Politics has trumped science at Yucca since day one

Robert Alvarez (photo at left), senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, and formerly a senior advisor to the Energy Secretary from 1993 to 1999, has penned a response to yet another in a long line of pro-Yucca dump editorials by the Washington Post editorial board. Ironically enough, a Nuclear Energy Institute ad, taking readers to the NEI website, appeared next to the Post editorial. Alvarez called for prioritizing hardened on-site storage of high-level radioactive wastes, rather than wasting more time and money on the 55 year old will-o-the-wisp dumpsite search. Instead, President Obama's and Energy Secretary Chu's "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future" is advocating regional "centralized interim storage," parking lot dumps that will play a risky radioactive waste shell game on our roads, rails, and waterways, and will likely violate environmental justice by targeting such sites as the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah. These centralized parking lot dumps, as at DOE weapons sites such as Savannah River, South Carolina, could also serve as a stepping stone to reprocessing, risking weapons proliferation, environmental contamination and health impacts, as well as a mega-boondoggle for taxpayers. Despite reprocessing's risks, Energy Secretary Chu continues to repeatedly voice support for it.