Yucca Mountain News Clips - Monday, September 20, 2004

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, September 20, 2004
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 20, 2004

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Bush, Kerry far apart in giving access to media

President has kept his distance in visits to Nevada this year, while Democratic challenger has granted wide-ranging interviews

By Erin Neff
Review-Journal

Nevada has been deluged this presidential election year with numerous visits from candidates, millions of dollars in television ads and dozens of outside groups registering voters.

But the two campaigns have taken different approaches in media accessibility.

In three visits to Nevada this year, President Bush has done no media interviews. He did smile and wave when a question was shouted to him during his tour of the International Carpenter's Union Training Center.

In four visits to Nevada this year, Sen. John Kerry has made himself available to media all four times. That includes one-on-one chats or interviews done with small groups of reporters. Topics included Yucca Mountain, Iraq, gaming, foreign relations, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and homeland security.

After his most recent round of interviews with local media members Thursday, Kerry promised to return and to hit Northern Nevada.

"Absolutely, we'll be back," he said. "We have to get to Reno, too."

Limo talk

Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Secretary of State Dean Heller got to ride in President Bush's limo from the airport to the Las Vegas Convention Center last week.

So the president's political adviser, Karl Rove, pricked up his ears with interest when the two were asked what they talked about with Bush.

"They hammered him on Yucca Mountain," Rove said, smiling.

Sandoval and Heller said Yucca Mountain did come up during the ride.

Bush has been criticized for approving the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the nation's nuclear repository, despite numerous unresolved scientific issues.

Democrats hammer Bush for a 2000 campaign statement in which he promised to base any decision on "sound science, not politics."

"The president said he would respect the court's decision on it," Sandoval said of the remarks in the limo.

Ad campaign

The ad war continues in Nevada with new ads expected this week from John Kerry and groups aligned with him.

A new Kerry television ad attacks Vice President Dick Cheney and his former employer, Halliburton, noting that Cheney received $2 million in deferred compensation from Halliburton as vice president. He served as the contractor's chief executive before taking office.

The ad claims Halliburton also profited by reaping "billions in no bid contracts in Iraq."

The Democratic National Committee began running a radio ad on black stations in five states, including Nevada.

And the Media Fund, a left-leaning 527 group, last week launched a $5 million campaign aimed at blacks between ages 18 and 35.

Its ads tell blacks "don't keep getting played" by Bush.

Getting to know them

Find out just what's in a name tonight when the Charleston Neighborhood Preservation Group hosts a candidate forum for the Justice Court Department 9 slot at 6:30 p.m. at the West Sahara Library.

Candidates are Joe Bonaventure, son of the district judge with the same name, and Bernie Zadrowski. Both candidates have confirmed they will be there.

The Las Vegas League of Women Voters will hold its candidates' night Tuesday at the Sawyer Building. The event is not a debate but offers candidates a chance to sell themselves. It starts at 6 p.m.

Temple Beth Sholom in Summerlin will hold its candidates' night at 7 p.m. Oct. 12. This debate features the candidates in the 3rd Congressional District, Clark County Commission District F and Assembly districts 2 and 13.

Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or ENeff@reviewjournal.com.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 19, 2004

Bush, Kerry in tight race in Nevada

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Bush and Democrat John Kerry are running about even in Nevada, a statewide poll released Sunday found.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal poll showed Bush with 50 percent and Kerry with 45 percent in the battleground state targeted heavily by both candidates.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader had 1 percent, with undecided voters at 4 percent.

The telephone poll of 625 likely voters was conducted Sept. 13-15 by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In a July poll for the Review-Journal, Bush had 46 percent and Kerry 43 percent.

“Right now, I´d say the state is leaning Bush,’ said Mason-Dixon´s Brad Coker, who attributed the results to the bounce Bush got from the Republican National Convention, which ended Sept. 2.

“Kerry didn´t get much of a convention bounce, and Bush did,’ Coker said.

But Eric Herzik, a political scientist and dean at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the race is tight.

“I don´t think Nevada is a safe Bush state,’ said Herzik, a Republican. “Bush has clearly weathered Yucca Mountain, but I think he´s vulnerable on the war.

“The Democrats are hitting him really hard on the war now.’

The poll also found that one-fourth of those surveyed think the war on terrorism was the most important issue in the November elections. Iraq was second with 17 percent, and the economy trailed closely at 16 percent.

The issue of whether to bury the nation´s nuclear waste at Nevada´s Yucca Mountain barely registered, with only 3 percent of respondents saying it was the most important issue.

A separate question concerning Yucca Mountain´s influence on the race showed little movement from a previous July poll.

The majority of respondents in both polls said Yucca Mountain will have no influence on their vote.

Mason-Dixon also conducted a separate poll for the Review-Journal on the issue of Yucca Mountain. Bush favors the project, while Kerry opposes it.

The poll found 50 percent favored fighting the dump and 46 percent thought the state should negotiate with the government. Four percent had no opinion.

Asked the same question in a July poll, 54 percent preferred to continue the battle while 39 percent favored negotiations.

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Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2004

By Michael Finnegan
Times Staff Writer

LAS VEGAS — After months of struggling to find a theme to capture the essence of his candidacy, Sen. John F. Kerry has settled on one: The election, he says, boils down to a decision between four more years of "wrong choices" or a "new direction."

Since Labor Day, the Democratic presidential nominee has stuck to that theme relentlessly, using it to shape arguments on Iraq, the economy and nearly all other topics he broaches.

To some Democrats unnerved by President Bush's recent surge in the polls, Kerry's adoption of a clearly defined theme to draw contrasts with the Republican incumbent offers a measure of hope. The question for Kerry is whether this new approach to framing the election comes too late to matter.

"He's shifting the game plan in the fourth quarter here," said Joe Tuman, a San Francisco State University political communications professor. "It's coming very late, and that doesn't speak well for how they're managing their campaign." The thematic adjustment coincides with an expansion of Kerry's top circle of advisors. Amid widespread concern among Democrats that Kerry's candidacy has floundered, several former Clinton White House aides and other seasoned campaign operatives have joined his strategy team.

One of the most visible results is the change in rhetoric. Earlier attempts by the Massachusetts senator at clarifying his message — among his slogans were "Let America Be America Again" and "Stronger at Home, Respected in the World" — had little effect, analysts say.

"You had a lot of mush," said Tim Hibbitts, an independent Oregon pollster.

With the election a little more than six weeks away and debates looming as the last predictable milestone of the race, he added, "they don't have a lot more time to try out new themes."

Mike McCurry, former press secretary to President Clinton and now a senior Kerry advisor, said the "wrong choices, new direction" theme should "crystallize the choice" that voters face.

"A referendum on where people think the country is, they lose," McCurry said of the Bush campaign.

In his travels around the country, Kerry has applied his "wrong choices" theme to prescription drugs, civil rights, gun control, education, Halliburton defense contracts and stem-cell research.

"George Bush made the wrong choice," Kerry told a Las Vegas reporter who asked Thursday about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump here in Nevada, which Bush has approved and Kerry opposes.

