Nevada groups urge Administration to drop Yucca Mtn licensing efforts

The Nevada Conservation League, PLAN, the Sierra Club, Citizen Alert, and the Western Shoshone Defense Project are urging the Bush Administration to drop the Yucca Mountain licensing effort. The task force statement below:

“Elected leaders from both major parties, ranchers, conservationists and Native Americans are calling on the Department of Energy to drop its effort to license the high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain and instead focus on protecting the public’s health and safety.

The Department of Energy is expected to submit its application for licensing the dump to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within a few weeks, despite the fact that no standards have been set for safety and scientists still don’t know all the real dangers.

One of many concerns of Nevadans has been amply demonstrated in the last several weeks as a series of earthquakes has struck the state – more than 600 so far – and geologists warn that a major seismic event could happen any time. The ability of Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, to withstand such as event is questionable.

Additionally:

• Yucca Mountain is sacred to and within the treaty lands of the Western Shoshone Nation. Shoshones strongly oppose the project.
• Yucca Mountain is in a geologically young volcano field
• The Air Force uses air space over and around the site for training exercises.
• The dump threatens the pristine aquifer under Yucca Mountain, used by Amargosa Valley residents, farmers and the state’s largest dairy.
• The dump design is still incomplete.
• There is no procedure for retrieving the waste if something goes wrong. It would require robots, which have not been invented.
• Waste would be transported across the country on trucks, trains, and barges for 30 years. Whole railroads would have to be built over hundreds of miles to ship the waste to Yucca Mountain. And all shipping is potentially vulnerable to terrorist attack.
• The Department of Energy is counting on other unproven technologies, some still in development and not to be deployed for a century or more, to protect the public.

“Yucca Mountain is a sacred site for the Shoshone,” said Larsen Bill, community planner Western Shoshone Defense Project. “In our language it is called Sleeping Snake Mountain, a site that is prophesized could cause enormous loss of life if not treated carefully. We want to make sure that never happens.” Bill is in Elko, Nev., but there is huge concern statewide, including Las Vegas.

“The Department of Energy has not met the minimum legal, technical and scientific thresholds for protecting the public,” said Jenna Morton, a Las Vegas business owner, community activist and mother of three. “Until it has, it should not submit its license application. And until it has, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must not accept the application.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL JUDY TREICHEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR WASTE TASK FORCE, (702) 248-1127 (o) or (702) 232-3911