Yes to Nukes, No to Waste and to Hell with the Shoshones, Heidi Walters, Las Vegas City Life
If national security comes at the price of health and environmental destruction, then let the bombs fly. At least this is what Nevada's Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign have implied with their inconsistent policies toward Yucca Mountain as a proposed Nuclear Waste dumping ground. Heidi Walters, writing in Las Vegas City Life, argues that contrary to prior congressional policies against Yucca Mountain as a Nuclear waste storage site, support for proposed nuclear testing 'proves once again that the Yucca battle has been purely a political game.' Spokesman Bob Schaeffer of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability agrees that 'Nuclear testing, even a confined underground test, creates a de facto nuclear waste dump beneath the Test Site. Every test creates exactly what they're opposing at Yucca Mountain!' While evident health problems in the Shoshone Indian Nation have been a byproduct of existing waste stored at the site, pro-nuclear agencies will continue to lobby for the site to be used for testing. As Bob Loux of Nevada's Agency Nuclear projects states, 'I think Nevadans make some distinction between being called on to protect the nation versus being a lackey for the nuclear power industry. I don't see an inconsistency, myself.'
--Mary Matze
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