NEWS RELEASE
NEVADA LEADERS BRING YUCCA FIGHT TO UTAH
For Immediate Release
May 21, 2002

CONTACT:
Steve Erickson, Director
Citizens Education Project
961 East 600 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84102
(801) 359-4929
E-mail: slceric@concentric.net

NOTICE OF NEWS CONFERENCE

WHO: U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese, Congressman Jim Matheson, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson

WHAT: Opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project

WHERE: At the corner of 600 West and South Temple Streets, Salt Lake City (Bad weather alternative: Salt Lake City Council Chambers, 3rd Floor)

WHEN: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 at 9:45 A.M.

Contacts:

NEVADA LEADERS BRING YUCCA FIGHT TO UTAH

Nevada U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, and Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese are bringing their fight against the Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository to downtown Salt Lake City's backyard.

Reid, the Senate Assistant Majority Leader, Goodman, mayor of the nation's fastest growing city, and Reese, Las Vegas Mayor Pro Tem, will highlight the risks and costs of transporting nuclear waste through Utah at a press conference on the railroad tracks just a fairway wood west of the Gateway development.

"Transporting nuclear waste is an accident waiting to happen," Reid said. "The Department of Energy's own numbers indicate that accidents are just a matter of when and where – not if. If Yucca Mountain is approved, over 90% of the nuclear waste shipments will be transported through Utah."

Reid argued that "if Utah's Senators vote for Yucca Mountain they will be putting Utahns in harms way. Not only will they be voting to transport nuclear waste through the backyards of Utah residents for years, but they will also be supporting temporarily storing nuclear waste in Tooele County."

Mayor Goodman stated "my mission will be to educate the citizens of Salt Lake City and Utah about the potential dangers being thrust upon them. Why risk the unthinkable consequences of a radioactive spill if we don't have to? It is unreasonable for the federal government to expect us in the West to shoulder this potentially deadly burden. It takes just one spill and Salt Lake City becomes America's Chernobyl."

Reid, Goodman, and Reese will be joined at the May 28 press conference by Utah Congressman Jim Matheson and Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, who oppose the plan to bury the nation's spent nuclear fuel in Nevada as well as the Private Fuel Storage proposal to store the waste temporarily on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah prior to shipping it to Nevada.

The press conference is timed to encourage Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett to vote against the Yucca Mt. Project. A Senate vote could occur this summer.

"Utah and Nevada don't produce any of this waste," Representative Matheson said. "This is a case of the East dumping on the West. I question the rush to move the planet's most lethal waste through 44 states when there is room to store it safely right where it is."

Mayor Rocky Anderson, who will testify against the Yucca Mountain project before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 22nd, continues to urge Salt Lake City residents and Utah's congressional delegation to oppose the project. "Some elected officials in Utah have opposed the PFS proposal while remaining quiet about Yucca Mountain," said Anderson. "Both projects put all Salt Lake Valley residents at risk. Salt Lake City will see more nuclear waste traveling to Yucca Mountain than any other city besides Las Vegas, exposing many of us to daily doses of radiation. Just one major accident or one terrorist attack could devastate our City."

Home