Nevada's nuclear dilemma: Inside the reignited fight over Yucca Mountain
“They used to be looking to see if this was a suitable site. Now they’re looking to see how they can make it suitable. That's the big shift,” said U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, who has been active in opposing a Yucca Mountain repository for more than 30 years. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act passed in 1982, and a 1987 amendment sealed Nevada’s fate as the sole dumping ground for the nation’s high-level radioactive scrap. Sort of.
The “Screw Nevada Bill” has never been resolved. Upon the federal designation of Yucca Mountain — about 90 miles from Las Vegas — as the only viable site for storing many thousands of tons of dangerous waste, the state Legislature passed a law making such storage illegal. Led by formidable former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a generation of lawmakers and residents have fought and feared the realization of a vision into which the country has already sunk an estimated $15 billion. Despite that massive investment, Reid and former President Barack Obama successfully derailed the Yucca plan, starving it of funding and withdrawing its license application.
Critics say seismic activity and infiltrating water make Yucca Mountain unfit, without even considering the timeworn infrastructure that would be used to transport waste across the country. Scientists don’t agree on the risks over thousands of years, which is why supporters call for the project to move forward if only to invite more study.
“We’ve been studying it for 35 years; you don’t need to probe it anymore,” Titus said. “They know that there’s a moving water table, they know that there are faults out there ... there’s no more probing that they need to do.”
Read more: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/may/22/yucca-mountain-nuclear-waste-donald-trump/