There's still no pot of gold at the end of the Yucca Mountain rainbow

A few of my Republican friends, including prominent Reno blogger/columnist Ty Cobb and fellow Appeal columnist Chuck Muth, continue to lobby for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump even though they must know that the highly toxic project is dead or dying. Although I admire their persistence, I think they're advocating for a lost cause.

Muth fired the latest salvo in the Yucca wars on Friday with a column urging "constructive engagement" with the federal government. I'd call his approach "capitulation" but that's only my opinion for what it's worth, if anything.

As for my good friend Ty Cobb, in mid-July he proposed a "grand compromise" with the Feds in an op-ed piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Under his plan, Nevada would accept the Southern Nevada site as a temporary nuclear waste repository providing that the U.S. Energy Department (DOE) would agree to reprocess the waste as part of a new national energy policy. "It's time for ... Nevada to undertake a neutral, unbiased assessment (of the Yucca project)," he wrote. "I'm not advocating that Nevada suddenly accept Yucca Mountain ... (but) I do argue that a thorough examination of the dangers, concerns and finances of the issue would best serve (our) interests."

"This is a unique opportunity for the Silver State," Cobb continued. "It could propose a grand compromise" by accepting Yucca Mountain if the Feds "would support reprocessing in order to significantly reduce the volume of waste coming to Nevada."

Although the proposals by Cobb and Muth sound reasonable, many of us simply don't trust DOE to carry out its part of the bargain. After all, this is the same sprawling bureaucracy that has been unable to meet federal safety standards or construction deadlines, resulting in huge cost overruns and legitimate questions about safety concerns. Just last month, DOE announced that the repository would cost taxpayers $90 billion, a startling 55 percent increase over the 2001 cost estimate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the leading opponent of the waste dump, called the new price tag "both brazen and ridiculous," and U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Las Vegas Democrat, said "the cost only goes up and the delays only grow longer."

On the other hand, Yucca proponents argue that the $90 billion price tag represents an "opportunity" for Nevada. Yes, it's an opportunity if you're willing to sell out your children and grandchildren for that amount of money, which most Nevadans won't do - more than 70 percent of us, according to recent opinion polls.

A POT OF GOLD?

Bob Loux, the outspoken but well-informed director of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, says "Cobb's premise is one that Nevadans have been hearing, and soundly rejecting, for two decades: If only the state would see the light, open its arms to the beneficent federal government and embrace Yucca Mountain ... the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would be ours." In an e-mail exchange, Loux told me that "Cobb's suggestion that Nevada would be able to dip into the $27 billion collected so far in the Nuclear Waste Fund is nothing if not absurd. The fact is that the Waste Fund won't even be sufficient to cover program costs if Yucca should go forward."

"This isn't the time for Nevada to be playing footsie with the federal government," he continued. "(Those) who claim to want what's best for Nevada should be joining the state's efforts to finally end this bloated and unnecessary project and let the country get on with finding real solutions to the nuclear waste problem." Amen!

Yucca Mountain advocates always mention "sound science," which was the catch phrase President Bush used before betraying us by approving the dump over the strenuous bipartisan objections of Sen. Reid, then-Gov. Kenny Guinn, the state's entire congressional delegation and the vast majority of Nevada voters. This is democracy?

Noting that the proposed dump site is located in a major earthquake zone only 90 miles northwest of fast-growing Las Vegas, Loux asserted that "it would have been difficult for (DOE) to find a less suitable location." When Congress passed the infamous "Screw Nevada Bill" in 1987, however, the Silver State had much less political clout that it has today. "Nevada is a desert and no one lives there," congressmen said 21 years ago, but that's no longer true because the Silver State has become a key "battleground" state in this year's presidential election.

The so-called "father" of the Screw Nevada Bill, ex-Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), a nuclear energy industry lobbyist (surprise!), has modified his stand on Yucca Mountain, now believing that it should be designated as one of several temporary monitored, retrievable storage sites rather than as the nation's only permanent waste dump.

In this election year we should pay close attention to what the presidential candidates are saying about Yucca Mountain. The Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, echoes President Bush by urging Congress and the DOE to turn our state into the nation's nuclear waste dump. But the Democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, has vowed to kill the Yucca project if he becomes president next January. It's our choice.

Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.