LDS (Mormons) joins Nuclear storage foes

[helderheid]

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
One of the Rocky Mountain West's most influential forces added its voice Thursday to the campaign to block trainloads of radioactive waste from coming to Utah.
But it remains unclear if even the powerful word of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can truly help stop those trains.
In a rare statement on public policy, church President Gordon B. Hinckley and his two counselors said moving and storing high-level nuclear waste creates 'substantial and legitimate public health, safety, and environmental concerns." The statement went Thursday to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as an official comment on a right-of-way request.
"It is not reasonable to suggest that any one area bear a disproportionate burden of the transportation and concentration of nuclear waste,' the statement continues. 'We ask the federal government to harness the technological and creative power of the country to develop options for the disposal of nuclear waste.'
In the fall, the LDS Church announced through a spokesman its objections to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to license the proposed nuclear waste storage on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Tooele County. The site would be a kind of parking lot big enough to hold nearly all the reactor waste ever produced by the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.
But the Thursday statement comes directly from the church's First Presidency and it is broader, apparently covering the federal government's plan to bury reactor waste forever at Yucca Mountain, Nev. And it specifically endorses alternative technologies, echoing what has become a mantra among political leaders who, along with Salt Lake City-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions, have been touting nuclear fuel reprocessing lately as an answer to the nation's waste problems.
Not since the statement opposing the MX nuclear missile deployment in Utah 25 years ago has the First Presidency spoken out so directly and forcefully on a public policy issue not involving the church's usual moral targets, such as gay rights or gambling.
The church's May 6, 1981, statement on MX is widely credited with killing the missile plan.

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http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3787890

[acmavm]

1. Who wouldn't be against this? Especially since it's now out in

the open that the bush** admin cooked the books when it comes to how safe it is to store this shit the way they plan.

We were supposed to get the stuff here in Nebraska. Then Ben Nelson backed out. Nebraska paid a heavy duty fine, but it was money well spent. This crap is going to poison the soil, the water, the people, of where ever they decide to put it. Won't need no nightlights, the people will glow in that dark.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Whether or not it's a good, churches should stick to religious issues

Stay the fuck out of politics!

[Coventina]

4. I have to disagree with you on this. This is an environmental/health

issue. I think churches & religious leaders have the right to defend the earth and the health of their people. It should be part of their mission, actually.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. Slippery slope

You could insert just about any term there and justify political action on any issue based on that rationale.

[Coventina]

6. What would be allowable for religious groups to do?

Just wondering, because some groups, like the Quakers, are very "politically" involved in anti-war and pro-GLBT issues, but they see these issues as central to the practice of their Christian faith.

on edit: clarity

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. If they want to be politically active, that's fine.

You'd forfeit your tax exemption status if it were up to me though.

[helderheid]

10. Politics and the LDS church in Utah share a bed. I don't like it but

the fact the church here is speaking about this issue means the politicians here will follow their lead.

[Minnesota Libra]

3. Oh crap!!!! Am I the only one who sees the potential for MAJOR...........

....problems here??? If this does go through I hope these idiots take the southern route into Utah because a straight route would go right through Denver and the Rocky Mountains.:nuke: The potential for an accident is too horrid to even contemplate.:hide:

[CabalPowered]

7. It's already happening

under the cover of darkness, waste shipments from all over are on the interstates headed to INL in Idaho.

[Minnesota Libra]

11. Yes I know waste shipments already happen but I'm specifically...........

.....talking about waste shipments by rail and truck through the Rocky Mountains. Those mountains are not for the faint of heart even under the best of conditions. Add to that transporting this stuff by rail, rail to truck transfer, and night travel and I don't even want to think of the potential problems. I used to live in the Denver Metro area and still have family there which would be right in the wind path of a potential spill. Not a pleasant thought.

[helderheid]

12. It would go right through SLC - where I live. n/t

[Minnesota Libra]

13. The article doesn't say whether the travel route will go through..........

....the mountains or the southern route into Utah but every route holds its own dangers.

Question here: What is Utah and more specifically SLC doing to minimize the risks this type of operation poses??? Just curious!!

[MadHound]

9. It isn't the transport of this waste that worries me

It is the long term storage in Yucca Mt. that's got me scared. Sitting on a major fault area, with active volcanos close at hand, Yucca Mt. is not a good place to be storing material that is going to be highly dangerous and toxic for thousands of years. In addition, when(not if, when) that radioactive waste escapes its containers, the EPA has already shown with dye tests that it would only have a two week journey before it's in the ground water of Las Vegas, and just a few more week before it's in the ground water for LA.