Politics cloud Yucca Mountain

The presidential candidates raised a fuss last week over the plan to store spent nuclear fuel rods at a facility deep in the heart of Yucca, Nev.

If this sounds like chapter 5,000 of a never-ending saga, it is. Don't hold your breath waiting for a happy ending.

John Kerry brought the subject up during a campaign stop in Nevada. He accused President Bush of reneging on a promise by approving the Yucca site despite a lack of adequate science. Were he president, he said, he would study the issue more.

Just what we need.

Simply put, if Congress and the president haven't studied this well enough by now, they never will.

The issue of nuclear waste storage has been around for more than 30 years. The only thing that has become crystal clear during that time is that it won't be decided by science alone. Through the years, politics has swung through the issue like a hungry gorilla beating its chest and making threats.

Early on, the Atomic Energy Commission decided salt deposits near Lyons, Kan., would be an ideal storage site. But influential Kansans wouldn't hear of it. Then, the Department of Energy decided three sites in Tennessee were the most geographically suitable places on which to store the stuff. But influential Tennessee residents wouldn't hear of it, either.

That left Yucca Mountain, which is about 90 miles from Las Vegas. In the 1980s, Kerry was among several senators who voted to quit looking at any other sites and to study Yucca alone. Finally, to no one's surprise, in 2002 Congress voted to select Yucca as the site.

In part, this was because little Nevada wasn't influential enough to stop it. But time also was running out. Nuclear waste is piling up near the nation's reactors. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, Yucca wouldn't be ready for shipments until 2010 or later.

If politicians were looking at this issue purely from a practical and scientific standpoint, they would decide to build a series of storage sites nationwide near the various reactors. There is no other logical solution.

If they really believe it is dangerous to store the casks, they also must believe it is dangerous to transport them. That would make the plan to designate one site as the permanent repository a foolish idea.

But if, on the other hand, they believe all the evidence that shows the casks that store spent fuel rods are safe, they would have to acknowledge that it makes sense to keep them near where they were produced.

Unfortunately, however, politicians don't live in an environment free from politics. That means Kerry's promise to reject Yucca and study the matter more is nothing but a promise to keep stalling on this issue indefinitely, hoping to keep the gorilla from beating his chest. If ever there was a substance to raise the not-in-my-backyard emotions of an ill-informed public, it is nuclear waste.

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