"And what's interesting is that now that he's made the wrong choice, he's so stubborn, he won't change his mind and move in a better direction. It's like Iraq. It's like the budget deficit. It's like what's happening on healthcare, where people are losing their healthcare. Wrong choices."

The "wrong choice" mantra serves as a device for Kerry to raise doubts about Bush's character and credibility. By turning each time from "wrong choices" to the "new direction" in which he vows to take the country, Kerry has also tried to clearly define his own agenda, which remains elusive to many voters, polls suggest.

In a Detroit speech on the economy, Kerry hammered Bush last week for "the wrong choices that always give more and more to those with the most," then promised to "lead this country in a new direction" with tax credits for healthcare, college tuition and clean fuels for automobiles.

For Kerry, this thematic framework could work as a counterpoint to Bush's charge that he vacillates.

With a steadiness that Kerry's campaign has found hard to match, Bush has used the accusation as a template for attacks on matters as large as Iraq and as trivial as what kind of car Kerry owns. No matter the topic, Bush and his allies have cast Kerry as a wavering politician unfit to lead a nation that needs a strong and consistent commander in chief.

"The person who has been most effective in defining Sen. Kerry as a flip-flopper is Sen. Kerry, because he has repeatedly taken both sides of all the important issues," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

Still, even some Republicans say Kerry's new theme could be effective, but strategists say his biggest problem is timing. Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, said Kerry's new theme could have produced "pretty powerful results" in the spring by driving two trends: Bush's declining job approval ratings and the rising number of voters who saw the country as moving in the wrong direction.

But now those trends are no longer in place. Since August, Kerry has spent weeks on the defensive over his Vietnam War military service and his stands on Iraq while Bush's standing has been on the rise. So the Democrat is "shooting up the mountain instead of shooting down the mountain," Fabrizio said.

"If what you're trying to do, when you're running against an incumbent, is to explain why they should be fired, the question is are you talking about it when people are apt to be of that mind, or when people are starting to think things are better?" he said.

Thomas Hollihan, associate dean of USC's Annenberg School for Communication, said Bush largely succeeded in turning the race into a referendum on his challenger rather than himself, but Kerry's new theme carries potential to reverse that dynamic. "If people hear it often enough," he said, "they're going to remember it."

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Palm Beach Post
September 20, 2004

Nevada's five electoral votes could be jackpot in presidential election

By Scott Shepard
Cox News Service

LAS VEGAS — In his remarks at a National Guard convention here last week, President Bush humorously reminded the boisterous conventioneers of this city's slogan: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

That may be true for the high-rollers drawn to this city's glittering strip of hotels and casinos, but not so with the presidential election this fall. What happens in Las Vegas and, consequently, in Nevada, could decide who sits in the White House next January.

More than 5,000 new residents arrive each month in Clark County, home of Las Vegas, making Nevada the fastest growing state in the nation. And with one in five Nevadans now Latinos, the demographic changes underway in the state are giving Democrats hope of taking the state away from Bush this fall.

It won't be easy, even Democratic organizers agree. All but one of Nevada's statewide elected officials are Republican, always an indication of a party's strength in an upcoming presidential election.

But the Bush camp is concerned enough that the president himself has reportedly suggested an investigation of possible fraud in the voter registration drives under way in Clark County.

Nevada's five electoral votes, small in comparison to most battleground states, is a much sought-after prize by both parties. Events last week illustrated just how important the state is to the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

Not only were Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry here last week to address the National Guard convention, but Kerry running mate John Edwards was in Reno last Monday and Vice President Dick Cheney followed him there on Thursday.

It marked the first time in Nevada history that all four candidates on the Republican and Democratic tickets campaigned in the state in the same week.

"It's never happened before, never even come close," said state archivist Guy Rocha. "It's just a testament to the fact that Nevada is a significant battleground state for these two campaigns."

Bill Clinton carried the state for the Democrats in his successful presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. But in 2000, Bush won Nevada in against Democrat Al Gore by 21,597 votes, a comfortable margin in an historically tight election.

But local polls last week showed Bush with 51 percent and Kerry 47 percent, a statistical tie, given the polls 4.4 percentage point margin of error.

It's easy to find voters who reflect the divide.

"We need a president who stands up for what he believes, then acts on it," said Raynette Eitel, a Las Vegas housewife and Bush supporter. "We don't need a president who puts his finger into the wind to find which way it is blowing."

But Frank Perna, an environmentalist, is angry with Bush for continuing to support the storage of nuclear waste at nearby Yucca Mountain, in contrast to Kerry's opposition to those plans. "Science has taken a back seat to politics," he said.

And, of course, Vegas being Vegas, everybody has a schtick, even about politics.

An Elvis impersonator, one of many in Las Vegas, volunteered while posing for photographs on the Vegas Strip: "John Kerry's gotta win for president, people, you hear me. Take it from me, Elvis Presley, vote for John Kerry. Thank you very much."

Last month, for the first time since Bush's election, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in party registration in Nevada – 384,492 to 383,745.

Part of the credit for that surge past the GOP goes to Andres Ramirez, a 26-year-old Las Vegas native whose group, Voices for Working Families, is part of an umbrella association of 33 organizations registering voters in key states.

Ramirez has focused most of his attention on the influx of Hispanics to the Las Vegas area. And so far, he has registered 23,324 new voters, a number – he points out – that betters Bush's margin of victory in the state in 2000.

The deadline for registering to vote in Nevada is not until Oct. 3, and Ramirez hopes to add another 12,000-17,000 new voters to the Democratic rolls by then. After that, "it comes down to getting out your vote," he acknowledged.

Since 2000, Nevada has added nearly 100,000 Hispanics to its population. In the 2000 election, about 40 percent of eligible Hispanics voted there. In the 2004 election, Ramirez is aiming for at least a 55 percent turnout.

Although more Hispanics identify themselves as Democrats than Republicans in national polls, Bush took an estimated 35 percent of their votes in 2000. Bush campaign officials have said the president will need about 40 percent of the Latino vote to win this fall, and they have "Viva Bush Coalition" teams in 30 states, including Nevada, trying to woo Latinos.

Nevada "Viva Bush Coalition" chairman Luis Valera did not respond to requests for information about his organization's voter registration.

But the Democratic efforts in Nevada are clearly a growing concern for the Bush campaign team.

The Las Vegas Sun reported Thursday that during his visit here Tuesday, the president and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, expressed concern about the possibility of voter fraud in Clark County.

The newspaper said the president and Rove raised their concerns to Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Secretary of State Steve George during the car ride from the airport to the Las Vegas Convention Center for the president's speech to the National Guard Association of the United States.

The president "brought it up and was very concerned," Heller said, and, as a result, federal investigators may be called upon.

"No decision has been made at this point, but (the Department of Justice) would either assist (local officials) or undertake their own separate investigation," Heller spokesman Steve George said.

Scott Shepard's email address is sshepard@coxnews.com.

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Tiffin Advertiser Tribune
September 20, 2004

Where'd Kerry put wastes?

Presidential candidate John Kerry is pinning his hopes in Nevada on a single issue, the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Because Kerry says he opposes the plan, many Nevadans say they'll vote for him.

