Joseph C. Strolin: Yucca Mountain is no pot of gold

I have a great deal of respect for Tyrus Cobb and his long service to the country. But I have to respectfully disagree with his championing of the proposed Yucca Mountain project. As someone who has been involved with the federal nuclear waste program in general and the Yucca Mountain project in particular for the better part of three decades, I strongly disagree with the argument that Nevada is somehow losing out on great wealth and opportunity by continuing to oppose importing spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste into the State for storage or disposal at the Yucca site.

Years of study by the State of Nevada and independent researchers have shown that the risks and potentially significant losses to Nevada and its visitor-dependent economy far, far outweigh any short-term, transient economic benefits of the project, such as a small number of jobs (a fraction of 1 percent of the Southern Nevada labor force) and minor increases in revenue associated with such an undertaking.  

There is also no pot of gold to be had from the feds in exchange for agreeing to take spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The federal government is in the midst of the greatest fiscal crisis since the great depression. Every dollar appropriated from the federal treasury increases the federal deficit unless a dollar is cut somewhere else. And because dedicated funds like that set up to pay for nuclear waste disposal, the Highway Trust Fund, and others are all used to offset the deficit, the hard, cold fact is that there is no money available for Nevada, even if the State were willing to negotiate (which it is not).

I also respectfully disagree about the level of support there is in Nevada for negotiating for benefits in exchange for the Yucca project. Biannual research surveys conducted by the State since the late 1980s have asked the question, "Do you believe the State should stop its opposition [to the Yucca Mountain project] and make a deal, or do you think the State should continue to do all it can to oppose the repository, even if that means turning down benefits that may be offered by the federal government." Significant majorities of Nevadans (over 60 percent) consistently say that the State should continue opposition and reject benefits.

The bottom line for Nevada, and the reason the State has been opposed to the facility, is that Yucca is an unsuitable and unsafe site for disposing of dangerous and long-lived radioactive waste. State studies and independent research have shown that the site is incapable of isolating the waste for the millennia required. On top of that, the project would bring tens of thousands of shipments of deadly waste through the State's major metro areas day after day, month after month, for 30 years or more.

The hard fact is that there is no upside to the ill-conceived Yucca Mountain project for the State of Nevada and certainly no reason for the State to consider negotiations.

• Joseph C. Strolin is the acting executive director of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects