Yucca Mountain - The Debate Continues

In recent years and continuing on into the presentalmost consistent breezes and wind.
there has been a debate in Congress over theIt should be noted that although some of the
use of Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclearresidents here have lived here for a long time, the
waste from all over the U.S. While many statestown has grown over the past 6 years from a
are concerned with the transportation of suchpopulation of less than 30,000 to over 38,000,
waste through their states, here in Nevada theand many are younger adults and children.
last thing many of us want is nuclear waste beingPahrump had been for a long time considered a
stored in our backyards. Living in the town ofretirement community for those who worked at
Pahrump which is just a stone's throw fromthe Test Site and Yucca Mountain. However, in
Yucca Mountain, the citizens here are naturallyrecent years there has been a large influx of
against having a nuclear storage facility in theiryounger people, many of them with small children
backyard. In towns and cities along the route towho also have been developing allergies which
Yucca Mountain naturally there is a concern overthey never had before moving here. It would
the routes being used to transport nuclear wasteseem at least to this observer, that adding to the
to the storage facility itself. For years now thereproblem is certainly not the answer, and if the
has been a heavy debate going on in Congress,majority of citizens living here are against such a
and the Environmental Protection Agency hasfacility for obvious reasons, the plan should be
been conducting its own investigation as toscrapped, and a new less dangerous site should
whether or not Yucca Mountain is the safest andbe selected. I haven't yet heard of any other
best place to store such waste materials. Instate that has come forward and offered to
addition they have been attempting to find theallow such a facility to be built in their state, and it
quickest routes to the facility through which toisn't too likely that one will. Just as no one wants
transport the waste materials, without posing aa prison built in their backyard, no one wants a
potential threat to human life if a spill should takenuclear waste dump built in their's either. The time
place along the way.has come for the citizens of Nevada along with
Most citizens in Nevada are opposed to thetheir representatives and senators to hold those
nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, and manyin power accountable for their actions, and begin
are currently suffering from the radioactive dustto listen to those citizens directly affected by
particles now coming to the surface in the deserttheir seemingly inept decisions.
as a result of erosion of the top soil, which can beI am not by any means opposed to providing
dated back to the nuclear testing done bothmore jobs for southern Nevadans, and the Yucca
above and below ground at the Nevada Test SiteMountain project will certainly do that, however at
just some 40 miles from the town of Pahrump.what cost to human health and safety? Will it be
Even I personally who never had any allegeriesworth the risk now and in the future, that is the
other than to Penicillin, now are suffering fromquestion, and until the government does some
respiratory allergies, and am on daily medicationserious research and investigating into all the
for those allergies. Most physicians here believepotential risks, and also takes into account the
that many of the citizens here in town whomany fault lines which run through the state of
suffer from allergies who had never before beenNevada, we citizens must stand firm in our
symptomatic can be directly related to the vastinsistence that they find a more suitable location
amount of dust particles in the air due to thefor the nuclear repository.