Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
June 08, 2005
Reid has new senior assistant
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid has hired a new senior assistant to manage his Nevada initiatives in Congress.
Heather Urban began work Monday as Nevada operations and legislative director for Reid, the Senate's Democratic leader. Urban, 30, was hired from the office of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., where she held a similar job.
Urban will work on public lands, education, health, gaming and Yucca Mountain bills, and will manage the Nevadan's efforts to secure federal spending for the state, according to a Reid announcement.
A native of West Chester, Pa., Urban will supervise a 12- to 14-person legislative staff.
Urban replaced Kai Anderson, who worked on Reid's staff for nearly six years. This month, he joined Cassidy and Associates, a Washington lobbying firm.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
June 08, 2005
Letters to the Editor
Circular reasoning in Indian decisions
I read with interest the article “Judge denies plea to halt nuclear dump’ about the Western Shoshone´s valiant, though so far unsuccessful, effort to prevent establishment of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump on ancestral land.
The federal judge ruled that the tribe couldn´t stop the opening of the Yucca Mountain project on the dubious grounds that the opening of the waste dump hasn´t happened yet; the same article reports that the federal government had earlier ruled that the tribe couldn´t reverse the taking of their lands on the equally dubious grounds that that had already happened.
So, it´s too early to stop Yucca Mountain before it opens; but after it does open, why, then it will be too late to stop it! Following the same twisted logic, it´s difficult to see why we´d ever charge people with, say, attempted murder — or, for that matter, why we´d ever charge them with murders we believe they´ve already committed.
It is often said that “judge’ is just a polite word for “lawyer’ and connotes no particular wisdom or impartiality. Perhaps this is too unkind — but say what you will, you can´t say that federal judges don´t know who it is that signs their paychecks!
Mark Montague
Reno
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 8, 2005
Commission may declare PV in state of emergency
Special Meeting Friday on Fire Risk, Weed Abatement
By Doug McMurdo
PVT
The Nye County Board of Commissioners will hold a special meeting to discuss the profound fire risk in the Pahrump Valley and other issues at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Bob Ruud Community Center.
The Pahrump Town Board will conduct a similar meeting at 10 a.m. at the same venue.
Commissioner Patricia Cox called for the meeting on Monday and the agenda was posted Tuesday morning. The commissioners could declare a state of emergency in Pahrump - as well as other areas of the county - accompanied by the creation of a wide-scale weed abatement program.
The timing couldn't be better given the fact that two major brushfires occurred in less than one week, May 27 and again on June 2, leaving two people dead and numerous properties destroyed.
According to the agenda item commissioners could take a number of actions. In addition to the formal declaration of an emergency, possible actions include a $750,000 funding authorization to pay for an aggressive weed abatement program.
The funds might also be used to purchase two or more water tenders - one of the tankers used by the Pahrump Valley Fire-Rescue Service was totaled in a double fatal wreck that occurred May 27 while the driver was en route to an out-of-control burn in southern Pahrump. The purchase of additional equipment for the county such as pumps, hose, fittings and other firefighting tools, to be used by firefighters as well as members of Pahrump's construction industry, is also on the agenda.
Radios, batteries and chargers that could be used by private water tanker operators are also on the purchase list, along with proper clothing and gear for volunteer firefighters.
It is also possible the commission could establish protocols for reimbursing private citizen donations of equipment and manpower.
Key to the agenda is a plan for public outreach designed to educate citizens on the very real danger posed in the valley. Local media outlets have been asked to participate. The local television stations and KNYE Radio will be asked to offer daily fire danger alerts as part of their newscasts. The newspapers will be asked to provide weekly "fire forecasts."
A wetter than average winter has resulted in a thick blanket of weeds that covers the valley from end to end. The overabundance of growth has not been so profound in Pahrump in two decades.
Now that summer's close and triple-digit temperatures are on the way, the danger intensifies as the weeds dry out.
If approved, the funds would come from the county's Payments Equal to Taxes paid by the Energy Department for its study of Yucca Mountain, the proposed storage site for the nation's high-level radioactive waste.
Controlled burns have been banned since May 27 and will not be permitted again until late fall, if then.
In the meantime, citizens are urged to clear weeds from their property and certainly from around their homes or outbuildings. Be cautioned that the mufflers on lawnmowers can start brushfires so use due care.
Friday's meeting was initially scheduled to be held at the commissioners' offices at 250 N. Highway 160. The venue was changed to the community center - located on the northwest corner of Highway 160 and Basin Avenue - after it was determined a good number of citizens might want to attend.
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Nuclear Engineering
June 08, 2005
Yucca Mountain water science is found to be sound
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has reportedly concluded that despite accusations of fraud and falsification, analyses of water flow through the proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository site are technically sound.
Findings of US Geological Survey hydrologists on how surface water might infiltrate the waste storage tunnels are consistent with other research done on the mountain. "The net infiltration estimates are technically feasible," Yucca Mountain deputy director John Arthur apparently said.
Nonetheless, while the figures are credible the DoE will not use them in its licence request for the proposed site on the grounds that the integrity of the data has been brought into question following the discovery on a number of emails in which scientists working on the project discussed fabrication of the data.
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WCAX
June 08, 2005
Next stop for dry-cask storage plan: PSB
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. The next stop for Vermont Yankee's plan to store highly radioactive waste in dry casks on the nuclear plant's grounds in Vernon is the Public Service Board.
Plant spokesman Robert Williams says now that lawmakers have given Vermont Yankee the O-K to do so, it will make its formal application to the board for dry-cask storage within a few weeks.
Plant officials say they're running out of room to store spent nuclear fuel in a pool of water inside the plant for that purpose.
They say that to continue operating after 2008, they need to begin storing the spent fuel in concrete and steel casks on the plant's grounds.
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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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