Nevadans’ wishes must be respected

I am appalled that this subject just won’t die. We are a state — maybe the only one — that does not reap any benefits from a nuclear power plant.

Clark County and Las Vegas are adding more residents daily, bringing new business, new jobs, and major sports teams to our area. In addition to worrying about possible leakage, contamination, and earthquake damage, the material is subject to major accidents while traveling to get to Yucca. Our major highways, U.S. 95 and Interstate 15, run dangerously close to the Strip, downtown and North Las Vegas, including many residential areas.

As our tourism industry brings in most of the state’s revenues, any accident or leakage would put a halt to visitors and our economy for years to come. Why would any visitor take the chance to visit here and risk long-term health damages?

I moved to North Las Vegas 21 years ago; prior to that I was a lifelong resident of Kenosha, Wis., just across the border from Illinois. We had several power plants in our area, including the Zion Nuclear Power plant. All have since been shut down due to pollution and health concerns.

What makes our Republican elected leaders think there are no dangers here?

Any issue would be felt for years, if not decades. It’s not like a hurricane, whose effects can be repaired in days, months or years. The efforts to keep trying to open the Yucca Mountain project are unconscionable and I urge our leaders to use every tool available to keep fighting to end this immoral quest. The millions of dollars spent to resurrect Yucca over the years could surely be used for better purposes.

North Las Vegas

Storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be far from bringing in any kind of modernization to the nuclear storage program, but rather another landdump in the guise of underground storage.

If approved, we could find ourselves having made a mistake that is unresolvable and stuck with something we don’t want. The proponents for opening the dump site cannot guarantee nothing will happen, because who knows what will happen in the future? And as far as creating jobs, this remains unconvincing given that technology is forever eliminating jobs.

Last but not least: Hard, physical science denotes nuclear waste is dangerous .

This is a Trojan horse the state does not need. Let it go elsewhere.

Las Vegas

Nuclear waste is being stored on-site at nuclear power plants. How can people think that nuclear fuel rods in cement casks or ‘swimming pools’ is OK, but being placed in the middle of a mountain in the middle of a desert is not? How can people be afraid of transporting nuclear fuel rods via rail, but it is OK to have tankers of chlorine gas go through our city?

These nuclear transport trains are not going to go through major cities. And if there is an accident (although there hasn’t been any with transporting the fuel rods to the nuclear sites) it is not going to spill or blow up. The casks are engineered to resist splitting open under the most extreme environments. If something should happen, bring in a front loader, scoop the cask up and reload it on another train/truck. It is not going to spew radiation.

A nuclear waste repository needs to be remote, secure and dry. This describes Yucca Mountain. The only thing I don’t like is the idea of burying it and walking away. I feel that it should be a monitored site and the government should invest in nuclear research. UNLV and UNR should be funded to create a world-class research center on all things nuclear. Have this be part of the deal.

The jobs and education that could be created in our state is very much needed. If the tourist industry is so scared, quit talking about it. Or describe it as being 100 miles away — most tourists would consider that distance safe. The people in the rural counties are not afraid of having this site open and running. And it is literally in their backyards. It is people in Reno and Las Vegas who are so afraid.

Why are we fighting this? Oh yeah, a well-educated populace would not gamble or take the service jobs that the casino industry has to offer. And remember, casinos are popping up all over the country. It is a mistake to have Nevada put all of its eggs in one basket. Now is the time to decide to do something for someone other than wealthy casino executives.

Las Vegas

Having worked for an electric utility that had a nuclear power plant, I have some basic knowledge of reactors and their production of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste consists of several products of fission that have variable half-lives and power levels.

Those products that have very powerful radiation levels, like gamma, have very short half-lives and therefore decay rapidly; conversely, those at lower levels, like alpha and beta, have longer half-lives. Consequently, shielding those long-life byproducts is relatively easy.

Regardless, these byproducts have for decades been safely stored onsite at the power plants that produced them. Some of these plants are relatively near population centers, as compared to the remote Yucca Mountain location. Further, these byproducts are valuable and should be kept accessible for reprocessing, should we ever want to do so, like much of Europe does. We should not bury them and risk corrosion of the containers, but store them in such a way that they can be monitored.

Mesquite

Most people in LasVegas do not want or need Yucca Mountain to open. We have the Raiders coming to our city and the possibilities of new transportation systems. How many people would travel to our city knowing a radiation dump is only 95 miles away?

Last year, Rick Perry said Texas had some areas that could be considered. Texas is large enough and would have more available routes by rail. It is time that another site be assigned.

I have been a resident since 1984 and seen this city expand. We have more schools, university projects, cultural events, etc., that have put LasVegas on the map for new residents and tourists.

Please let’s not push Yucca Mountain; too much money has already been wasted.

Henderson

As a Pahrump resident with Yucca Mountain being less than 60 miles from my back patio, I support the revival of funding for completing the assessment of the site for storage and ongoing monitoring of spent nuclear power plant fuel rods.

With my engineering background, I served as a community representative on Nye County’s Yucca Mountain Advisory Committee. I worked with an extremely competent group of geologists, hydrologists and physicist consultants as the site was built and shipping and operational issues were considered. Bottom line is that Yucca Mountain can be operated safely as a monitored repository. Let’s update and complete the assessment and make a final decision on its use based on science and facts.

