Thursday, Feb. 21, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.
NEVADA TEST SITE -- Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge disputed a key anti-Yucca Mountain argument Wednesday by saying he believes transporting nuclear waste to a centralized repository is more secure than keeping it in 39 states.
Ridge toured the Nevada Test Site at Sen. Harry Reid's invitation to watch terrorism preparedness drills. Reid wants Ridge to make the former atomic test area a national training center to counter terrorism.
The main drill took place at the Test Site's Phoenix training facility -- just a helicopter hop over the ridge from Yucca Mountain. And though the scenario involved terrorists taking over a nuclear facility, none of the officials wanted to talk about the state's biggest fight.
Reid, D-Nev., deflected a question about transporting nuclear waste by saying he would later lobby Ridge and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Albaurgh on that point.
"Today is not a day for nuclear waste," he said.
But Ridge, former governor of nuclear plant-rich Pennsylvania, did say he thought having a centralized nuclear storage facility "was an attractive feature," and downplayed concerns that transporting waste left it more susceptible to terrorists.
"For 40 or 50 years, the country has been transferring and transporting nuclear waste," Ridge said during a press conference. "And I think there's a fairly good track record there."
In an interview later during his tour Ridge said he did not mean to imply that transporting the waste wasn't "serious business."
"One could make an argument that the transportation of waste is a potential target, as remote as that may be to my position as director of Homeland Security," Ridge said. "Just as it is in a stationary setting, it is much more of a concern for the Secretary of Energy."
Wednesday's tour for Ridge and Albaurgh was designed to feature the remoteness of the sprawling Test Site as well as its current anti-terrorism work by academic institution partners, scientists and military.
"Why would we want to integrate talk of Yucca into this facility here?" Gov. Kenny Guinn asked in an interview. "We're working to get some expansion dollars for the Test Site.
"What we're talking about here today is national security, homeland security. No matter what happens with our fight against Yucca Mountain, we will still need this (facility) today."
But Nevada officials have made Yucca Mountain an issue of national security.
Reid last Friday said by designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository, President Bush had "dropped the equivalent of 100,000 dirty bombs on America."
Pointing out that 100,000 nuclear shipments to Yucca Mountain would cross 43 states, Reid said terrorists had ample opportunity to strike.
"The President has created 100,000 targets of opportunity for terrorists who have proven their capability of hitting targets far less vulnerable than a truck on an open highway," Reid said then.
Ridge said Wednesday he wasn't as concerned with the shipments as he was the storage of waste in pools near nuclear reactors throughout the country.
"The notion of having a single site admittedly speaks to homeland security," Ridge said.
And although Guinn said Wednesday's events were solely about the Test Site, he did point out Yucca Mountain to Ridge during their helicopter ride.
Media and National Nuclear Security Administration staff were flown by Nevada Air National Guard to the Test Site in two hulking Chinook helicopters. Ridge -- accompanied by Guinn, Reid, Albaurgh, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Test Site operator retired Gen. John Gordon -- flew in four smaller choppers for a different aerial tour.
That delegation held a closed briefing on the Nevada Test Site's counter terrorism efforts. Reid and others hope to get $16 million to expand the facilities and create a national center for combatting terrorism.
The Test Site -- a restricted area larger than Rhode Island -- was the site of 928 nuclear tests through 1992. Since then it has become an operational outdoor laboratory with tunnel complexes, remote facilities to release hazardous chemicals and train military, National Guardsmen and state and local police, firefighters and other "first responders."
Just days after Ridge was named Homeland Security director, Reid invited him to tour the area with a national anti-terrorism facility in mind.
And while nobody would publicly admit it Wednesday, the visit was also more than a subtle reminder about Yucca Mountain.
Members of the national media, including CNN, NBC and The New York Times, were along for the trip -- not just for access to Ridge and talk of a training center. One reporter on the 125-decibel Chinook scribbled a question for a DOE representative during the flight: "Where's Yucca Mountain?"
NBC reporter Chip Reid -- who aired a report from Yucca Mountain after Bush's decision Friday -- was back for another trip through the rugged desert with a field producer asking if there was more opportunity to get aerial shots of the ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
During a demonstration of "truck-stopping technology" aimed at dragging hijacked tractor-trailers to a safe halt, a spokesman for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- which developed the device -- also dropped a Yucca Mountain reference.
"The tractors we're using here as the prototype is an SST, which was retired from use hauling nuclear waste," Livermore spokesman David Schwoegler said. "You could equip the device on those shipments today."
Harry Reid also smiled a bit when a reporter mentioned Yucca Mountain during Wednesday's press conference. But he immediately whispered something to Ridge and then responded with the "today is not a day for nuclear waste" line.
It may not have been an obvious day, but Reid's smile seemed to suggest the subtlety was good enough.
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