Vocal Nevadans Trash Nuclear Waste Plan

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn began a key hearing Wednesday night on a proposal to bury the nation’s nuclear waste about 90 miles from the Las Vegas Strip with harsh criticism and a vow to take his complaints to President Bush.

Guinn called the Department of Energy hearing premature and irresponsible because it was based on “scientific evidence that is not complete and has not been made public to me nor to the people in this room.”

Guinn shrugged off a letter from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham extending for 15 days the public comment period on the proposal to bury 77,000 tons of radioactive waste deep beneath a volcanic ridge at Yucca Mountain.

“I assure you my outrage . . . will be detailed in letters directly to Secretary Abraham and the president,” the Republican governor said.

He earned repeated applause from a partisan, standing-room-only crowd of more than 250 packed into the hearing room at the DOE offices. More than 170 others were seated in an adjacent cafeteria and about 70 more followed the proceedings by teleconference in Reno, Elko and Carson City.

Speakers in favor of the Yucca Mountain site were interrupted with jeers and catcalls. At one point, the moderator threatened to cut off testimony if the crowd did not allow a pro-nuclear Utah resident to continue his remarks.

Gary Sandquist, professor of nuclear and mechanical engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said he was invited to speak by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group for the energy industry.

“Are you willing to give up 20% of your electricity?” Sandquist asked the crowd. He said one-fifth of the nation’s power is nuclear. “Let’s be practical. We’ve got the waste; we’ve got to put it somewhere.”

But the sentiment in the room was overwhelmingly opposed to the dump site.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman told the cheering crowd he would personally arrest any truck driver hauling radioactive waste through his city to the dump site.

Scientists say the storage site would remain radioactive for more than 10,000 years.