One must look at who is behind the opposition to it: the gaming industry — the same group that keeps Nevadans from having a state lottery. The opposition raises emotional issues against Yucca Mountain with little basis in reality in order to spread fear among the average public.

But now, it’s time for rational decisions to be made. Pahrump

My husband and I are small-business owners, and we firmly oppose the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

First, it is egregious and blatantly unfair for the federal government to overrule the majority opinion of Nevada citizens ever since the decision to store waste here was railroaded through in 1987. Let the states that actually use nuclear energy bargain with those jurisdictions that are in favor of storage in their neighborhood. We’re not against nuclear energy use per se, just being forced to store it here against local wishes.

Second, this is the third-most seismically active state in the U.S., a clear natural deterrent.

Third, politics seems to be trumping science. For instance, we once read an article touting storage casks that would be lined in titanium. Then we read another article claiming that not nearly enough titanium was in existence to accomplish this.

Fourth, the Las Vegas area is heavily dependent on tourism. Imagine the devastating consequences in the event of a nuclear accident or terrorism at the site or roads traveled to get to Yucca Mountain.

We’ll leave it at that, but there are many more arguments against this insane plan.

Las Vegas

I am totally against opening Yucca Mountain to nuclear waste. My fear is not so much about it being in the mountain but about transporting it to the mountain. The number of accidents that happen with trains being derailed or cars and trucks stalling on the tracks is just a minor bit of my fear. What about the crazies who deliberately attack the transports?

I don’t for one minute believe in the security of these transports. If hackers can get into some of the most secure computers in the world, they will find a way to know when these shipments are being made. They then decide to derail, blow them up, etc. What do we innocent people do when that radiation escapes into the air and gets into our neighborhoods? How many people will you find burned? Dead?

These shipments must stay where they are. Bury the waste where it is.

Henderson

The human race can be so destructive. There has been a war going on somewhere on this planet during every one of my 65 years. Weapons have become so accurate, and their destructive effects are 1,000 times greater than the largest bomb dropped on Japan.

One of these nuclear bombs dropped on top of the nuclear storage chamber would most certainly expose the nuclear waste to water. It would only take one person to place a nuclear bomb inside one of the storage casks to sabotage all of the Western United States.

Americans are selling trade secrets, bomb secrets and military secrets to the highest bidder, so there is a likely chance that someone will sell critically damaging information or allow the theft and replacement of a storage cask bomb.

Despite all of the planned safeguards, human error suggests that the storage chamber would eventually crack open enough for water to penetrate. Human error in the creation, inspection and transportation of thousands of nuclear storage casks will lead to some casks containing liquid by accident, some sabotaged and other unforeseen disasters, because we cannot safeguard anything for hundreds of thousands of years. Our entire planet is in danger if this nuclear waste is concentrated at one location. Las Vegas

The main reasons why no nuclear waste should be stored in Yucca Mountain are:

There is no such thing is low-energy nuclear waste: it continues to emit heat for years and years.

Yucca Mountain has an underground water stream, which we will eventually need as Lake Mead continues to decline.

Yucca Mountain is only one hour away from Las Vegas. With over 42 million tourists a year, this is an accident waiting to happen.

Where could the waste go? Carlsbad, N.M., has over 500 miles of salt caves. It has been receiving some states’ nuclear waste and has built up its highways and roads to accept this.

What is the holdup in the Republican-controlled House and Senate. The majority of Nevadans don’t want nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain. Those who do are those who actually think we will get some type of benefit.

Henderson

Being a native Nevadan and having a couple of brothers who have worked for Defense Department contractors raises a couple questions in my mind about the viability and efficacy of developing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site.

One of my brothers is in favor of bringing waste to Yucca Mountain; he talks about the funding and the physical support that would come from the government. I am not so sure, given the incidents unfolding at the Hanford Site in Washington state. If there could be a guarantee that the storage site would be safe for multiple generations and a huge security deposit set up for potential failures, I might consider the possibility of approval.

Other thoughts I have on setting up such a toxic storage area center around other already toxic areas — Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Hanford or perhaps stuffing the waste down the glass-lined holes created in the underground tests of the ’50s and ’60s.

Las Vegas

You can’t stockpile nuclear waste so close to a major city with 2 million residents and 40 million visitors without considering everyone’s concerns. It sure sounds convenient for the government to dump it all in one place in the desert and then announce that everything’s safe. But so much can go wrong at this location that it makes no sense to risk it.

A major earthquake, contamination seeping into the groundwater or air, accidents, theft, and a number of other unforeseen dangers are possible. Who knows, all those tons of nuclear fuel rods in one spot might inspire some knucklehead to ram it with a hijacked 747. And since I live about 80 miles away from Yucca Mountain, what will the winds bring to my tomato garden? What will my grandson (and even his grandson) be breathing when I take him four-wheeling in the sands nearby? I won’t even go into all the transportation issues.

Of course, we’re far advanced from the early days of nuclear technology, but I can’t help but think of those people in nearby St. George, Utah, who took the brunt of nuclear contamination from these same winds and started dying of cancer and leukemia. Nuclear waste storage is not the same as nuclear testing, but since nobody can say with 100 percent assurance that there won’t be a future problem, be it from natural causes or manmade, let’s not dump America’s nuclear waste in my backyard. Surely you can find a better solution, maybe even recycle the stuff and leave it where it’s made.

Las Vegas