Re: Ward Valley "fill-the-blanks"

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Does this make sense to anybody?  What's VY's problem with the bill?
What's really being proposed here? 

>  *    "Nuclear Waste Bill Rocketing Through Legislature"
>      HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 5/18/95 (p. 1A)
>      R.G. Ratcliffe
> 
> A measure that would create a low-level nuclear-waste dump in west
> Texas "has become one of the fastest-moving bills in the 74th
> Legislature, because" the proposed site is in an economically
> depressed area, the HOUSTON CHRONICLE reports.  "Billions of
> dollars" in contracts from the U.S. Departments of Energy and
> Defense are "at stake."  If passed, the bill would clear the way
> for a California firm to build a low-level-waste site and a related
> research facility that would create about 1,160 jobs.  "The bill
> got on the fast track" earlier this month when it was introduced
> in the state House as emergency legislation.  The bill has wide
> support from Republicans, but "an odd set of political bedfellows"
> are gathering opposition.  A Houston-based nuclear-waste management
> firm Yunidentified", lobbyists from a South Carolina nuclear-waste-
> management company Yunidentified", several environmental groups and
> the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. have all come out against
> the legislation.  Tom Smith, head of the Texas branch of the
> consumer group Public Citizen, said the measure is "the nuclear
> waste on rollerblades bill," because "it's fast, it's hard to
> control, and it's going to cause a lot of injury."
> CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, May 16, 1995
> 
Can anybody do a Texas site "fill-the-blanks" for poor Tom Smith and others
who actually think there is any potential hazard from a LLRW facility (how
about a comparison to releases from drilling a water well)? 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim