Toxic Waste Fight: No Room at the Inn

The debate over whether high-level nuclear waste should be stored in a nearby mountain has become so heated that there is now even disagreement on simply where to hold a public hearing on the proposal.

The purpose of the meeting is to solicit feedback on the U.S. Energy Department’s progress in examining whether Yucca Mountain can safely contain highly radioactive material for thousands of years.

Initially, the session scheduled for Wednesday was to be at a casino’s community room. But the casino withdrew its offer last week, concerned about the expected large turnout and the prospect of civil disobedience, given the passionate objections to using Nevada as a nuclear waste dumping ground.

Local officials hoped the meeting would then be held at any number of easily accessible and sufficiently large public auditoriums around Las Vegas.

Meeting Moved to Government Facility

But the Energy Department, which is pursuing a congressional mandate to explore developing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste burial ground, opted instead to have the meeting at its National Nuclear Security Administration offices. The government complex is on an industrial road about three miles north of downtown Las Vegas.

Critics, starting with Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn, say that the meeting venue is inappropriate and intimidating because it is far from public transportation, surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire, monitored by armed guards and, most critical, too small.

“That’s like holding the Super Bowl in a high school stadium,” complained Jack Finn, the governor’s spokesman. “This is absolutely the most important public hearing on the most important issue to ever face the state of Nevada.”

The facility can handle about 250 people in its Great Basin conference room, and 150 people can be accommodated in a nearby cafeteria, where the public hearing would be shown on a large-screen monitor.

The home-field site was chosen, DOE spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said, because after the casino backed out “we decided to go with a facility we could count on--a federal facility.”

But what happens if more than 400 people show up? “That’s a good question,” Fisher said. “We feel we’ll have enough room because we don’t think everybody will show up at the same time. We’ll do the best we can.”

The department already has made plans to accommodate protesters organized by Citizen Alert, an activist group. The organization says it believes 1,000 people will gather in a parking lot near the meeting room to protest the Yucca Mountain site.

Also aggravating the state’s highest politicians is that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is not expected to attend the open-ended hearing, which starts at 6 p.m.

Nevada’s bipartisan congressional delegation--Democrats Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Shelly Berkley, and Republicans Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons--implored Abraham to attend the meeting.

“You should personally hear the concerns and comments . . . on this very important decision which impacts all citizens of Nevada,” they wrote in a letter.

Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said more pointedly about Abraham’s expected absence: “That’s like a chief justice not showing up for an impeachment.”

The meeting will be moderated by an independent, professional facilitator, with testimony recorded by a court reporter. Department staff will attend and listen--but not answer any questions, officials said.

At Reid’s urging, the department agreed to televise the meeting by closed circuit to venues in Carson City, Reno and Elko.

The purpose of the hearing is to solicit public reaction to a draft report weighing the environmental consequences of storing the nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The final document is expected to be adopted later this year.

The department already has concluded that it can meet radiation-safety guidelines established by the Environmental Protection Agency. Abraham is expected to make his final recommendation to President Bush within six months.

Governor Could Try to Block Proposal

If Abraham recommends adoption of the site, the governor has said he will move to block the decision, which would put the issue in the lap of Congress next year. By a simple majority, Congress can override Nevada’s objection, sending the proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for facility licensing.

At the soonest, Yucca Mountain could begin accepting nuclear waste in 2010, delivered there in vaults aboard cross-country trucks.

Besides Wednesday’s hearing, two others are planned in Nevada a week later: one at a community center in Pahrump and another at the Long Street Inn and Casino in the Armagosa Valley, near the California border.