Re: UCS on spent fuel security

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/21/01 3:25:59 AM Mountain Daylight Time, kerrembaev@YAHOO.COM writes:



> NOTICE: Unless the present US goverment WILL
>
> issue a National Security Emergency Order to
>
> start storing the Spent Reactor Fuel on the Yucca
>
> Mountain Site, State of Nevada territory, for the
>
> current USA National Security reasons.
>
> (In my opinion, it should)
>
>
> Nevertheless, in the main time.
>
>
> 4.2.3 Private Storage Company could and would
>
> obtain on-time and all the necessary permits,
>
> including "recently notorious Yucca Mountain
>
> Nevada Water Permit". 
>
> Do they really want to thirst out Yucca Mountain
>
> -Nevada Dessert Nuclear Fuel Storage
>
> Facility??.... 
>
>
> 4.2.3.1.  May be the Storage and Disposal
>
> Facility should not be in Nevada => too much of
>
> local thisrt for the money and for that dragging
>
> project politics.
>
>
> 4.2.3.2  Put the National Storage Facility in
>
> another suitable and more reasonable State and
>
> provide the State with the State tax incentives
>
> as a private enterprise will be. 
>
> Or to have more then one site and to make sites
>
> compete with each other for the storage and
>
> future disposal/recycling-? money.
>
>
> 4.2.3.3 Now the State of Nevada nor local county
>
> government have no much of the financial
>
> incentives to have the facility in the state
>
> borders.....
>
>
> Why?
>
>
> 4.2.3.4 Because the Yucca Mountain Facility
>
> unlike famous Las Vegas casinos is a federal
>
> property => no taxes for the Municipal and the
>
> State budgets.
>
>
> Monies talk, aspecially, they do talk in Las
>
> Vegas.
>
> Right now, money are not talking for solving the
>
> Spent Fuel Problem.....


Let me clarify some of the misconceptions in this post.  First of all, it is not the "State of Nevada territory", it is Nevada, which is a state, which is part of the U. S. A, which has 50 states.  Nevada is not a "trust territory" like Guam.  


The Nevada Nuclear Waste Office would object likely just as much to private fuel storage (look at the fate of the proposed private project in Utah).


Withholding the water permit appears to be more a political gambit than a concern about water supply.  There is a multitude of artificial lakes, fed by groundwater, in Las Vegas, not to speak of watered golf courses, sprinkler systems, fountains, etc.  


The Yucca Mountain Project has indeed brought money into Nevada in two ways: creation of jobs and money to "oversee" the Yucca Mountain project -- this latter is guaranteed by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.  Since the site itself is on land that has been Federal land for more than 50 years -- since long before the 1982 Act -- it never brought in tax revenues.  Moreover, the US government pays the states in "payments in lieu of taxes" when a Federal activity pre-empts  some local revenue producing activity.  For example, if you live in military housing and pay no property tax, the Federal government pays the city in place of your property tax.  


Finally: when there were three potential repository sites, all three states involved objected, because the 1982 Act essentially provides money for state oversight when requested by the state.  There was such vociferous objection to even investigating a granite repository that the investigation was dropped.  No state is  likely to behave any differently from Nevada..  


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com