President Bush has supported the plan to use Yucca Mountain as a safe site where nuclear waste from throughout the country can be stored. Exhaustive scientific studies back the president and, it is important to note, Congress; Yucca Mountain appears to be a secure site.

But Kerry is banking on NIMBY - not in my back yard - syndrome being displayed by Nevadans. He hopes their reluctance to accept the Yucca Mountain plan will help to put him in the White House.

What, then, if Kerry is elected? If he keeps his pledge, Kerry must find somewhere else to store nuclear waste, or allow it to remain at hundreds of sites where, experts warn, the potential for trouble is high.

It is unlikely, by the way, that a national repository better than Yucca Mountain can be found.

Kerry has painted himself into a corner that may appeal to Nevada voters. It certainly should worry those in the 49 other states.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 19, 2004

Percentage who favor making deal on Yucca project grows

Fewer support fighting effort to build repository for nuclear waste

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A growing share of Nevadans say in a new poll the state should accept a nuclear waste repository and try to deal for benefits in return, although they remain less than a majority.

Asked whether the state should continue to fight or negotiate with the federal government over the Yucca Mountain Project, 50 percent said fight and 46 percent said deal.

"That's tightening; it's a lot more balanced than it has been in previous polls," said Larry Harris, a principal with Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., the Washington, D.C.-based firm that conducted the survey for the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com

"Maybe there's more of a sense of inevitability about the reality of (a repository) happening," Harris said.

The poll of 625 registered voters was conducted Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

Four percent of Nevadans had no opinion on how state leaders should proceed.

Asked the same question in a July poll, 54 percent preferred to continue the battle while 39 percent favored negotiations.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the poll results were suspect because respondents were asked their opinion after being told Yucca Mountain "has been approved as a repository of high level nuclear waste."

Although President Bush and Congress designated Yucca Mountain, "it hasn't been approved for anything," Loux said. He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet to dissect the science behind the repository, a licensing process which will take years and will be hotly contested.

"We have never been closer to winning this issue than we are now," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.

A federal court this summer threw out a key repository safety standard, causing federal agencies to scramble for a response. Congress has been unable to find Yucca funding for next year's budget. A review board decertified an Energy Department document database, ordering repairs that could take months and throw off project timelines.

But although those matters have occupied lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats, "a lot of it is so much inside baseball. The average person doesn't understand," said Irene Navis, Clark County nuclear waste planning director.

Former Nevada Gov. Bob List, a paid consultant to the pro-repository Nuclear Energy Institute, said he sees a growing acceptance of the project. He said some people believe Nevada leaders should feel out the government for benefits while continuing to battle.

"I think that's a real number," List said of the poll result. "I get that message from even hard-core opponents of the project, and I think that's probably a very sound measure of the current mood."

There has been a frenzy of Yucca Mountain activity over the summer, including visits to Las Vegas by the presidential candidates that generated headlines about the repository and television commercials from both campaigns.

Nevadans may be experiencing Yucca fatigue.

"Yucca has been so in their face for the last two or three months. They have been so overwhelmed by ads on the issue," said Paul Seidler, who performs contracts for the Nuclear Energy Institute and Lincoln and Esmerelda counties.

"People are seeing through the fact the issue is being used as a political football, and that probably is making them more cynical," Seidler said.

"I don't sense fatigue at all in the community," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. "I think they are asking questions. We have 5,000 to 6,000 new people a month who don't understand the history."

"I think people are tired and thought it was inevitable, but it's not," said anti-repository activist Peggy Maze Johnson, head of Citizen Alert. "A majority is still telling us to fight."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 19, 2004

PRESIDENTIAL RACE: Bush makes gains in new polls

Lead in Nevada now at 5 percentage points

By Erin Neff
Review-Journal

President Bush has a little more breathing room in Nevada, according to a new poll that shows him with a 5-point lead over John Kerry.

The poll of 625 likely voters conducted for the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com shows Bush favored over Kerry 50 percent to 45 percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader has 1 percent and undecided voters are at 4 percent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

"Right now, I'd say the state is leaning Bush," said pollster Brad Coker of the Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the phone survey Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Bush's edge is up slightly from the 46-43 lead he had over Kerry in a July poll for the Review-Journal.

Coker attributed the results to the bounce Bush got from the Republican National Convention, which ended Sept. 2.

"Kerry didn't get much of a convention bounce, and Bush did," Coker said.

The Bush-Cheney campaign credited the improvement to more information being made available to Nevada voters about Kerry.

"It's an indication that as Nevadans learn more about the choices they face, they prefer the positive message of George Bush," said Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for the campaign.

But Schmitt and Democrats both said they still consider the race very close.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., referred to other polls that have Nevada either closer or leaning to Kerry. A recent Harris poll has Kerry up 1 point, he said.

"I think this race is a dead heat," Kerry Nevada spokesman Sean Smith said. "This shows that our message of change, stopping Yucca Mountain and bringing down the costs of health care is resonating."

The poll also asked which issue was most influential in the decision on who to vote for in the November elections for national offices.

One-fourth of voters said homeland security and the war on terrorism was the most important issue. That 25 percent figure is up 10 percentage points from where it was in July. Iraq was second with 17 percent, and the economy trailed closely at 16 percent. The issue of whether to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain barely registered, with only 3 percent of respondents saying it was their most important issue.

"I don't think Nevada is a safe Bush state," said Eric Herzik, a political scientist and dean at the University of Nevada, Reno. "Bush has clearly weathered Yucca Mountain, but I think he's vulnerable on the war.

"The Democrats are hitting him really hard on the war now," said Herzik, a registered Republican.

A separate question concerning Yucca Mountain's influence on the presidential race showed little movement from July. Those surveyed were asked whether Bush's approval of the repository made them more likely or less likely to vote for him. In both polls, 6 percent said the president's action made them more likely to vote for Bush. The majority of respondents in both polls said Yucca Mountain will have no influence on their vote.

National polls suggest Kerry's best issues are domestic and Bush's best issues are the war on terrorism and homeland security.

The biggest change in this poll from the July poll is the dissipation of support for Nader.

In July, Nader had 4 percent support, which had dropped to only 1 percent in the current poll.

"Nader's faded out," Coker said. "He's not going to be a factor in this election."

Herzik said one of the more interesting results of the poll came in the favorable-unfavorable category.

Bush remained fairly steady in the current poll, with 47 percent favorable compared to 39 percent unfavorable. He was at 46 and 40 in July.

But Kerry's unfavorable rating increased and is now higher than his favorable rating.

In July, Kerry was viewed favorably by 37 percent compared to 32 percent unfavorable. His favorable rating remained at 37 percent, but 43 percent of poll respondents now view him unfavorably.

"That's never good," Herzik said. "You don't want the unfavorable to be greater than the favorable."

Anne Sheridan, Kerry's Nevada campaign manager, noted that Kerry did not advertise in August and still thinks the race is "very competitive."

"We were down all of August, as we planned to be, and you expect something in the balance," Sheridan said of the lack of commercials. "What we're seeing out in the field is that people are really starting to pay attention and get energized for Kerry."

