Yucca Mountain News Clips - Monday, October 17, 2005

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, October 17, 2005
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The Nevada Observer
October 17, 2005

Why Should We Care About Yucca? Are There Serious Safety Concerns?

by Johnny Gunn

If you are among the few that were amazed by the tremendous lack of interest in the recent EPA hearings dealing with new standards for radiation hazard, it probably means you are among the few who really give a hoot about whether or not Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository comes on line. The concept simply isn't a part of most Nevadan's lives. Should it be?

For the most part those who are to be affected the most either live along the transportation corridors in other states or won't be born for another 10,000 to 250,000 years. One person in Pahrump said at the hearing, why should I be worried about storing nuclear waste? I lived through hundreds of above ground nuclear explosions during the 50s and 60s.

Someone living along a major interstate rail line is more apt to be "nuked" by way of a train wreck than someone living within 100 miles of the repository, even if the most strict radiation standards in the world are put in place. So why the huge fight over radiation standards, placement of a repository in Nevada, alleged lies and fabrications coming from DOE and other federal agencies? It has a lot to do with what in the real world would be called "truth in advertising." In the world of the bureaucrat, getting your way regardless of the truth seems more important in the Yucca Mountain discussions.

There are many reasons not to be in favor of the repository, not the least of which is those proposed standards, standards vastly relaxed from the international norm. But setting that aside for a moment, the repository is only so large, and it's already known that there is more waste existing today than there is available storage space. Couple that with continued building of nuclear power plants nationwide and the continued operation of existing plants, and you have an equation that spells disaster.

Not for those living 10,000 to 250,000 years from now, but for those living near southern Nevada today. Casks piling up, water seepage eating away at the concrete, earthquakes doing the shake-rattle-and-roll thing, and threats of terrorist attacks. Nuclear waste spreading its deadly radiation into the ground water that supplies southern Nevada is very real. Ground water is already seeping into the Yucca Mountain tunnels.

All that aside, it will be railroads bringing hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste through neighborhoods across the country that will pose the greatest threat to Americans. An example of the danger: In Reno there is a new sublevel set of rail lines running through the middle of downtown. Train cars using the trench, as it's known, are longer than the trench is wide. We've all seen pictures of train wrecks hundreds of times, and almost without fail we see railcars stacked into accordion patterns. That wouldn't happen in the new Reno train trench. The cars would be forced upward and outward from the trench.

Now assume for a moment that the train wreck in question is one in which many of the railcars are loaded with high level nuclear waste. Project this potential disaster into thousands of communities from coast to coast, and it is obvious that safety is not a current concern of the DOE or those in charge of trying to create a central nuclear waste repository.

Reno and most of northern Nevada has been rather blasé about the whole Yucca situation, and it's time for them to understand that the intercontinental rail line across the northern counties will be host to trainloads of high level nuclear waste. Residents in most of the other states will also find trainloads of high energy nuclear waste moving through their state, cities, and neighborhoods.

As was pointed out in congressional hearing recently by Utah Senator Bennett, on-site storage of nuclear waste is the only sensible approach to the problem. But of course that doesn't include the fact that our government in all its shortsightedness made a contract with the nuclear power industry that the government would be responsible for all the waste. This contract was written and signed before Congress or the general public had even contemplated a nuclear waste repository. Nuclear energy producers got away with one for the time being.

No other government in the world has been this shortsighted when dealing with nuclear energy. Every other country that has nuclear energy facilities demands the waste be stored at the nuclear energy site. There are no trains carrying thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste through high-density population centers. There are no vulnerable casks sitting underground and being eaten away by migrating water.

If you are under the impression that moving water doesn't have much of an effect on concrete, drive across any high Sierra pass following spring thaw. The population of southern Nevada will be threatened from the moment those casks are placed underground, not 10,000 to 250,000 years from now. The population of many states and cities along interstate rail lines will be threatened from the first train load to pass through their area.

It's time for the United States Government to come clean with everyone. The contract with the nuclear energy industry was wrong. Say so, pay the reparations, and create a safe system of storage. Work toward creating a safe and sane program instead of ramming it to the citizens you are truly supposed to be representing.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 17, 2005

Political Notebook: Power Plays Recalled

Powerful lawmaker Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., reminisced to a Detroit News reporter about how he has defended the auto industry -- including an assault more than 15 years ago by an upstart senator from Nevada.

