Feb 28 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

Nuclear waste can be safely stored in Yucca Mountain and the state should consider negotiating for financial benefits in exchange for accepting the long-delayed nuclear repository, a member of Gov. Jim Gibbons' transition team and former Reagan administration security official said Tuesday.

Ty Cobb told a gathering of Reno business and political leaders that some money from a $27.1 billion national fund to construct the repository could be given to the state.

"The money is there," said Cobb, a former Army colonel, National Security Council and CIA operative. "The monetary benefits are there and warrant a reappraisal of the state stance."

But Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, responded that no money is available for Nevada. He said the latest estimates are that the repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will cost more than $100 billion if it is ever built, and taxpayers will end up paying for half of that.

He said one-third of the workers at the site have been laid off and Congress has limited funds. He said both Democratic presidential candidates want to scrap the project.

Loux said the state could have claimed $10 million a year for accepting the dump, but that offer expired long ago.

He said every poll for decades has shown overwhelming citizen opposition to the repository. Loux has voiced the state viewpoint against the dump for every governor since 1984.

While Nevada state government revenues have fallen short of projections by $565 million because of a weakened economy, Gibbons remains opposed to the repository, Loux said in an interview last week.

Before the presentation, University of Nevada, Reno professor John Scire and Cobb released a position paper asking the state to "undertake a neutral, unbiased assessment" of the repository.

They argued that a new appraisal would find that waste can be safely transported by armed guards to the Nevada site. Waste stored in Yucca Mountain would be far more secure from terrorists than continuing to store it at 73 nuclear power plants around the country, they concluded.

Cobb, who is the father of Assemblyman Ty Cobb, R-Reno, even said that an earthquake along the lines of the one that struck Wells last week would not penetrate the waste in casks buried beneath Yucca Mountain.

And he said Illinois has drawn $3 billion and Pennsylvania $2 billion out of the nuclear waste fund.

"And Nevada? The state government hasn't drawn a red cent? The rationale is that should Nevada begin to negotiate for a slice of this funding, it would compromise its 'No Repository Here' stance," he said.

Loux said Cobb was mistaken and had actually cited what Illinois and Pennsylvania ratepayers paid into the waste fund.

"No state has ever drawn money out of the waste fund," Loux said.

But in an interview after the meeting, Cobb even said the power generating states "want to pay us."

Loux questioned whether a Yucca Mountain repository ever could be safe. He said the Energy Department has been called "incompetent" by the Congressional Government Accounting Office.

All 127 nuclear facilities constructed by the DOE have leaked, and cleanup costs the government $500 million a year, he said.

But Scire called Loux's comments "propaganda" and contended DOE inherited facilities in which sloppy work was conducted by the Department of Defense.

Despite joining Cobb in preparing the position statement, Scire said he did not care whether the repository is ever completed.

He said the waste can remain for now outside nuclear plants and eventually be reprocessed.

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