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San Francisco Chronicle
September 19, 2004

Bush, Kerry remain locked in tight race in Nevada

President Bush and Democrat John Kerry are running about even in Nevada, a statewide poll released Sunday found.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal poll showed Bush with 50 percent and Kerry with 45 percent in the battleground state targeted heavily by both candidates.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader had 1 percent, with undecided voters at 4 percent.

The telephone poll of 625 likely voters was conducted Sept. 13-15 by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In a July poll for the Review-Journal, Bush had 46 percent and Kerry 43 percent.

"Right now, I'd say the state is leaning Bush," said Mason-Dixon's Brad Coker, who attributed the results to the bounce Bush got from the Republican National Convention, which ended Sept. 2.

"Kerry didn't get much of a convention bounce, and Bush did," Coker said.

But Eric Herzik, a political scientist and dean at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the race is tight.

"I don't think Nevada is a safe Bush state," said Herzik, a Republican. "Bush has clearly weathered Yucca Mountain, but I think he's vulnerable on the war.

"The Democrats are hitting him really hard on the war now," he added.

The issue of whether to bury the nation's nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain barely registered, with only 3 percent of respondents saying it was the most important issue.

A separate question concerning Yucca Mountain's influence on the race showed little movement from a previous July poll.

The majority of respondents in both polls said Yucca Mountain will have no influence on their vote.

Mason-Dixon also conducted a separate poll for the Review-Journal on the issue of Yucca Mountain. Bush favors the project, while Kerry opposes it.

The poll found 50 percent favored fighting the dump and 46 percent thought the state should negotiate with the government. Four percent had no opinion.

Asked the same question in a July poll, 54 percent preferred to continue the battle while 39 percent favored negotiations.

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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San Diego Union Tribune
September 18, 2004

Campaigns heaping attention, cash on state as never before

By John Marelius
Union-Tribune Staff Writer

MESQUITE, Nev. – When Peggy Maze Johnson is on the road, nobody tailgates her.

That's because the longtime environmental activist cruises the highways of Nevada towing a flat-bed trailer holding a huge white replica of a nuclear waste canister.

Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, is one of the leading crusaders against the proposal to bury highly radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants under Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"They want us to take the deadliest substance known to mankind," she fumed as she tried to drum up opposition in this Interstate 15 pit stop on the Utah border. "We have no nuclear power plants in the state. So why is it our patriotic duty to have this stuff?"

The political and legal battle over Yucca Mountain has been raging for more than two decades. But this year it has emerged as a defining issue in one of the nation's fiercest presidential battlegrounds.

President Bush finessed the issue in his 2000 campaign, but two years later authorized the Department of Energy to proceed with the project. Democrat John Kerry has promised to shut it down.

Nevada is a historical nonentity in presidential politics.

"Normally, the only time a candidate saw Nevada was when he was flying over on his way to or from California," said Eric Herzik, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada Reno.

This time around, however, the presidential campaigns are lavishing attention and money on Nevada like weekend gamblers from California – all for a modest jackpot of five electoral votes. And Nevada is becoming increasingly important as a number of the original 16 or so battleground states appear to be breaking one way or the other.

All four members of the major-party tickets – Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Kerry and running mate John Edwards – campaigned in Nevada during the past week. None of them went on to California.

"The girls are always prettier around closing time," said Ted Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "Buck-toothed, flat-chested, near-sighted Nevada is now the belle of the ball."

Every recent statewide poll has Bush and Kerry neck and neck, and Nevada handicappers, who will bet on just about anything, don't even try to call it.

"It's dead even money," Jelen said. "I wouldn't bet you a nickel right now either way."

As far as presidential campaign issues go, analysts say the war in Iraq, while highly polarizing, plays about the same in Nevada as everywhere else. The economy, on the other hand, does not.

Originally a mining state, Nevada's flourishing gambling and tourism industry gives it the luxury of essentially using other people's money to pay for a substantial portion of public services.

There is no state income tax, and even after the post-9/11 tourism collapse, none was seriously considered. As a low-tax state, Nevada has lured manufacturing and warehousing businesses from California and created an emerging high-tech industry.

Correspondingly, there has been a huge influx of people from around the country willing to put up with stifling desert heat for job opportunities and relatively affordable housing.

Analysts say Bush's emphasis on tax cuts plays well in the Silver State, and that Kerry's focus on rising health care costs taps into a vein of anxiety. But, they say, the Democratic ticket's Rust Belt-oriented economic message about job losses and outsourcing falls flat.

"There's concern about the economy but it's a different kind of concern, and the candidates should be cognizant of that," Herzik said. "We're not Ohio."

Outsourcing in particular is a nonissue in Nevada, Jelen said.

"We're not going to outsource casino workers, restaurant servers, certainly not hookers," he said.

Yucca Mountain, however, creates multiple odd political cross-currents. There is bipartisan opposition to the project within Nevada's political establishment, and the state has gone to court to stop it.

This leaves two of the state's top Republican elected officials, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, in the awkward position of leading the campaign of a president they are suing. Both gingerly address the issue by saying only that they and President Bush "agree to disagree."

Meanwhile, a growing number rural elected officials are endorsing the project as a source of jobs and commerce for their economically struggling areas.

"There's no better place in the United States to store nuclear waste," said Henry Neth, chairman of the Nye County Board of Commissioners, whose county includes Yucca Mountain. He believes the county will gain 10,000 to 15,000 jobs from the project.

He also dismisses environmental concerns about possible groundwater contamination.

"There have been 1,000 nuclear weapons detonated underground in Nevada," Neth said. "Now if one person can show me how it's possible that stored waste can do more damage, then I might change my mind. But it's impossible."

Followers of Nevada politics question whether Yucca Mountain will impact the Nov. 2 election in the way Democrats hope. They predict that, other than hard-core anti-Yucca Mountain activists, Nevada voters will base their decision on the same issues as other Americans – the war in Iraq, the economy and leadership style.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Nevada political newsletter The Ralston Report, said longtime Nevadans have grown weary of the Yucca Mountain fight and that newcomers don't understand it.

"I think the vast, overwhelming majority of voters when they cast their presidential votes are not going to have Yucca Mountain anywhere near the forefront their minds," Ralston said. "But because the race is so close, 2,000 people who are going to use this in their vote could make a difference."

- John Marelius: john.marelius@uniontrib.com

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Reuters
September 18, 2004

Concert Review: Crosby, Stills & Nash

By John Lappen

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Woodstock generation was out in full force as Crosby, Stills & Nash, defining icons of that era, performed a solid set rife with their trademark harmonies, self-deprecating verbal jabs and a blend of new songs mixed with classic favorites.

Thirty-six years into a career that plays out like a musical time capsule of world events, political turmoil, numerous wars and, by now, several generations of fans, Crosby, Stills & Nash feel like a worn, comfortable coat that slips on easily and keeps one warm.

Not only do they still sound great and possess an undeniable chemistry, both as performers and friends, but several of this night's songs were as appropriate now as when they were first recorded. Indeed, with the world divided on U.S. military actions in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan, "Military Madness" came off just as timely as it did when Graham Nash wrote and recorded it in 1971.

David Crosby threw in his two cents when he blithely prefaced "Night Time for the Generals" by commenting, "I've pissed off pretty much every part of the U.S. government over the years, so I want to give back by dedicating a song to the CIA."

It's sometimes easy to overlook the band's strong political stances and pointed social commentary when lyrics to musical statements like Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" are encased in jagged, edgy Stephen Stills guitar solos, or when the darkness of the lyrics to "Wooden Ships" is softened by the beautiful harmonies that emanate from this trio's still silver throats.

Each got a chance to shine, though Stills sat offstage on several occasions as Crosby and Nash ran through songs from their most recent release together and first album of original material in almost 30 years, "Crosby-Nash" (Sanctuary Records). Most affecting of the duo's new material was "Lay Me Down," written by Crosby's son, keyboardist James Raymond, and Nash's dreamy "Milky Way Tonight." Stills joined in on a muscular version of the new "Don't Dig Here," a wry but pointed look at the futility of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Stills' raging guitars licks on showcases like "Love the One You're With" and "Woodstock," where he won a fiery duel with Mike Finnigan's Hammond B3 by a hair, were a great counterpoint to the more acoustic-based inclinations of Crosby and Nash. He also got off the best line of the night when he mentioned that CSN first played the Greek 34 years ago, but that "Crosby wouldn't remember that because he was so f---ed up."

The evening concluded with Crosby's paean to personal freedom "Almost Cut My Hair," "Wooden Ships," a torrid "Woodstock" and "Teach Your Children." It was a night for those who still like to fly their freak flag at least at half-mast to relive old memories, as delivered by three veteran performers who are able to accommodate those nostalgic wishes with skilled ease.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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Portland Press Herald
September 18, 2004

Dennis Hoey
Portland Press Herald Writer

WISCASSET — The columns supporting Maine Yankee's nuclear reactor dome lit up and crackled like fireworks Friday before explosives dropped the huge structure to the ground with a thunderous boom, sending a white plume of smoke and dust skyward. Once the air cleared, a crowd of more than 200 observers could see that the dome - a symbol of the controversial plant - remained mostly intact on top of a pile of rubble. During the next two months, it will be hammered into pieces and taken by rail to a low-level radioactive-waste storage facility in Utah. Spent nuclear fuel, which was removed months ago, is being stored in Wiscasset.

"Are those guys good or what?" Eric Howes, Maine Yankee's spokesman, said of the demolition crew from Controlled Demolition Inc. of Maryland.

About 1,100 pounds of explosives were placed in holes drilled into the structure to topple the reinforced concrete dome, which was designed to withstand earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricane-force winds.

The 20 million-pound structure collapsed in less than two seconds. An early morning fog lifted before the explosion took place, and everything went as planned, Howes said.

The dome demolition was one of the final steps toward completing decommissioning of the nuclear plant. Howes said all that will remain on the 150-acre parcel known as Bailey Point will be a field and a graveyard of concrete caskets that will store spent nuclear fuel until the federal Department of Energy can move the waste to a facility planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Optimistic estimates have Yucca Mountain operating in six years, but those familiar with the project say political and funding issues could delay its opening far beyond 2010.

Ray Shadis, spokesman for Friends of the Coast, a nuclear watchdog group, worries that the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, or ISFSI, could become a terrorist target.

"This (the dome's destruction) doesn't really do anything for me. It's nothing more than a symbol," Shadis said. "The message I want to get across is that what's left are containers of high-level waste that will be with us for the foreseeable future."

Maine Yankee started producing electricity in 1972. Plant officials stopped production Dec. 6, 1996, because it was no longer economical. Over its life span, the 900-megawatt facility generated 118 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. The plant is owned by Central Maine Power Co. and about 10 other utilities.

For some, Friday's demolition was a spectacle to be recorded in pictures and on video. Others expressed mixed emotions.

Jim Gilbert and his wife, Rachelle, brought a half-dozen children from their home school in Bath. The couple thought the explosion would be a good learning experience for their students.

"It was huge and very loud," said Jubal, their 8-year-old son.

Andrea Delano of Wiscasset, a Maine Yankee radiation-exposure technician, stood solemnly and watched as the dome crashed.

Delano has spent the past 11 years at the plant, and will be laid off in February. Her father worked at Maine Yankee for 24 years. In order to spend more time with him as a child, she would play in the plant's turbine hall.

"I feel a little sad," she said. "Plus, I am working my way out of a job."

For Don Schuman, the owner of a bed and breakfast in Edgecomb, the demolition was bittersweet. When he worked as a school teacher in Connecticut, he participated in demon- strations against the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant. He also opposed a state plan to require that he post evacuation procedures in his guest rooms at Cod Cove Farm Bed and Breakfast.

Schuman, 62, says he has become more appreciative of nuclear power. He is a member of the Community Advisory Panel that was formed in 1997 to disseminate information about the plant's decommissioning.

"I feel it's a shame that this plant was shut down early," Schuman said. "I think the anti-nuclear groups made so much noise that Maine Yankee just decided to pack it in."

John Overhiser Sr. drove to Wiscasset from Trumbull, Conn., to witness the destruction of the reactor dome. His son, John Jr., has worked for the past three years at Maine Yankee as a safety coordinator.

Overhiser stood near the ISFSI, snapping photographs of the storage casks. "I think (the waste) will end up staying here because nobody else wants it," Overhiser said. "It's a legacy from the nuclear age."

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Brattleboro Reformer
September 18, 2004

Dynamite fells dome

By Carolyn Lorié
Reformer Staff

WISCASSET, Maine -- Watching 1,100 pounds of dynamite ripping through and collapsing 20,000 million pounds of concrete and steel felt a lot like standing too close to a parade as the drums go by.Multiplied by a thousand.

As the dynamite ignited, a momentary flash raced up the pillars holding up the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant containment dome. Within a fraction of a second, smoke billowed out the open spaces between the columns. Then they disappeared as the dome crashed down.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the mighty bang and reverberation the 200 or so spectators who gathered to watch the dome drop, cheered heartily.

Within minutes, pneumatic hammers, also known as hoe rams, began pulverizing the massive cap.

Soon it will all be gone.

"It was sort of bittersweet," said Tedd Feigenbaum, president of the plant, after it was all over. "It really marks the end of Maine Yankee as a nuclear power plant, but it went off safely."

Before being decommissioned in 1997, 11 years before its license was to expire, Maine Yankee produced almost 25 percent of the electricity used in the state. It was one of the oldest plants in the country, having come on line in 1972, four years after construction started. Costing $231 million, the plant was licensed to operate until 2008.

But it didn't.

Depending on who you ask, the plant was a smooth-running, well-oiled machine that shut down because of financial constraints and anti-nuclear zealotry. Or it was a disaster of a place, posing the threat of an even bigger disaster.

"It was a good plant to start with," said Adolph Bannister of Connecticut, who helped engineer the decommissioning plan. "It was a good running plant. It was just public opinion that kept it from being uprated."

This was not a sentiment that Linda Spaulding of Freeport agreed with.

"The farther [away] it is, the better," said Spaulding, whose son worked at the plant during the decommissioning phase.

People in the area first began protesting the plant in earnest in 1979, after the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown.

Thousands marched from Wiscasset to the statehouse in Augusta that year, carrying with them a petition calling for a statewide referendum on plant. It asked if the citizens of Maine wanted to phase out electrical generation by means of nuclear fission. In other words, should the only nuclear power plant in the state be shut down?

In 1980, only a third of the Wisacasset residents voted yes, as the plant coughed up 96 percent of the town's taxes every year. Across the state, 41.9 percent of the voters approved. Mainers were divided over the issue.

But whatever rancor the debate once stirred, seven years after the question was finally settled it all seems to have, if not dissipated, at least lost its fervor.

The crowd gathered about 1,000 feet from the dome on Friday morning had all the tension of an audience waiting for a fireworks display. There was a sense of excitement hanging in the air, despite the fact that plenty of the spectators were industry people, even former employees of the plant.

There were also a number of key players from the anti-nuclear movement, including Ray Shadis of the New England Coalition. Shadis has lived in Wiscasset for more than 30 years.

While there was no one selling kitsch at the event, had there been, it would not have seemed out of place. There were children playing with Matchbox cars in the sand, babies propped on their mothers' knees and plenty of chatter and laughter.

"It's like a family reunion," joked a man wearing a Maine Yankee personnel badge, as he shook hands with another man.

A lot of the spectators were family members of Manafort Brothers employees. The company has been in charge of the decommissioning process.

"My husband talked about it all the time," said Annette Martin of Norway. "I've never seen it up close and I wanted to see the big boom."

Prior to the big boom, 13 million pounds of concrete and steel were cut from the walls of the containment building to create the columns. While the dome is 212 feet thick, the walls were almost twice that. Holes were drilled into the sides of the columns, where the explosives were placed to bring down the 150-feet high dome.

Though the fabric and chain link fence enveloping the pillars kept debris from flying around, the collapse spewed fourth a miasma of dust.

Soon afterward, a fine mist wafted over to the crowd. It settled on people's hair and cameras and children. It was inhaled as folks chatted, where it left a gritty chalk-like sensation in the mouth. No one seemed especially concerned.

An information sheet given out by Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes stated that plant officials expected that the dust would not be contaminated. They nonetheless planned to monitor for radiological release.

According to Howes, the building had to be blasted in order to bring the dome down to where the hammers could reach it. Torches will be used to cut the interior steel liner, which is 38-12 inches thick.

Once the hoe rams finish demolishing the dome, the 20,000 million pounds will be loaded onto railroad cars and shipped off to a low-level waste dump in Utah. The project should be wrapped up by early spring.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not release the plant's license, however, until it inspects the reactor site and determines that it has been cleaned to its standards, explained Feigenbaum.

Four hundred and thirty of the company's 700 acres have already been sold to a private development company based in Greenwich, Conn. Another 200 acres will be donated to the Chewonki Organization for conservation and environmental education.

Approximately 10 to 15 acres, however, will remain under the control of Maine Yankee indefinitely. That is the space holding the 60 dry cask storage units, which are holding 24 fuel rod assemblies each.

Until the federal repository in Yucca Mountain, Nev., takes in every last one of the more than 1,400 assemblies, Maine Yankee must keep the area under the watch of security guards 24 hours a day. After years of delay, Yucca is slated to begin receive shipments by 2010. Many consider that date to be overly optimistic. Many doubt that the site will open at all.

But there was little attention focused on the casks on Friday morning, though the crowd stood just yards from them.

All eyes were on the dome and all thoughts seemingly caught up in what its destruction signified.

For the company, it was the culmination of good planning and hard work. Maine Yankee was decommissioned on schedule and within the set budget.

"It was a very successful project," said Howes.

For others, it marked the end of a long a career. Like Feigenbaum, Mike Everingham of Topsham found the experience "bittersweet." He has worked at the plant for 25 years.

"Having the plant shut down seven years ago was disappointing but for those of us who stayed around to decommission it, it's almost the end of a job well done," he said.

Everingham expects to be laid off permanently in the spring. He will not work again, but will instead start his retirement by taking off in his camper with his wife Peggy.

By 11 a.m., one hour after the big event, most of the crowd had dispersed and the cloud of dust dissipated.

After giving numerous interviews to television and newspaper reporters, Ray Shadis was one of the last to leave. Though he was instrumental in closing the plant down, the day was little more than the icing on the cake for a battle won seven years ago.

"I'm glad that it's over with," said Shadis, as he walked away from the rubble.

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Pahrump Valley Times
September 17, 2004

Doug McMurdo

Taking back the mountain in the political night

Yucca Mountain is not in Clark County. It is in Nye County. It's our mountain. Nye County is not a suburb of Las Vegas. Not yet, anyway."

According to Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino, between 300 and 400 new voters registered too late to participate in the Sept. 7 primary, but one can bet they'll be ready for action come Election Day.

In fact, I'd wager a few hundred more might sign up prior to the Oct. 12 deadline to vote in the Nov. 2 general election. This is the question that must be asked: Is the surge in voter registrations related to a certain candidate or ballot question - or is the rush of a suddenly civic-minded citizenry simply a reflection of unbridled growth?

The answer is probably a little of both. Clearly the fact more that than 1,000 folks, and counting, have moved to Pahrump this year has something to do with swollen voter rolls. But for the life of me I can't figure out what issue or candidate, at least on the local level, could trigger such an avalanche of voter registrations.

The only answer left that could be attributed to Pahrump's wholesale rockin' of the vote, logically, is the presidential race. And that puts the Nye County electorate in a unique situation. All of the smart people proclaim Nevada as one of 22 battleground states that will decide who will reside in the White House in January. If the number of visits from Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards are any indication, the candidates certainly believe Nevada's five electoral votes are critical to their respective political ambitions.

And of all the issues that Nevadans face - serious water worries, off-the-chart growth, crumbling highways, public lands, Medicare, educational inadequacies - the Yucca Mountain project is the topic these two candidates believe we worry about.

Once in the White House President Bush endorsed Yucca Mountain. This wasn't too long after he said he wouldn't while campaigning in the Silver State in 2000. Kerry has said he would keep nuclear waste out of Nevada, yet he has a pretty solid Senate record of voting pro-Yucca Mountain.

If the mountain is the issue that will decide Nevada, then I think it's time the powerful political operatives in Vegas and Reno take note of one fact that never gets mentioned in or out of the state: Yucca Mountain is not in Clark County. It is in Nye County. It's our mountain. Nye County is not a suburb of Las Vegas. Not yet, anyway.

For the record Las Vegas, one gazillion population, is 100 miles southeast of Yucca Mountain. Pahrump, 31,103, is less than 50 miles from the mountain. Tonopah, 2,811, is about 90 miles north and Beatty, 1,080, is 20 miles east. Amargosa Valley lies 20 miles south. And the folks in Amargosa Valley, those poor, poor people, are down grade from the mountain, meaning the water that flows under Yucca flows into the farming community of 1,262 human beings.

We don't know about you but we're a bit perturbed neither of the candidates, nor any of their mouthpieces, have ever uttered the words Nye County when speaking of the mountain. Hint: we're the home team.

One would think the site to store the deadliest substance on the planet was parked in the shadows of the spaghetti bowl in Vegas, or next door to the UNR student union - not smack dab in the middle of Nye County.

Since folks living outside of Nevada apparently think a nuclear waste repository would only impact Vegas, and thus they don't care, the candidate who came to Nye County for a heart-to-heart with the very people in harm's way would make for compelling TV.

Bush or Kerry could invite journalism's heavy hitters to make sure the world sees there is more to Nevada than the bright lights of the big city.

The candidate that paid a visit to Nye County might mosey on down to Amargosa Valley. There he could talk to Ed Goedhart of the Ponderosa Dairy. Goedhart puts many a cow in the stall every day. Does either candidate realize Goedhart's company supplies most of Nevada with its milk? Let's hope those early warning monitoring wells pick up leaked radionuclides mixing in with Amargosa's groundwater - and hopefully before the community becomes home to the state's next mysterious cancer cluster.

Either candidate could travel just about anywhere in Nye County and he'd hear the same old song when it comes to the mountain. The words might sound a lot like resignation, but they are really more of a pragmatism based on empirical evidence.

Sing it like it was one of those old-time country-western tunes: "The government owns Nye County, just about 98 percent; she gives us money for our trouble, helps us pay the rent.

"And if she wants Yucca for a repository, we know we'll take it like a great big suppository, because the government owns Nye County, just about 98 percent."

See, you newly registered 300 to 400 voters have to understand the Yucca Mountain project is not an issue here in the county where it sits. And the hypocrites elsewhere in Nevada who seem to fight against Yucca Mountain with great passion are just making political hay.

My advice is to go with the candidate that realizes what the real issues are in Nevada - serious water worries, off-the-chart growth, and crumbling highways, public lands, Medicare, educational inadequacies ...

Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com.

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KVBC
September 17, 2004

John Kerry's Stance on Nevada

Mitch Truswell Reporting

John Kerry heads to Colorado today, pushing his plan to reform health care if he is elected. Yesterday, the Democratic Presidential candidate stopped in Las Vegas . He spoke at the National Guard Association convention. President Bush addressed the same group Tuesday.

Yesterday, I had the chance to talk one-on-one with Senator Kerry about Yucca Mountain . In his words, the Bush Administration is trying to shove the project down the throats of Nevadans.

"It's been in the works for 20 years... and its cost this country millions already."

But that's not a reason, in Senator John Kerry's eyes, to continue with a radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain .

"We've seen several analyses that say this is less than what it ought to be in terms of security. So it's up to a President to make a wise decision, not a special interest decision."

That, Kerry believes, is what's guided the Yucca Mountain policy.

Under the Bush administration, he says, even the sound science promised, is not holding up.

"What George Bush is doing and special interest is doing is ignoring science. But not only ignoring science but be prepared to lessen the radiation standards if they can in order to do it."

He's talking about a Court of Appeals decision that the Department of Energy takes another look at its 10-thousand year radiation standard. The DOE based its safety projections on those 10-thousand years. The court said that may not be long enough to protect the public's health. For now, Kerry says nuclear waste should stay where it is.

"The movement of nuclear materials across the country is not without its own dangers. Dry cask and pond storage we have today is in fact safer and more effective. Now if you have something that is dangerous you don't do it."

That's a promise Kerry says he plans to keep. Kerry says nuclear waste should be kept where it is now. He says it should stay there until technology finds better ways to transport or store it. President Bush wants less writing from the nation's doctors.

The President made health care the focus of his campaign speech yesterday in Blaine , Minnesota . He says modernize. Mr. Bush says doctors should be using computers instead of scratch pads. The President says converting health care records to computers will save patients money. He also told voters there are safety issues that keep the government from allowing drug imports.

"I know it sounds attractive to some, the importation of drugs, and it may work. But sure enough, if we're not careful, drugs manufactured in the third world that we have no control over could use Canada to get into this state. And then we've got a problem, a safety problem."

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Modesto Bee
September 17, 2004

Jay Ambrose: Kerry not so complex, after all

Scripps Howard News Service

(SH) - He had given his reporting-for-duty salute and was roughly in the middle of his acceptance speech when John Kerry said that "there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities." He went on to say that he did see them because "some issues just aren't all that simple."

Oh, the cheering. The crowd was in love.

The fact, though, is that the assertion of his complexity is less an accusation by critics than an applause line of supporters. President Bush, they would have you know, is slow, uncomprehending, something of a dolt, while their guy deals with the multiple layers of reality, is subtle, highly intelligent, a master of nuance.

I will grant that Bush is inarticulate, as he conceded in his own acceptance speech at his own party's national convention. I will also grant that Kerry sometimes puts words together very impressively. But just as a stumbling tongue is no sure evidence of a stumbling brain, a nimble one does not necessarily show depth, especially when that nimble tongue soon contradicts itself or finds facile rationales for opportunistic positions.

Where was the complexity when Kerry recently said that a congressional failure to extend a ban on so-called assault weapons meant that Bush was making "the job of terrorists easier"? Is this self-advertised hunter aware that the banned weapons are no greater in their capacities than many hunting rifles? If Mr. Complexity wants to ban the assault weapons, why not ban the hunting rifles, too? And do his analytical gifts really lead him to the conclusion that al Qaeda operatives will be walking into gun stores in the future to purchase weapons banned for no better reason than that they looked threatening? Has he considered that the terrorists' chosen weapon on Sept.11, 2001, was box cutters?

To be fair to Kerry, it is true that Bush had it both ways on this issue - he said he was for extending the ban while doing nothing to persuade Republicans in Congress to get going. Bush, though, is the complex one on Nevada's Yucca Mountain. That's where the federal government has agreed to deposit nuclear waste.

Kerry wants to drop Yucca. He says transporting the waste from nuclear plants to the site could be dangerous and that the site might not be absolutely safe. Has he considered that nuclear wastes have been safely and carefully transported in this nation for decades without incident? Does he realize that wherever the wastes are sent, they will have to be transported? Is he aware that the wastes pose many times the danger in the 39 states where they now reside than they would in an underground site that has been studied for 20 years, and that it might well take another 20 years to find another site that comes close to being as sound?

Bush is on the side of science, wanting to move ahead with the project. Kerry is on the side of an intellectually unadorned pursuit of Nevada's electoral votes.

Let's get to Kerry's economic plan. He wants to cut the federal deficit in half. To get there, he plans to tax higher-income groups more. But that won't help because he also plans to spend that money on new and enlarged programs and to enact new cuts in middle-class taxes. How, then, will the deficits get smaller? I confess that the puzzle is too complex for me. Bush, while not much better, is not nearly so grandiose in spending ambitions.

