What is your opinion of the Yucca Mountain issue?

[bushclipper]

Nevada Senator Harry Reid says he'll block Bush administration nominees unless the man he wants is appointed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The fight over confirming 32-year-old Greg Jaczko is another front in Nevada's battle to stop the federal government's plan for a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Jaczko worked with Reid during congressional debate on the nuclear dump last year.

The NRC is the agency that'll review the Energy Department's application to build and operate the repository in the desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Reid's the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate. He says that until Jaczko is appointed, he'll put a hold on the nominations of Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and Navy Vice Admiral John Grossenbacher for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1461752&nav=8faOIFMf

[dfong63]

1. good for reid

[blm]

2. My opinion is that Bush will lose Nevada because of it

and any Democratic candidate who opposed Bush on Yucca will win the state in a landslide.

[Nevernose]

19. Wrong

We went bush in 2004.

He stood up in front of a crowd and swore "There will be no nuclear waste in Nevada if I'm elected president." The dumbasses here bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

[blm]

31. I know he won in 2000 by lying about Yucca Mt., and he'll lose in 2004

because he lied about Yucca Mt. That is, he'll lose to any Democrat who OPPOSED him on it. I don't think any Dem who supported him can squirm their way out of it with Nevadans.

[Nederland]

3. Question

How much federal money did Nevada get to build the facility? Do they plan to give that money back if the facility gets blocked?

[Nevernose]

17. None

We wouldn't take their blood money. What the federal government spent in digging their big goddmaned hell-hole is their loss.

[Nederland]

41. Clarify

Nevada did make any money on the deal? Are you sure? Nobody from Nevada got a job creating the facility? No construction companies from Nevada got contracts? The state didn't collect any tax money from people working at the site?

I find it difficult to believe that you can spend over 4 billion dollars on something and claim that Nevada didn't benefit.

[MrBenchley]

4. Another GOP disgrace

When those nuclear power plants were being built in the 1960s and 1970s, those of us who raised the issue of "nuclear waste" were airily dismissed. "A solution will be found," the proponents said. "Technology will find a way."

Today technology has found a way...it's to stick the American taxpayer with the liability for trucking and storing it in Nevada for the next 125,000 years, all to protect the irresponsible handful that profited in the short term.

Of course, the shipping will be conducted by the lowest bidder, through densely populated areas. Think Homeland Security is getting ready to guard those shipments? Think again.

And what a place to store it! Yucca Mountain is an earthquake zone on top of volcanic vents, that sits atop an aquifer three states use for drinking water. The DOE facility studying it suffered more than $100,000 worth of damages DURING the study period from an earthquake.

Incidentally, when the DOE study found Yucca was unsuitable, the criteria for making the decision were changed.

[Nederland]

6. So what is your solution? (nt)

[dfong63]

11. my solution: first, stop making the problem bigger

... stop producing nuclear waste.

[Nederland]

38. Answer the Question

Don't try and dodge the question.

What would you do with the waste that already exists?

[LeahMira]

44. Answering...

What would you do with the waste that already exists?

Leave it where it is. The states that have "benefitted" from cheaper energy, construction jobs, and jobs at the nuclear facilities, etc. now have the responsibility to take care of the hazardous waste. If the Federal government wants to offer those states some assistance, that's fine, but the people knew before the plants were built that there was going to be a problem with the nuclear waste.

I recall, long time ago, getting petition signatures to oppose building the Salem, NJ facility. Clearly, we all were not successful, but one of my friends refused to sign it because her husband, an electrician, would get work if it were built. No thought as to the possible long term effects on her own children or on the rest of us... just as long as her husband was making money! Sheesh!

I really feel sorry for the folks around Limerick, PA, also but where were the objections before it was built?

Maybe one of these days people will figure out who the real enemies are... not the people who oppose Yucca Mountain now, but the folks who made tons of money and didn't give a hoot about anybody or anything else but themselves.

:mad:

[bigtree]

14. Activist links - Check out the routes

This waste will never find a permanent home. That is why it is so important to keep this administration and its industry cronies from producing more. Hope these links help.

