Zombie nuclear waste dump project needs to die

Sunday, March 8, 2015 | 3 a.m.

In the 1980s, the federal government started a long, and so far fruitless, effort to turn Nevada into a high-level nuclear waste dump.

Despite overwhelming political odds, the state has successfully fought back and prevented the plan from moving forward.

But the project is the federal government’s version of a zombie. It looks dead and should be dead but keeps stumbling along.

Earlier this year, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report left a narrow opening for the project to be revived once again. Never mind that the Obama administration has all but closed the project, and forget that a blue-ribbon commission recommended the federal government look elsewhere and find a state that actually wants the dump. (Nevada doesn’t.)

The plan is pushed by powerful interests in the nation’s capital, notably the nuclear power industry, that have no concern about the well-being of Nevada. Illinois Republican Congressman John Shimkus is so looking forward to sending his state’s nuclear power plant’s spent fuel rods to Nevada, he says he and two colleagues on the House Energy and Commerce Committee will visit Yucca Mountain soon to check out the place. Under the federal government’s plan, more than 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from commercial reactors would be sent here for burial at Yucca Mountain, a porous, volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Recently, The Washington Post editorialized on the NRC report, saying the federal government should open a dump in Nevada.

Bad politics

Supporters of the Yucca Mountain project blame politics for the project’s delays.

Of course, what they fail to acknowledge is that politics is the only reason the plan still is alive. Political interests in Washington have run roughshod over science, curtailed serious inquiries and pressed ahead despite the fact that significant work hasn’t been finished on the project.

Yucca Mountain was, in fact, named the nation’s nuclear waste dump before the scientific process to find the best site was close to being completed.

Worse politics

Nevada was chosen as the nation’s nuclear waste dump when the state had no clout in Washington. That allowed other states with more power to roll over Nevada.

To make matters worse, many of the supporters of Yucca Mountain are those who have fought the White House on Obamacare, saying it violates the 10th Amendment protection of states’ rights. If that is the case, Nevada should be able to invoke states’ rights and reject the dump.

Safety concerns

Despite what the nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress say, several serious safety issues haven’t been addressed properly.

Although it worked on the project for decades, the federal government doesn’t have a definitive plan for how it would safely transport nuclear waste. It also has serious issues with how it would contain the radiation within the ridge.

No need to move it

The nuclear power industry has tried to make this a matter of national security, saying terrorists could target the waste.

But the reality is the waste has been stored safely for decades at nuclear reactors, which are secure sites. And if safety is a concern, why send nuclear waste on thousands of trips across the country during which the material could be targeted?

The bottom line

So far, the Yucca Mountain project has cost roughly $14 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office, and the government could end up spending $100 billion or more trying to complete it.

That is nonsense. There are safer, cheaper and better ways to move ahead than the fanciful plan to send the nation’s waste to Nevada.

The government should — once and for all — back off the Yucca Mountain plan and let it die.