Perpetuating ill-conceived nuclear waste policies, Congress passed legislation last year to accommodate the nuclear industry at a tremendous cost to the US public. Collectively known as Mobile Chernobyl, HR. 1270 and S. 104 mandate transportation of nuclear wastes to an "interim" storage site near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the location currently under consideration as a permanent, centralized repository for high-level nuclear wastes. If Mobile Chernobyl passes, either thousands of waste shipments will have to be transported twice through communities (once to interim storage and again to a permanent storage site) or Yucca Mountain will become a de facto permanent repository, even though it isn't safe.

Department of Energy (DOE) representatives often proclaim that the proposed site in the Mojave Desert is nothing but a worthless arid wasteland where no one lives. The Western Shoshone, the people indigenous to the area, continued struggle to defend their culture and the land sacred to them. The DOE and Congress also discount the plants and animals that call this area home, including the threatened desert tortoise. Congress is more interested in fulfilling the reckless promise the government made in the '50s to take the wastes created by the energy "too cheap to meter." Many years later, the repercussions of that decision have come fully to bear.

The communities now targeted for waste transport are showing vehement opposition. And the news from Yucca Mountain studies confirms what many knew all along: There is no good place to dump nuclear waste, especially here. More than a decade of study and the expenditure of billions of dollars have revealed that Yucca Mountain may be a particularly unsuitable site for permanent waste storage. The area contains no fewer than 33 earthquake faults and has a class four earthquake zone designation, the highest United States Geological Survey rating. As recently as June 1992, a 5.6-magnitude quake struck nearby, causing substantial damage to project surface facilities. The repository rock is highly fractured, and important questions about underground water movement remain unanswered.

So how is it that Congress voted to expose this region to the risks involved in transporting thousands of nuclear wastes shipments to an unsafe site? Simple. The nuclear industry, desperate to get the costs and liability for its wastes transferred to the public, poured more money into lobbying and campaign contributions than ever before.

The industry argued that there is a waste storage crisis and that the government has a responsibility to take the waste because rate payers have paid billions into a nuclear waste fund. A federal court has found, however, that while the government's contract for the waste is binding, it can pay the additional costs of prolonged storage at a reactor rather than accepting waste without a safe place to put it. The money in the Nuclear Waste Fund is collected to fund a permanent, not interim, repository and is expected to be inadequate, even for that purpose. Interim transport and storage will only increase the deficit of funds. Industry reps also argue that storing waste in one isolated site is environmentally safer than keeping it at many reactor sites throughout the country. Some day that might be true, but only if the reactors have shut down for good. Until then, storing wastes at Yucca Mountain only increases the number of dumps by one. Reactor wastes have to remain on site for a minimum of five to ten years before they can be transported. Even the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a Congressionally established independent oversight body, has stated that "there are no compelling technical reasons for moving commercial spent fuel to a centralized storage facility at this time."

Policy-makers must clearly acknowledge that there presently exist no safe technology for disposing of this deadly material, nor is it likely to ever be developed. The best we can hope for at this point, for the wastes that already exist, is a lesser of evils, a least unsafe solution. There are no guarantees of safety for anyone or any place near reactors, transport routes or storage sites. For these reasons, true responsibility means shutting down nuclear production now. Clinton has promised to veto the Mobile Chernobyl legislation. Please urge him to keep that promise and lobby your representatives to sustain the veto. If they voted right the first time, thank them. Organize. Groups like the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) can offer invaluable assistance.

For more information, contact Flagstaff Opposed to Nuclear Transport at 2155 E. Maple #17, Flagstaff, AZ 86004; (520) 774-6542 or 226-1884; reg3@dana.ucc.nau.edu.