Yucca Mountain
http://www.citizenalert.org/yucca/index.html

Citizen Alert's Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Transport Routes Map
http://www.citizenalert.org/yucca/catransportmap.html

Sen. Harry Reid's Nuclear Waste Transportation Map
http://reid.senate.gov/yuccamap.cfm

Nevada's Map of Nuclear Waste Transportation Routes
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/states/us.htm

Yucca Mountain Accident Map
http://www.elvisible.com/yucca/

Nevada Legislature
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/

Governor Kenny Guinn
http://gov.state.nv.us/

Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office

[wyldwolf]

5. How many dems supported it?

[blm]

7. The ones with ties to the energy companies.

And one of the Dem candidates.

[MercutioATC]

8. Hehehe....Yucca Mountain reference! Another $5...

...and just when it's needed! Great timing!

:bounce:

[wyldwolf]

10. Yes... and supporters of that Dem candidate know who he is..

[blm]

32. They don't care.

They don't care that he pushed deregulating electricity, or environmental racism. They believe the 9 month old conversion to populist rhetoric, and they will try to obscure his REAL record and steamroll over any true environmentalist who gets in their way.

[wyldwolf]

34. Pretty sad...

...if this candidate gets elected, will they rabidly make excuses for him or her and defend him or her like the right does with Bush?

[proud patriot]

9. I think it is stupid to move our nuclear waste

to place that sits on three fault lines .

[MercutioATC]

12. Agreed. The federal government has the responsibility to find a site

that works.

When you're talking about a NATIONAL repository, it's the FEDERAL government that bears the responsibility. Not some energy consortium. Not state governments.

[maxanne]

13. moving the waste at all

is a really bad idea.

First, all plants should be shut down, and no more waste produced. The waste should be kept on-site and disposed of as best we know how.

As it stands, with Yucca Mountain - nukewaste from my state's plant in NH would travel all the way to Nevada. What do you suppose the odds are of it arriving safely, on our crumbling roads and bridges, that are densely overpopulated? The train routes aren't any better. Nuke waste caravans would be an excellent target for terrorists.
There would be an accident - and lots of people would die horrible deaths, and a chunk of the earth rendered inhabitable.

Who will bear the burden of the cleanup? Hint - not the people who profited from the nuke.

[MercutioATC]

15. Agreed on the wisdom of nuke plants operating when we don't

have a way of safely disposing of the waste, but we DO have these plants operating and they DO produce waste and we DO need to store it.

Rather than store it at hundreds of small sites, I think it would be a much better idea to secure it at a central repository. Regulation of safety issues would be more standardized and it would be easier to secure.

I think there's a much greater risk of terrorists stealing waste from one of hundreds of dispersed sites than from organized and guarded shipments of waste to a central repository.

[bigtree]

20. your backyard?

not mine!

[MercutioATC]

28. Better my backyard in a secure facility than mine AND yours AND

everybody else's in unsecured storage.

[maxanne]

33. You aren't addressing

the realities of shipping the waste. Tell me honestly that there won't be an accident in shipping this crap thousands of miles. Tell me those caravans aren't going to be targets in themselves. Please tell me the logistics of how this can work safely for everyone.

[MadHound]

43. Well, there hasn't been an accident yet

And thousands upon thousands of pounds of radioactive material has been shipped. Hell, if you've ridden in a plane very much chances are you've been riding with radioactive material. Not a lot mind you, but still. Fed Ex carries loads of radioactive material, fuel rods and waste are trucked around the country on a regular basis, complete with police escort. And quite frankly, if there is an accident, the container carrying the material will survive. The containers are built to literally go through hell and back and still safely contain the material inside. This includes making containers impervious to dropping, falls, fire explosion, and some even float. Once a container is locked up it is harder to get into or damage than a bank vault.

I make my living shipping radioactive cancer treatments around the world, and it is not the shipping end of the equation that scares me. It is the fact that they are looking to store this stuff at a site that not only is earthquake prone, but has also been shown to have ground water leaking from the interior of the storage facility wind up all the way down in Vegas. Not good, for while these containers are quite durable, they aren't invunerable and will degrade over time, in a shorter period of time than the material they contain will completely degrade. Thus we condemn our children and grandchildren to a nuclear waste nightmare.

The ideal solution would be to shoot all of this waste to the sun, simply more fuel for the star. However since nobody can guarantee 100% that there wouldn't be a suborbital explosion this isn't a workable idea. I agree with the notion that we need to centralize it, but not at the Yucca Mt. facility. Perhaps out east, where it is less prone to earthquakes and such.

