Pressure builds for Yucca Mountain
If the U.S. Senate has its way, more than
30,000 tons of some of the worst stuff on earth will be temporarily
stored at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
In April the
Senate voted 65-34 to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982,
thereby designating southwestern Nevada as the temporary resting
place for high-level nuclear waste from 80 sites in 41 states.
Opponents say transporting the waste, most of it from nuclear power
plants, poses a potential hazard to millions of people. They also
fear that a temporary designation would lead to permanent status.
“Once waste is moved to a
centralized site it will never be moved again,” Nevada Sen. Harry
Reid, D, told AP. Nevada officials have fought plans to bury
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain since 1987, when the DOE first
designated the mountain as its only test site for permanent
storage.
The Senate vote was two shy of the
two-thirds majority needed to override a veto promised by President
Clinton, and Reid and fellow Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan, D, say
they’re confident they have the votes to sustain the veto. However,
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, R, a co-sponsor of the bill, says he
believes enough senators will change their votes his way.
The pressure to find a solution has intensified
since a federal judge ruled last year that the Department of Energy
is contractually bound to begin accepting hazardous waste in 1998,
whether or not a storage site has been approved.
If the bill becomes law, Nevada would have to begin accepting waste
by as early as 2003, though DOE officials say they “still have
three to five years of testing just to ensure that the site is
safe,” says spokesman Erik Olds. The bill will be debated this
summer in the House of
Representatives.
” Jamie
Murray
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Pressure builds for Yucca Mountain.
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