Re: I love high-level nuclear waste and want some in my yard

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

Your scenario is interesting, but to a certain extent ignores history.  Moreover, I have known many of the players for more than a decade (two in some cases) and I speak somewhat from personal knowledge.  Personal relationships also prevent me from being more open about how I got my information, for which I apologize, so you will have to do a little reading between the lines.


The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 provided that three sites, encompassing different geologies, be "characterized" for a repository.  In a really, to my way of thinking, sloppy decision analysis (DOE/RW-0074) Yucca Mountain was identified as the "best" site of the three and Hanford as the "worst" site.  Actually if you read the decision analysis you find that the differences between them is negligible (one of my graduate students has a publication on this).  Luther Carter then came out with a book that said, essentially, why should we spend all that money on three sites -- let's just go with Nevada.  I thought it was a stupid book then, and I think it is a stupid book now.  Incidentally, Carter interviewed a lot of the enviros, including me, for his book.  He didn't use what I said.  I got a great Chinese dinner out of it, though.


The provision in the 1982 Act (expanded in 1987) that funds state oversight then allowed Nevada to gather on its payroll anti-nuclear activists from all over the U.S.  Clearly, there was political and economic capital in opposing the project, and none whatever in supporting it, because the DOE and contractor personnel who came to Nevada to do the characterization and environmental assessment would be there anyway.  It 's no secret that some of those who oppose Yucca Mountain say what they say because that's what they are paid to say.   The "not in my backyard" campaign in Nevada is a deliberate and cynical political construct.  Of course it is picked up by people and by the local press, because it is a great victim-type crusade that costs nothing, brings in money, and doesn't hurt anyone except DOE (whom everyone loves to hate).


Incidentally, none of this pro or con makes much difference to the State of Nevada economy -- it is insignificant compared to the gambling industry. 


Some years ago, the High Level Waste Conference in Nevada had a media panel at which some of the media participants were quite frank about the SUPPORT of the Yucca Mountain project by people in the state, especially workers in the rural areas, but said that they just couldn't report this because of pressure from their publishers.  Since I do spend time in Las Vegas, and do watch Las Vegas TV sometimes, I note that the media infatuation with the NIMBY campaign has cooled considerably.  I have also attended a number of public hearings in Nevada, and note that there is support of, as well as opposition to, the project, and that most of the opposition is from the regular players (paid and volunteer) who regularly represent the anti-nuke position.


Finally, support of Yucca Mountain is not newsworthy and not lurid.  By supporting the project one cannot conjure up images of death and devastation, the way one can by opposing it.  The press doesn't care if what one says is true or not, only that it is eye- and ear-catching (remember "if it bleeds, it leads?").  So they had the choice of more or less ignoring the project, or playing up the putative dangers, and they obviously chose the latter.


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com