And yes, we should shut down all of the nuclear power plants. They are starting to get old and scary. However there are a few research plants that we need to keep open, for where else are we going to get cancer treatments and such?

[Nederland]

42. Disagree

Leaving the waste on site is a horrible idea. Keep in mind that in most cases, 'on site' means within 10 miles of a major metropolitian area with millions of people. I agree that Yucca mountain may not be the best place, but it is far better than storing the waste where it is now.

[Nevernose]

21. Closer to twenty fault lines

Though not all are active. The mountain NEXT to Yucca moutnain is also a volcano which was recently active in a geologica time-scale (70,000 years).

[Clete]

16. You know eventually we are going to have to

find a permanent place for our nuclear waste and it will have to be off of this planet. As crazy as it sounds, why haven't any scientists gotten their noodles together on this one, and figured out a place to send it. My choice would be to send it into the sun. Does this sound too looney even for a futuristic solution? Polluting our deserts, which are living ecosystems and some of the last of our wildernesses left is not a solution as far as I am concerned.

[fabius]

18. It's gotta go somewhere.

I think Yucca Mtn is about as good as it gets. Remote, geologically stable, etc.

Let Bush take the blame for it. But leaving the stuff spread out over the country is no kind of answer. Look at the goddamm mess at Hanford, WA.

[revcarol]

23. Geologically stable?

They had an earthquake that did $100,000 worth of damage to the building that were there, while they were still "studying" the site.

So after the earthquake and finding out that the aquifer that feeds into three states might be contaminated by nuclear waste, the Bushies just CHANGED THE REQUIREMENTS.

[Nevernose]

24. Less than 60 miles from the fastest growing city in America

Sits on 15 or 20 fault lines, was a variable water table, in a region that was until a few thousand years ago volcanically active.

And to get here, in my backyard, where we produce no HL nuclear waste at all, we have to drive it unprotected throguh 40 other states.

on edit: forgot the wrod "thousand"

[bigtree]

25. The land doesn't belong to Bush.

Or the federal government.

Date: 1863
Title: Treaty With The Western Shoshone, 1863
Excerpt from the still-relevent treaty:
http://www.citizenalert.org/fctshts/rubyvall.html

"The 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley recognizes Western Shoshone homelands. For years, the U.S. has been claiming the area as federal lands and allowing massive corporate exploitation. One company, highlighted in the new report is Bechtel Corporation. Bechtel originated in Nevada and gained a foothold by its involvement in construction of the Hoover Dam. Bechtel's presence is now felt heavily across Western Shoshone lands. The company, through Bechtel Nevada, manages the Nevada Test Site and the Counterterrorism facility which conduct nuclear, biological and chemical weapons construction and testing on Western Shoshone ancestral lands."

[bigtree]

30. Western Shoshones sue over 60M acres of land

http://www.indianz.com/News/archives/001730.asp
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Sep-30-Tue-2003/news/22268505.html
Tuesday, September 30, 2003

A group of Western Shoshone tribal leaders and members filed suit against the federal government on Monday, claiming ownership to 60 million acres of land.

The Western Shoshone National Council, the South Fork Band, the Winnemucca Indian Colony and the Dann Band sued to recover royalties from activity on the land and to overturn a $26 million damage award from the Indian Claims Commission. They say their rights under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley have not been extinguished.

The Western Shoshone ancestral land stretches from the Snake River Valley in Idaho, in the east from Salt Lake Valley in Utah, in the west across most of eastern and central Nevada, and southward into Death Valley and the Mojave Desert.

The complaint charges the United States violated the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley which granted the expanding nation access to Western Shoshone land.

The plaintiffs contend the treaty "expressly recognized permanent ownership" of the land to the tribe yet the government now owns most of it.(70% govt.occupied)

The lawsuit alleges the Bureau of Indian Affairs has "made material misrepresentations" and false statements to prevent the tribes from rightfully suing for ownership of their land.

[imhotep]

22. This is one issue

that makes me dislike Edwards. If he was against this I would probably support him.

[revcarol]

27. HM.

I thought it was Dean who was for this, or has he flip-flopped?

[wyldwolf]

35. He hasn't flipped flopped...

[stevedeshazer]

26. For all the reasons stated in this thread

It is a bad idea. But in addition, the transportation issue makes it even more serious.

