Yucca Mountain

Having read several accounts of the problems encountered in finding a place to get rid of the oily trash collected during the Gulf cleanup, especially the burdens placed on neighboring states as well as inland Louisiana, it occurs to me that we currently have an ideal site for this trash which would relieve these southern states of the ecological damage they are currently suffering and will probably incur in the future. We have an unused waste site which will probably be unused for a good while, maybe forever.

Having read several accounts of the problems encountered in finding a place to get rid of the oily trash collected during the Gulf cleanup, especially the burdens placed on neighboring states as well as inland Louisiana, it occurs to me that we currently have an ideal site for this trash which would relieve these southern states of the ecological damage they are currently suffering and will probably incur in the future. We have an unused waste site which will probably be unused for a good while, maybe forever.

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. - Just mention the words radiation and Yucca Mountain, and many folks hereabouts will complain that the federal government has nuked them again. Yucca Mountain, which President Bush has just designated as the nation's nuclear waste depository, is just 20 miles away. It sits on the edge of the Nevada Test Site, where the government exploded 1,100 nuclear devices, including 14 atmospheric tests, during the Cold War. The blasts were said to be safe, but years later, civilians exposed to fallout and military personnel, some of whom marched into smoking bomb craters, became ill with cancer and blamed the government.

A clause in the landmark energy bill now before Congress could open the door for massive loan guarantees meant to entice investors to build nuclear power plants. This is an extremely important piece of legislation, and we strongly support its green features, including higher mileage standards for motor vehicles and a renewable electricity standard. But as longtime anti-nuclear activists, we believe guaranteeing loans to build new reactors is exactly wrong for a nation that needs to solve the global warming crisis while building a sustainable economy.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. -- Atop Yucca Mountain, geologist Gregory Fasano gazed out over the sterile landscape of the Nevada desert 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas."

LAS VEGAS - Accusing the Bush administration of disregarding science in its policy decisions, Sen. John Kerry vowed yesterday to protect nearby Yucca Mountain from the potential hazards of storing nuclear waste there. During a campaign appearance with emergency first-responders, Kerry criticized President Bush as breaking a promise to Nevadans in 2000 to examine the safety and science of nuclear waste storage. He accused Bush of disregarding science on a host of other issues as well, including stem cell research, global warming and the environment.

A proposed nuclear waste facility in Nevada could draw hundreds -- and perhaps thousands -- of shipments of radioactive material through Maryland aboard trucks, trains or even barges towed up the Chesapeake Bay, federcidents or even terrorist attacks similar to the alleged sabotage that caused the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train in Arizona this week."

Fifth-grader Mike McNeill won Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School's first National Geography Bee on Jan. 7. The critical question was, "Yucca Mountain is located in which state?" said fifth-grade team leader Carol Hahn, who organized the event with Principal Sue Webster. "And he knew Nevada right away, which I thought was a hard question for a 10-year-old." Yucca Mountain is the proposed site of a national repository for radioactive waste. The National Geography Bee, offered to schools across the country by the National Geographic Society, provides rules, practice questions and an opportunity to compete statewide and nationwide.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. - President Bush picked a 1,200-foot-tall, flat-topped volcanic ridge yesterday as the site to entomb up to 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste now piling up at 131 commercial, military and research reactors around the country. Bush, who announced his decision in a letter to Congress, said, "Proceeding with the repository program is necessary to protect public safety, health, and the nation's security because successful completion of this project would isolate in a geologic repository at a remote location highly radioactive materials now scattered throughout the nation."

The metal containers designed to carry spent nuclear fuel from the Calvert Cliffs plant and other reactors to a proposed storage site in Nevada would have failed if the transport train had been engulfed in the estimated 1,500- degree heat of the Baltimore rail tunnel fire last summer, according to a consultant's report prepared for the state of Nevada. More than 300,000 people would have been exposed to radiation leaking from the containers, built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, said the report compiled by Radioactive Waste Management Associates, which was hired by Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

ROCKVILLE -- A new round of testing has found that casks used to transport dangerous nuclear waste are capable of surviving a catastrophe such as Baltimore's Howard Street Tunnel fire with no more than minor releases of radioactivity, according to a report presented to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel yesterday. NRC experts found that one of three types of cylinders commonly used to carry spent nuclear fuel would withstand such a fire with no radioactive release whatsoever. They said a fire as hot as the 2001 Howard Street blaze could breach the seals on two other cask models, but concluded that the amount of radioactive material released would be "very small."

