Yucca Mountain is plagued by problems your article didn't mention. In December, the General Accounting Office cited 293 scientific and technical difficulties to be overcome before the repository could open. Transporting the 78,000 tons of nuclear waste that currently exist to Yucca Mountain will require about 50,000 different waste shipments and bring waste within one mile of 50 million Americans. The shipment process alone makes this a very dangerous operation. The design of Yucca Mountain is not complete, and Congress' Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board stated that there are enormous gaps in the Energy Department's understanding of the site's geology, volcanic activity and hydrology, and of the high-tech canisters it proposes to put the waste in.
The nuclear waste at Harris will be with us for many more years, if not permanently, and we need to demand that Carolina Power & Light Co. shift from the dangerous waste pool storage method to dry cask storage that will localize any attacks on the waste. Waste shipments into this area must stop. Sept. 11 has shown us that the unthinkable can quickly become reality. In the future, I recommend that articles on such a complex topic balance industry opinion with citizen and environmental group statements.
Nora Wilson
Project Organizer, N.C. WARN