Then-freshman Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., undertook a campaign to force automakers to make their products more fuel efficient by raising the government's corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.

Dingell aimed back at Bryan by introducing a bill supporting nuclear waste burial at Yucca Mountain, the Detroit News said in a Dingell profile last week.

"Here's what I will tell you about that," Dingell said with a smile as recounted by the paper.

"One, Nevada had a very good facility.

"Two, it seemed to be a good place.

"Three, we had invested a lot of money (in studying a nuclear waste storage area).

"Four, he (Bryan) was being unhelpful to me on CAFE.

"Five, we were trying to help him understand."

Interviewed last week, Bryan confirmed Dingell ratcheted up pro-Yucca rhetoric around the time the Nevadan was promoting tougher vehicle fuel efficiency in the late 1980s.

"He was a very savvy guy, and his statements were calculated to get my attention," Bryan said. "He rattled my cage, no doubt about that."

Bryan failed to push through tougher fuel economy laws before he retired from the Senate in 2000.

Dingell, who was ousted as committee chairman in the Republican House takeover of 1994, still is a Yucca Mountain supporter.

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or e-mail her at ENeff@reviewjournal.com

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Las Vegas SUN
October 17, 2005

Nuclear irony finds French power company ads in Nevada

By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A French nuclear power company's flashy new advertising campaign promoting new U.S. nuclear power plants has popped up, strangely, in Nevada.

Nevermind that the state would not likely be home to any of Areva's "cleaner, safer, more efficient" power plants of the future and all that bountiful new electricity. But Nevada could be home to the waste.

The Paris-based company Areva, which recently formed a partnership with the firm Constellation Energy with the goal of building a new generation of U.S. plants, launched the $6.5 million advertising campaign in June. National television commercials, newspaper and news magazine advertisements are scheduled to run through November.

The 30-second television commercial zips the viewer along on an animated tour of how nuclear plants work, beginning with the mining of uranium ore for the reactor core fuel rods and ending with a shiny new nuclear plant, set by a blue stream, powering the skyscrapers of a modern city.

Of course, in Nevada, people know that the nuclear power generation cycle doesn't end quite there. It ends with highly radioactive waste coming out of those nuclear reactors. And for now, the nation's plan to deal with the deadly material is to dump it at Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- for permanent burial.

An Areva spokeswoman acknowledged that there was an irony to her company's commercials airing in Nevada.

"I can see where you are coming from," Areva spokeswoman Penny Phelps said said with a laugh, "but we couldn't cut out the airwaves to omit Nevada."

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UNLV Rebel Yell
October 17, 2005

Former congresswoman reads memoir excerpts

Stone Nickelson, Staff Writer

Former U.S. Representative Barbara Vucanovich, R-Nev., reaffirmed her opposition on Yucca Mountain Thursday at a book signing in the MSU.

Vucanovich read excerpts from her memoir, "Barbara F. Vucanovich: From Nevada to Congress and Back Again," which she co-wrote with her daughter, Patty Cafferata.

Vucanovich's opposition to the transfer of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain goes back decades when a similar proposal went through Congress in 1987 known as the "Screw Nevada" bill.

"I find that the scientific community has never made a solid case for the safe storage of nuclear waste," Vucanavich said.

A commission assembled by the Department of Energy under President Bush recently approved storage of nuclear waste materials at Yucca.

Juliana Ormsby of the Women's Research Institute introduced Vucanovich and her daughter to start off the event.

Paul Moradkhan, regional representative for U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, presented Vucanovich with a certificate of recognition in honor of Vucanovich's service to Nevada.

Vucanovich spoke about how she came to write the book.

She said that through the goading of her many grandchildren, she decided with the help of her daughter, to write a memoir.

At first she said she thought the memoir would be arrogant and felt that nobody would want to read what she had to say. But she was later convinced to write it after she participated in the "Letters from Nevada's Daughters" project, an oral history of Nevada Women and their achievements.

She recounted two tales as a former congresswoman.

