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“YUCCA MOUNTAIN IS NO LONGER AN OPTION” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1153 on March 4, 2010.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
YUCCA MOUNTAIN IS NO LONGER AN OPTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. BERKLEY. Mr. Speaker, during the campaign, President Obama pledged to Nevadans that he would kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project. He has kept his word.
Yesterday, the Energy Department moved to pull the license for the dump. The President's blue ribbon panel will meet this month to find an alternative to Yucca Mountain. But I think it is important for me to reexplain why the opposition to Yucca Mountain is so strong, not only throughout the State of Nevada, but throughout the United States.
There is a very long history here. As we refer to it in Nevada, the so-called ``Screw Nevada'' bill that was passed over two decades ago decided there were three sites that were supposed to be considered for the disposition of nuclear waste. All of a sudden, in the ``Screw Nevada'' bill there was one State, and we had the honor of being selected as the State that got screwed by the United States Congress. So this was always a political decision. It never was based on sound science.
Let me tell you what the proposal of this bill was: 77,000 tons of toxic radioactive nuclear waste being shipped across 43 States to be buried in a hole in the Nevada desert where we have groundwater issues, seismic activity and volcanic activity, and 90 miles from a major population center in the western United States.
This was never based on sound science, and it never was a viable option. However, for the last 20-some odd years, it has been the option that this Congress and the former administration wanted to foist on the American people.
Now, let me explain what some of the things are that are wrong with this. First of all, there is no safe way to transport 77,000 tons of toxic radioactive nuclear waste across 43 States. It would take 300,000 trips either on our highways or on our rails across this country where we would be going past schools and hospitals and residential areas in order to get to Nevada. Now, just statistically, there would have been X number of accidents when you have 300,000 shipments.
Also, after 9/11 we became painfully aware of the potential for a terrorist attack. What would prevent a terrorist from attacking a nuclear train that was bringing this nuclear waste to the State of Nevada? That is number one.
Number two, there is no canister that exists that could safely store the waste. This was the initial proposal. Yucca Mountain was supposed to be a natural depository that would collapse on itself once it was full. Well, what do you know? They found out that it wasn't bone dry. There is moisture in Yucca Mountain. So then they said, well, let's create a canister to store the waste. Of course, no canister exists. But they did say there was the possibility that the cannister would leach into the groundwater.
So then they said, well, what we will do, since the mountain is not a natural repository and the canisters don't exist, and if they did exist they couldn't protect the groundwater from the leaching of nuclear waste into the groundwater, so we will have titanium shields over the canisters that don't exist in Yucca Mountain that isn't a natural repository.
Then they came up with the brilliant plan in the last administration that there would be an army of robots, because it would be too dangerous for human beings to go down to Yucca Mountain, so an army of robots that would have to be invented would go down to Yucca Mountain to seal the canisters that don't exist with the titanium shields in Yucca Mountain that isn't a natural repository. This is what we have been dealing with for over two decades.
Also, there are EPA standards. They said 10,000 years. Well, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled that because, do you know what? The shelf life of nuclear waste is 300,000 years. So that made no sense either.
The nuclear industry and its allies continue to talk about putting nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. That plan is so dead, because the State of Nevada supports the President of the United States, who has finally pulled the plug on this ridiculous program.
There is no magic money tree. This is going to cost billions and billions of dollars. Where are we getting that money? Nevada doesn't have a money tree.
Do you know what else Nevada doesn't have, Mr. Speaker? We don't have any water. We are in the middle of a desert, and it takes millions of gallons of water in order to cool the nuclear waste. So I don't know where they are expecting to get the water, but they ought to take a look at the map, because there is no water in the State of Nevada. We are in the middle of a desert.
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So I want to thank the President of the United States for honoring his promises. This blue ribbon panel will finally meet and start the process of finding an alternative to Yucca Mountain. If this country is going to rely on nuclear energy in the future, we'd better finally figure out a way of what to do with the nuclear waste. I support the President and the blue ribbon panel. I wish them well.
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