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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