One was when she first ran for office in 1982.

When one man heard Vucanovich was running for a congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives he apparently replied, "that old bag?"

When she heard the comment, she said she "now has a campaign slogan, 'old bags for Barb.'"

Another anecdote she shared was about when she was in a receiving line at the White House with President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

According to custom, dignitaries stand in line with their partner at their right side. In 1983, with few female politicians holding national office, Vucanovich experienced gender discrimination firsthand.

A Marine guard insisted that the "congressman" line up to the left side.

The Marine kept arguing with Vucanovich to move to the right of her husband.

Feeling sorry for the guard, Vucanovich said she finally complied, and for years afterward she "always responded to the official title of 'congressman' Barbara Vucanovich."

Vucanovich said she enjoyed writing the book and the publishing process.

"At one point my publishers said it was too partisan," Vucanovich said. "[Then] they said it was too short."

Vucanovich's memoir is available at local Border's Books outlets.

It is also online at unpress.nevada.edu.

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Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
October 17, 2005

ACTION ALERT: Urge Congress to stop dangerous nuclear weapons and energy programs

Call your Senators and Representative at 202-224-3121 and urge them to contact the Chairmen of the Conference Committee, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) & Representative David Hobson (R-OH)

SUMMARY: Congress could save taxpayers nearly a billion dollars by simply agreeing to cuts already made in the House and Senate versions of the FY 2006 Energy & Water spending bill (H.R. 2419). The Chairmen of the Conference Committee have the most power over what cuts or increases survive in the final bill. Call your legislators and urge them to tell the Chairmen to accept the House and Senate funding cuts to nuclear weapons and energy programs while preserving the House increases to environmental cleanup and nuclear warhead dismantlement.

TIMING: Valid for the months of September & October, 2005.

BACKGROUND

Differences between the House and Senate versions of the Energy & Water spending bill must be worked out by a joint House-Senate Conference Committee. With the deficit over $330 billion, it is imperative that Congress approve the $1 billion in cuts to nuclear weapons and energy programs that were adopted earlier this year.

Budget cuts that we support include:

* $4 million for research into a nuclear bunker buster that has the potential of a million casualties but would be unable to penetrate many of the deepest targets;

* $7.6 million for a new plutonium bomb plant to mass-produce nuclear bomb triggers;

* $25 million to increase the readiness to resume underground nuclear testing;

* $146 million for constructing the National Ignition Facility for nuclear weapons research;

* $303 million for plutonium fuel fabrication (MOX), a commercial reactor fuel;

* $74 million from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository;

* $85 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, a dangerous and expensive return to reprocessing nuclear waste.

Budget increases we support include:

* $115 million to dismantle nuclear warheads as pledged by the President following the Moscow Treaty;

* $190 million to the environmental cleanup budget for sites to adhere to legal obgligations for cleanup of contamination from U.S. nuclear weapons production.

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has posted this alert to Capwiz (which has already generated over 1,000 messages) at: http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=8067771

A similar alert which has already generated over 11,650 messages to Congress is posted on the Working Assets' Act for Change site at http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19499

Here is a .pdf copy of the action alert. There are four to a page. These can be copied (front and back), cut and distributed as postcards at local events.

Talking Points on New U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs:

For more information, see ANA's new report, Top Ten Department of Energy Radioactive Pork Projects in the 2006 Budget: Wasteful and Dangerous

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
October 16, 2005

Our obligation to the future

By Michele M. Melendez
Newhouse News Service

It´s the human condition : The future looms, and we grapple with how to plan.

Whether the issue is pollution, retirement savings or the state of education in America, politicians, scholars, interest groups and even Mom and Dad talk about leaving new generations a better world, one unencumbered by mistakes adults make today.

Sounds good. But what determines our responsibility to the future? The question has no clear answer, yet purportedly guides how we live.

“It has to do with history and ethics and religion and morality,’ said William Dunkelberg, economics professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. “There´s no law that says we have to think about the future. It´s something that we choose to do.’

Claire Irvan, 31, of Portland, Ore., has given much thought to this topic for her sons, ages 5 and 6. She said she fears deforestation and the country´s reliance on oil will leave her children an unfit planet.