LAS VEGAS - Accusing the Bush administration of disregarding science in its policy decisions, Sen. John Kerry vowed yesterday to protect nearby Yucca Mountain from the potential hazards of storing nuclear waste there. During a campaign appearance with emergency first-responders, Kerry criticized President Bush as breaking a promise to Nevadans in 2000 to examine the safety and science of nuclear waste storage. He accused Bush of disregarding science on a host of other issues as well, including stem cell research, global warming and the environment.

Metal containers designed to transport spent nuclear fuel would have survived the intense heat from a blaze in a Baltimore rail tunnel in July 2001, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC's findings contradict a report by a private firm last year which said the containers would have failed, causing a catastrophic radiation leak. More than 300,000 people in the Baltimore area would have been exposed to radiation from the containers, built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, said the report, prepared by Radioactive Waste Management Associates.

Fifth-grader Mike McNeill won Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School's first National Geography Bee on Jan. 7. The critical question was, "Yucca Mountain is located in which state?" said fifth-grade team leader Carol Hahn, who organized the event with Principal Sue Webster. "And he knew Nevada right away, which I thought was a hard question for a 10-year-old." Yucca Mountain is the proposed site of a national repository for radioactive waste. The National Geography Bee, offered to schools across the country by the National Geographic Society, provides rules, practice questions and an opportunity to compete statewide and nationwide.

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. - Just mention the words radiation and Yucca Mountain, and many folks hereabouts will complain that the federal government has nuked them again. Yucca Mountain, which President Bush has just designated as the nation's nuclear waste depository, is just 20 miles away. It sits on the edge of the Nevada Test Site, where the government exploded 1,100 nuclear devices, including 14 atmospheric tests, during the Cold War. The blasts were said to be safe, but years later, civilians exposed to fallout and military personnel, some of whom marched into smoking bomb craters, became ill with cancer and blamed the government.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev. - President Bush picked a 1,200-foot-tall, flat-topped volcanic ridge yesterday as the site to entomb up to 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste now piling up at 131 commercial, military and research reactors around the country. Bush, who announced his decision in a letter to Congress, said, "Proceeding with the repository program is necessary to protect public safety, health, and the nation's security because successful completion of this project would isolate in a geologic repository at a remote location highly radioactive materials now scattered throughout the nation."

WASHINGTON -- A preliminary report on a nuclear waste storage project in Nevada concludes that very little radiation would leak from the site and that a repository there would be as safe and much cheaper than securing the waste where it now collects, at dozens of sites around the nation.The preliminary environmental impact statement, released yesterday by the Department of Energy, acknowledges, though, that some key issues are not understood well enough to recommend using the place, Yucca Mountain, Nev., in the desert about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Metal containers designed to transport spent nuclear fuel would have survived the intense heat from a blaze in a Baltimore rail tunnel in July 2001, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC's findings contradict a report by a private firm last year which said the containers would have failed, causing a catastrophic radiation leak. More than 300,000 people in the Baltimore area would have been exposed to radiation from the containers, built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, said the report, prepared by Radioactive Waste Management Associates.

The metal containers designed to carry spent nuclear fuel from the Calvert Cliffs plant and other reactors to a proposed storage site in Nevada would have failed if the transport train had been engulfed in the estimated 1,500- degree heat of the Baltimore rail tunnel fire last summer, according to a consultant's report prepared for the state of Nevada. More than 300,000 people would have been exposed to radiation leaking from the containers, built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes, said the report compiled by Radioactive Waste Management Associates, which was hired by Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

WASHINGTON -- A preliminary report on a nuclear waste storage project in Nevada concludes that very little radiation would leak from the site and that a repository there would be as safe and much cheaper than securing the waste where it now collects, at dozens of sites around the nation.The preliminary environmental impact statement, released yesterday by the Department of Energy, acknowledges, though, that some key issues are not understood well enough to recommend using the place, Yucca Mountain, Nev., in the desert about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.