by Kevin Kamps, NIRS

For the past several years while I still lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, I regularly heard my U.S. Representative Fred Upton -- sponsor of the Mobile Chernobyl bill in the U.S. House -- claim that Yucca Mountain is the perfect place to store high-level nuclear wastes because it's bone dry and located in an uninhabited desert wasteland.

Well, last week on my tour deep within the tunnels of Yucca Mountain, imagine my surprise to see drips from the ceiling and puddles of water on the floor: an experiment to see what the high temperatures of nuclear waste would do to the rock of Yucca Mountain is forcing out water trapped in pores and fissures; it then forms condensation, drips and puddles. While standing atop the mountain, a Nevada geologist pointed out how rainwater sometimes vanishes instantly into the ground, flowing downward. Looking out to the horizon, I could see Amargosa Valley not far away, a farming community directly downstream that will receive radioactive contamination via the groundwater. Guess Yucca Mountain's not a bone dry, uninhabited wasteland after all.

Looking out at all the solar powered instruments atop Yucca Mountain (yes, this is the world's first
solar powered nuclear waste dump!) -- seismographs measuring earthquake activity, weather stations recording which way the wind will blow the radioactive gases that will inevitably escape, the global positioning satellite antenna studying how quickly the Earth's crust is expanding (which could mean there's a magma pocket beneath), I can't fathom how the nuclear establishment could do anything but disqualify the site from further consideration.

Together, we've stopped this nuclear madness for many years, and together we can continue to defend present and future generations against the deadly wastes of the nuclear industry.

Written by Kevin Kamps on Thursday, Jan. 20th, 2000.
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