The people have spoken on Yucca Mtn.

It's been well noted that a vast majority of people in Nevada don't want any part of a nuclear waste dump within our borders. A new poll showing that most people outside our borders agree with us comes as great news. In fact it should drive yet another nail in the coffin of the project.

But we're not naive enough to believe it will have any effect on an administration and federal bureaucracy that seems deaf to what the American people are saying. You needn't think hard to find another example - polls show the majority of Americans see no favorable outcome from the Iraq War and want our troops withdrawn. The fact that the administration actually sent more troops ought to have Nevadans a bit concerned about its reaction to the Yucca poll.

The MIT poll showed only one in five Americans believes Yucca Mountain should be used to store nuclear waste, and a quarter of those surveyed said it should be opened "only if the state of Nevada assents." That's what Nevada has been saying all along.

If you believe Sen. Harry Reid, the Yucca Mt. project is dead. Apparently, he forgot to tell the Department of Energy, which is pressing forward along with Congressional supporters, many of whom have stockpiles of nuclear waste in their states they'd like to bury in our back yard.

It's lunacy to proceed with a project that is unsafe, unproved and unsupported. Those billions of dollars would be better spent on developing viable alternative energy sources that won't require dumping toxic waste in Nevada, or any other state, for that matter.