This stuff will be trucked or railroaded from any state having nukular waste to get rid of. My state borders Nevada, yet we're talking about a 1,000 + mile journey. Sooner or later, there will be an accident.

Never forget that Bush lied to Nevadans about this. Harry Reid called him a liar for this (see http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2002/02/16/8133.php for verification.)

Here's an account of his stance from September 2000:
<snip>

September 29, 2000

Bush says he'd veto Yucca as interim site

By Cy Ryan

CARSON CITY -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush says that if elected president
he would veto any bill to send nuclear waste to an interim storage site in
Nevada.

A copy of the Bush letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn dated Thursday was released
today at a press conference in Las Vegas. It is the most definitive statement
Bush has made on the nuclear waste issue.

The GOP candidate said "the Department of Energy has not completed its
impact study of Yucca Mountain and important questions of environmental
protection and safety have not yet been answered. Therefore, I would veto
legislation that would provide for the temporary storage of nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain."

source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/special/2000/sep/29/510841396.html

[Lexingtonian]

29. a bad choice, technically and politically

We're seeing a 1950s choice/decision being carried out in 2003. Which is, bluntly, perfect stupidity.

Yucca Mountain reflects mostly that the original decision makers, probably entirely elder white men born between 1900 and 1940, considered the deserts of the Southwest worthless space. Where they came from, if trees or crops couldn't be grown there the land was to be despised and used up in other ways.

I'm inclined to suggest someplace fairly far north and a bit west of the main Rockies chain as the best choice of place to build the next facility of the sort. Maybe Idaho, or the Alaska/Yukon border region.

Maybe in time the Russians will eventually volunteer Novaya Smelya, or Norway and Russia will make Spitzbergen the place to go.

[maxanne]

36. some links

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whyyuccawillleak.htm

nirs is an excellent source of information about the nuke industry.

[wyldwolf]

40. Good links... there was an ad...

the Nuclear Energy Institute ran newspaper ads in the lead up to the Congressional votes on Yucca Mountain entitled "Governors Agree: It's Time for Action on Nuclear Fuel Disposal". A quote from a certain presidential candidate dated 9/20/01 was placed prominently at the very top of the ad, reading:

"I would also stress that last week's terrorist action makes it imperative that the federal government live up to its commitment to store spent fuel at a national facility."

Yucca was/is the only national facility being discussed.

[maxanne]

37. some links

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whyyuccawillleak.htm

nirs is an excellent source of information about the nuke industry.

[LeahMira]

39. Another POV

http://www.greenaction.org/yuccamountain/alert042002.shtml

Yucca Mountain is called 'Serpent Swimming West' in the Shoshone language, a name borne out by scientific evidence that this highly seismic mountain in Nevada is, in fact, moving. Despite this evidence, and many more facts that show Yucca Mountain is not a safe place to store nuclear waste, the U.S. government is moving fast to approve Yucca Mountain as a federal repository.

Sacred Site on Western Shoshone Land

Yucca Mountain, a high ridge near the Nevada Test Site, is a place of deep spiritual and religious significance to the Western Shoshone and Pauite tribes, a place where the people gathered and continue to gather traditionally in the spring and fall to worship. Yucca Mountain is also on land guaranteed the Western Shoshone by treaty. Treaties are agreements between two sovereign governments and considered by the U.S. Constitution to be the "Supreme Law of the Land." Like almost every treaty the United States has entered into with Indian Nations, the treaty with the Western Shoshone has been violated again and again. The Nevada Test Site was carved out of their territory and today, the Western Shoshone Nation is the most bombed nation on earth. The United States has detonated more than 1,200 atomic bombs in their territory. High rates of cancer and illness related to atomic fall-out plague the people, who suffer from this historic injustice without any government health assessment, rectification or medical aid.

If George W. Bush and the DOE get their way, they would turn a sacred site into a radioactive parking lot for 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste and confirm that our Constitution can be overlooked to serve corporate needs.
------------------

Wonder how GWB would feel if someone turned his church into a radioactive dump site!!!

[maxanne]

45. Crawford, Texas

is a good location, LeahMira. It's already a waste respository.

The US govt. has yet to live up to a single treaty - I doubt if this will be the first.