduled to begin airing television ads in Nevada questioning the Bush administration's commitment to National Guard soldiers.
The ads feature narration stating that National Guard members have answered the call to serve the nation, but Republicans in Washington have let the soldiers down.
The ad states that the Bush administration has been "sending troops into battle without protective equipment," enacting involuntary extensions of duty, and "even pushing a veto on health care benefits for National Guard families."
Also scheduled to speak at the National Guard Association Conference are Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and various military officials.
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MSNBC
September 13, 2004
Nevada Congressmen Confident on Yucca Mountain Battle
KVBC-TV
USA - While Yucca Mountain may win another battle in court, it appears to be losing on the floor of congress. Two of Nevada's congressmen could be signing off on a plan to create even more waste to dump at Yucca Mountain. News 3's Jeff Jaeger reports.
Both Congressmen Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter are backing the President's energy bill. It's the country's first comprehensive energy policy in more than a decade, but the bill could have some irreversible effects on Yucca Mountain.
"If we say no nuclear waste then we have to mean no nuclear waste."
It's a decision that could greatly affect the safety of southern Nevadans.
(Gibbons) "I think for Nevada it's a win-win situation. I can't see any detriments to Nevada."
The President's energy bill creates a future for nuclear power in the country, a future that includes adding at least 50 new nuclear power plants and dumping the waste from that energy at Yucca Mountain.
(Johnson) "It means more nuclear waste and how can we as Nevadans say that's ok."
Both Gibbons and Porter say the push for new nuclear plants is necessary to the country's power grid.
(Porter) "If we don't start the roadmap today for the future, we won't have energy."
(Gibbons) "If nuclear energy is still going to be around in the upcoming decades, then I think we'll have new technology out there that's going to solve this waste problem."
But that remains the looming question: What do we do with the waste...?
"It's irresponsible to keep perpetrating nuclear waste, to keep generating nuclear waste until we figure out what to do with it instead of where to put it."
Gibbons and Porter are relying on individual power plants to solve the waste problem before it makes its way to Nevada... And are certain Yucca will become a thing of a past.
(Gibbons) "A simple energy policy does not mean that Yucca Mountain is going to take place."
(Porter) "We are adamantly opposed to storage at Yucca Mountain and I believe by 2010 there are going to be other alternatives."
Gibbons and Porter both tell me the state will win the Yucca Mountain battle in court... And the waste problem is best handled on site at individual plants. The President's energy bill will also give tax credits to companies who build nuclear plants, or further their technology.
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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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