The plain, honest, down-to-earth truth is that much of what Kerry's fan club calls complex is often just incoherent, as when he votes to authorize the war in Iraq and makes the case that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, then says it is the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and claims that Bush misled us into the war by saying Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

"Isn't he sophisticated?" his advocates then ask. No, he isn't, any more than he was when he criticized Bush for wanting to bring troops home from South Korea and Germany - a proposition he had himself said he would entertain two weeks earlier.

A discussion of issues approximating the complexity of those issues isn't about to happen soon in a presidential contest, but there is something we can reasonably hope for: less demagoguery, some honesty about difficult choices and consistency of vision.

Contact Jay Ambrose, director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard Newspapers, at AmbroseJ@shns.com.

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Living on the Earth
September 17, 2004

Aging Nukes

CURWOOD: The owners of 90 nuclear power plants across the United States are asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to increase the amount of power their plants can generate. The move would also boost their profits.

One of the plant operators seeking this change is the Entergy Corporation, which owns Vermont Yankee, one of the nation´s oldest nuclear plants. Entergy wants a 20 percent power increase, or uprate, as it´s called, for Vermont Yankee, but the bid has attracted protests because of the plant´s age and safety problems.

Joining me now is Eesha Williams who covers the nuclear power industry – and Vermont Yankee - for the Valley Advocate newspaper in western Massachusetts. Using Vermont Yankee as a starting point, he´s here to talk about the controversy over this latest trend in the nuclear power business. Hello, Eesha. Thanks for joining me.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, it´s good to be here.

CURWOOD: Why is Entergy seeking to increase the power there?

WILLIAMS: They will generate 20 percent more power. They can sell that, make 20 percent more profits without major investments in the plant. They´re in business to make money and they see this as a good way to do it.

CURWOOD: So how well has the plant performed? I mean, how reliable is it? And what kind of problems has it had?

WILLIAMS: Vermont Yankee, by and large, has been a very reliable source of energy. It´s only in recent years, as the plant has aged, that it´s had a few problems. This year, cracks were discovered in a critical component at the plant. Actually, 20 cracks. There was a fire in a non-radioactive part of the plant that required the plant to be shut down for almost three weeks.

CURWOOD: What about the question of compromising safety by increasing the power output? The companies – what do they tell you is the margin of safety that´ll happen even if this plant were to go up by 20 percent in power generation. They must be presenting convincing evidence to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that they can do that safely. What is that evidence?

WILLIAMS: Well, Steve, that´s an excellent question, and to be perfectly honest, it does increase risk. There is an increase. You run this power plant 20 percent harder, hotter, faster than its ever been run before at a time when it´s developing cracks, it´s over 30 years old. It´s been running 24 hours a day almost seven days a week for 32 years. This does increase risk.

What is Entergy´s say? They say this plant was over-designed when it was designed back in 1967, the engineers incorporated extra protections – just like when they build a bridge, they design it for the worst possible hurricane times ten. Vermont Yankee was built to withstand more than the worst possible accident that could happen. But ultimately, the safety margins are reduced.

The federal government has estimated that 7,000 people would die within a year of a serious accident at Vermont Yankee. And, in fact, just early September this year, Vermont, for the first time of any state in the country – any one of the so-called uprates, or power increases – the state of Vermont has intervened, has petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the right to have a hearing to express its concerns about just this issue, about safety.

CURWOOD: Now what´s the public response been to Entergy´s request to increase the power at Vermont Yankee?

WILLIAMS: Well there´s only been one hearing so far in the area around Vermont Yankee. The town is called Vernon, a town of about 2,000, where Vermont Yankee is based. And the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent of a group of high-ranking officials from its headquarters in Washington to come out to Vernon. And they held the hearing at the elementary school, which is right across the street from the nuclear power plant, and I think they were surprised. I think it´s fair to say they were surprised by the turnout. Over 500 people turned out. I was at the hearing. It lasted far beyond when it was supposed to end – it started at seven o´clock at night and went I think about till midnight. And I think it´s fair to say that 99 percent of the speakers were adamantly opposed to the uprate, to the power increase at Vermont Yankee.

CURWOOD: And why did they say they were opposed?

WILLIAMS: People are concerned about the waste. There was never a deal between Vermont Yankee´s owners and the people in the towns around it that there´d be a permanent nuclear waste dump in their town for 10,000 years. They were given assurances that this waste would be shipped to Nevada to the desert to be buried under Yucca Mountain. And now that is very much in doubt. In fact, John Kerry has said that if he´s elected he will not let Yucca Mountain open.

CURWOOD: So where will Vermont Yankee´s waste go, if not to Yucca Mountain?

WILLIAMS: Vermont Yankee´s waste – 500 tons – is now sitting in what they call a spent fuel pool. It´s like a giant swimming pool, it´s 40 feet deep and it´s seven stories high, in this tall building on the side of the Connecticut River. That pool has been what they call “re-racked.’ Basically they´ve re-arranged it so they can fit more waste in it than it was intended to hold. The way that pool works is that – and the reason nuclear power plants are always by a large body of water, a river, an ocean – is that they need huge amounts of water. Tens of thousands of gallons every hour to cool down this waste. If that water ever stops flowing around that waste a nuclear fire would take place, and that would cause terrible consequences.

CURWOOD: So, what does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission look at when it considers whether or not a power plant, a nuclear power plant, can increase its power?

WILLIAMS: Well, that´s a good question, and that´s much in the news these days. Maine Yankee, which was another nuclear power plant similar to Vermont Yankee – that was closed in 1997 following an investigation, an independent safety assessment which was demanded by the public, by the communities around the plant and by then-governor Angus King of Maine. And due to this real rigorous public pressure the NRC appointed independent observers and conducted a very rigorous inspection. Thousands of hours of engineers were crawling over this plant. They found so many safety problems at Maine Yankee that the owners found it cheaper to just close the plant than to fix all the problems. Now with Vermont Yankee, critics say the NRC is being much less rigorous.

CURWOOD: So what do you think the odds are that the NRC is going to approve a power increase for Vermont Yankee?

WILLIAMS: Well that´s the big question in Vermont. The NRC has said it will issue a decision by January. There´s never been this kind of public opposition. A state has never asked to intervene with the NRC regarding an uprate application, or power increase application. The Congressional delegation for a state has never intervened in this way and requested a Congressional investigation. So, at this point it´s anybody´s guess. But if you were a bookie in Las Vegas, you´d look at the NRC´s history. And it´s 90-plus “yes´s,’ zero “no.’ So, that would make it seem that the odds are pretty good that Entergy will get at least some uprate. Maybe not 20 percent, but at least some amount of power increase for Vermont Yankee.

CURWOOD: Eesha Williams covers the nuclear power industry for the Valley Advocate newspaper in Massachusetts. In 2003 he won Vermont´s top award for investigative journalism from the Vermont Press Association. Thanks for taking this time with me today.

WILLIAMS: Thanks Steve.

CURWOOD: Coming up: a plea to keep life as humans have known it for thousands of years in Southern Africa. Keep listening to Living on Earth.

[MUSIC: Jon Anderson “Harptree Tree’ EARTH MOTHER EARTH (Ellipsis Arts – 1997)]

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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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