“We have to begin to do things that we know aren´t going to hurt the earth,’ she said. “What are we teaching our children? ... What will be there for them?’

By many measures, American children today are better off than their parents were. Child mortality is down. A higher percentage finish high school and go on to earn bachelor´s degrees. Once-feared diseases and dangers, including polio and lead poisoning, have become lesser threats.

But other problems persist. The federal deficit is swelling. Social Security faces a shortfall. Natural resources shrink as energy consumption rises.

Those trends trouble David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which audits federal programs and spending. Since the country´s infancy, he said, Americans have passed along greater opportunities and living standards. That´s now in jeopardy.

“We are at risk of not delivering on that longstanding tradition,’ said Walker, who preaches “prudence today and stewardship for tomorrow.’

Meanwhile, policymakers and regulators ponder how far into the future they should reach. Sometimes that is far indeed.

In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revised its proposed limits on radiation exposure at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The stated goal is to protect public health for 1 million years.

“Yucca Mountain is a great example of how tangled up you can get under the wrong paradigm,’ said Robert Fri, visiting scholar at Resources for the Future, a Washington-based institute that examines environmental issues.

Fri, EPA deputy administrator during the Nixon administration, chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee in 1995 that—at Congress´ request—evaluated the EPA´s proposed standards for the Nevada site. In his view, the government´s regulatory framework encourages rigid long-term plans for fluid environmental problems that deserve periodic re-evaluation. Regulations crafted today may be inappropriate or meaningless in a million years.

So, he said, the question becomes: “How do you hand off a problem to the next generation in a way that we´re able to deal with, that doesn´t disadvantage them?’

The starting point rests in centuriesold, even ancient, thought.

“There are certain fundamental building blocks that have to be in place in order for people to pursue the kind of life they want to live,’ said Alex John London, associate professor of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “We´re moral equals. You´re free to do what you want as long as you afford me access’ to necessities, including clean water, food, even dignity.

“We don´t owe (future generations) wealth,’ London said. “We owe them a just society and a safe living environment.’

It comes down to values. Historically, defining and practicing a nation´s values have proved challenging. Even families who love each other fight over their beliefs. Try getting a dozen, much less millions of Americans, to agree.

“We don´t have any single tradition of thought,’ religious, philosophical or otherwise, said Mary Doak, assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam all honor human rights, the Earth´s resources and the well-being of children. For decades, scholars have debated how those shared tenets should apply to tomorrow.

Practically speaking, supporting future generations can have a selfish twist, at least in the short term. Children eventually will carry the responsibility for aging adults, said Isabel Sawhill, a vice president of the Brookings Institution and co-director of its Center on Children and Families.

But the responsibility rolls both ways. Sawhill said grown-ups must ensure that children have the skills and knowledge to become productive adults themselves. She said that if adults don´t minimize foreseeable problems that children will inherit, such as the mounting deficit, it amounts to “a form of child abuse. It seems terribly irresponsible.’

Scholars use models, theories and equations to project into the future. They look at history. They chart. They guess. And they could be wrong.

“It´s ridiculous to suggest we would know what things would be like 100 years from now,’ said Paul Thompson, environmental philosopher at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Look at a hundred years ago: The country had just 45 states. Not all women could vote. Movies were silent. A copy of The New York Times cost 5 cents. Las Vegas had no telephone lines, let alone twinkling casinos.

But Thompson said the country can´t use uncertainty as an excuse: “We have to be cautious about we do today.’

THE VOICE OF CHILDREN

Children are counting on it.

Miranda Taylor-Weiss, 11, a sixth-grader at Sunnyside Environmental School, a public school in Portland, said she wants communities to be safer.

“When you´re grown up, you shouldn´t have to go outside and be abducted,’ she said.

Schoolmate Kyle Ebberts, 12, in seventh grade, said he hopes for more research and development of alternative sources of fuel.

“I don´t necessarily plan on getting a car when I get older,’ he said, adding that he cringes when he sees the rainbowshimmery spots left behind by cars: oil wasted. “It just really sickens me.’

Michele M. Melendez can be reached at michele.melendez@newhouse.com.

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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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