Nevada ups battle against nuclear-dump site

When it came to defending alleged mobsters, lawyer Oscar Goodman used to pursue every trick in his briefcase to keep clients from a jail cell.

Now, as mayor of Las Vegas, he is vowing to do everything he can to put certain people behind bars - specifically, anyone who tries to haul nuclear waste through his city. Mr. Goodman says he will "personally arrest" anyone who ships plutonium through the streets of Las Vegas.

His threat is part of the latest gambit by Nevada officials to keep the state from being used as a nuclear-waste dump for the rest of the nation.

With the decision last week by President Bush to endorse Yucca Mountain, a remote area 95 miles northwest of here, as the nation's official high-level nuclear-waste dump, Nevada is turning up the volume of protest. The state is especially trumpeting what it thinks is one of its most persuasive arguments: that transporting radioactive material across the country is loaded with significant safety risks.

Not only would Nevada residents be vulnerable to a spill, state officials say, but also an untold number of other Americans, since more than 100 cities with populations of at least 100,000 are located along the proposed transportation routes in 43 states.

Of course, the actual degree of danger - like so many other aspects of Yucca - is a matter of dispute. The site was first selected by Congress in 1987 because of the mountain's hard volcanic nature and its dry, remote location. Concerns have been raised about seismic activity and possible contamination of nearby ground-water supplies, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has concluded - after at least $4 billion in studies - that Yucca would be sufficiently safe.

Now, Nevada officials, along with environmentalists and even casino executives, hope to gain momentum in a post-Sept. 11 world of safety jitters. They liken the waste's transport on public roads and rails to a ticking time bomb.

One thing, however, is certain: It's still a long, hard road to opening a national nuclear-waste dump. True, Mr. Bush's action was a major step forward in the process, and a major blow to Nevada. But many steps remain, including congressional approval and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's issuance of a license to build the repository. The federal government's own timetable puts the opening a decade away, and stiff opposition from Nevada officials - including Goodman, Gov. Kenny Guinn (R), and the state's entire congressional delegation - could prolong the process further.

"They were supposed to start shipments in 1998," says Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. "We've been successful in keeping it out."

During the US Conference of Mayors last month in Washington, Goodman filed a complaint on behalf of Las Vegas and Clark County with the Circuit Court of Appeals there, asking it to intervene on grounds that federal law has been ignored in the approval of Yucca Mountain. The state of Nevada has also filed several lawsuits.

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