Nuke Dump Dead? Not to Nye County

Nuke Dump Dead? Not to Nye County

Mar 30 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

When you say the word "oversight" after the phrase "Yucca Mountain," most Nevadans think of the state's fight against the proposed nuclear waste dump. But in Nye County, home of Yucca Mountain, "oversight" clearly has a different meaning.

Nye is advertising for a new planner in its Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office. And both a look at the job description and interviews with county officials make it clear that the bulk of the planner's work will be planning for the repository to open.

"Incumbent will assist in coordinating Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository design, implementation, construction, operation, and closure impact assessment/impact mitigation with the local communities, county, state and federal agencies," the county's job description reads.

So much for Yucca Mountain being dead.

"Our responsibility is to assume that the repository is going forward," said David Swanson, interim acting director of Nye County's nuclear waste project office. "We'd be neglecting our duties if we didn't."

Fair enough. If I lived in the shadow of the mountain, I'd want my government to make sure the water is safe to drink and my family isn't exposed to radiation.

But the new planner, who will be focusing attention on Beatty and the Amargosa Valley, isn't being sought to protect the public's health and safety. In Beatty, the big question about water will be whether the water system in the small Death Valley gateway can handle an influx of residential growth as a result of the new jobs at the dump. In Amargosa Valley, the big question isn't about the safety of the children, but whether a high school will be needed as a result of the people who move there to work at the site.

"The job is basically to identify the potential impacts and to identify the resources the community has to deal with it," Swanson said.

The pay ain't shabby either. The position, which requires a master's degree in a planning field, will pay between $70,500 and $91,000 a year depending on the candidate's level of expertise.

Carl Torelli, a fiscal analyst in the county's nuclear waste office, said Nye County requested the position as an expansion of its oversight. The Department of Energy approved federal funding for the position on Feb. 20.

DOE already funds about a dozen positions in Nye County and the county also uses federal money to pay for about a dozen contractors.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent message that the dump is dead isn't getting through in Nye County.

"We never call it a dump here," Swanson said. "We can't make that assumption (that the project is dead). We deal really closely with the DOE on that issue and we never get the feeling from DOE or the Nuclear Energy Institute that it's dead."

Then Swanson channeled the NEI lobbyists.

"What Harry Reid is proposing is to store this nuclear waste at 126 facilities that were never intended for storage, versus putting that waste in an engineered facility," Swanson said. "There is no technical issue here, the issues are political."

Bob Loux is the manager of the state's Nuclear Waste Project Office, whose Web site has an entire section devoted to technical issues. "They're spending time and money getting ready for the repository instead of opposing it," Loux said of Nye County's office.

Loux said Nye County is also under contract with the DOE to conduct certain hydrology projects and has cooperative agreements to coordinate certain regional plans. "Obviously when they're doing oversight, they are not in a position of formally opposing, and more and more they're leaning to support," Loux said. "That's their mode. It would certainly be more helpful if they would be more along the lines of Clark County."

Clark County, which is formally opposed to the repository, has conducted an economic impact study suggesting an accident at Yucca Mountain that releases radiation would have a devastating effect on the Southern Nevada economy.

The study suggests Southern Nevada would lose 54,000 jobs and that 90,000 residents would move.

The 2002 report also analyzed the impact to residential home values and threats to school children from the transportation of waste by rail and road.

Loux's office also receives federal oversight money from the DOE. The state currently has two active lawsuits against the DOE, both in Nevada courts. It is also preparing a response in the event DOE submits a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next June.

"While we agree that it's dying," Loux said, "as long as Congress appropriates money for it, it's alive."

And as long as DOE funds high-paying jobs in rural Nevada to prepare for the dump, it would wrong to write Yucca Mountain's obituary. Especially with Nye County being such an adept Equal Opportunity Employer.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.