Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Yucca Mountain remains in debate over nuclear waste storage" + U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) obituaries

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Here is the full article link:

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/yucca-mountain-remains-in-debate-over-nuclear-waste-storage-2502810/

As the article reports, proponents of consolidated interim storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico -- including the companies, and even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- simply assume the Yucca Mountain dump on Western Shoshone land in Nevada will open someday (or some decade, or some century). That's how they justify calling CISFs "interim storage," rather than de facto permanent surface storage "parking lot dumps."

How outrageously can the NRC behave? NRC is supposed to be the safety regulator, not the policy setter. NRC is supposed to be the unbiased, objective "judge" presiding over the Yucca Mountain dump licensing proceeding, which has never even really begun yet, and hopefully never will. But NRC's support for the construction and operation licenses at the TX and NM CISFs has already made clear what its ultimate ruling would be -- a rubber-stamp for construction and operation at the Yucca dump in NV as well.

As I used to say re: the congressional delegations from Nevada* and Utah, during the fight against the Private Fuel Storage, LLC CISF targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation (the PFS CISF scheme also assumed Yucca as the permanent repository), either they hang together, or they would hang separately. In the end, they hung together, and blocked the PFS CISF. NM, NV, and TX need to hang together now, in opposition to the current round of dumps targeted at them -- rather than being divided and conquered by dump proponents in industry and government.

---Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste Michigan

*P.S. A number of the obituaries for U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) have mentioned his congressional leadership role in the successful (thus far, anyway!) resistance to the Yucca Mountain dump, going back decades. See, for example, the Washington Post obit, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal obit. Jon Ralston, dean of Nevada political reporting and CEO of the Nevada Independent (which broke the news yesterday on Sen. Reid's passing on), also spoke about Reid's congressional leadership in the fight against the Yucca dump, on MSNBC's "The Last Word" last night. Much less known is that Sen. Reid also had a key role in the last ditch, bipartisan, successful efforts to block the PFS CISF in UT, even after NRC had already approved the construction and operation license. (Despite all that, Sen. Reid also, most unfortunately, attempted to undermine the 1863 "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley between the U.S. and Western Shoshone, apparently/effectively in service to gold mining and other land use interests.)

--

Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Specialist
Beyond Nuclear
7304 Carroll Avenue, #182
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912

Cell: (240) 462-3216

kevin@beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org

Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.