Copyright 2000 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
February 11, 2000 Friday 2D EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-01
LENGTH: 732 words
HEADLINE:
Vote on nuclear-waste shipments divides Colorado's U.S. senators
BYLINE: By Bill McAllister, Denver Post Washington
Bureau Chief,
BODY:
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate on
Thursday voted once again to require that the nation's nuclear wastes
be shipped to a remote site in Nevada, which would send tons of
radioactive wastes across Colorado's highways and railroads.
The state's two Republican senators split over how big a
risk the shipments would pose to the state. Sen. Wayne Allard
supported the bill, saying that Colorado has too much nuclear waste
stored near residential areas. In voting against the measure, Sen.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell said he feared the proposal could lead to
a horrific nuclear accident in Colorado's high and narrow
mountain passes.
Responding to the fears of Colorado's ski
industry and state highway officials, Campbell was one of two Senate
Republicans to break with GOP leadership and vote against the
measure. Their votes may be largely symbolic because the 64-34
tally was three votes short of the 67 needed to ensure an override
of the veto that President Clinton has threatened. A similar
bill died in the House in 1997.
Immediately after the vote,
Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the bill's chief sponsor, conceded
defeat. 'This bill is dead until we get a new administration,' he
said.
He blamed the Clinton administration for delaying
the government's commitment to find a storage site for the wastes
from the nation's nuclear power plants and other nuclear
facilities. The deadline for such a site was 1998.
But the
Alaska lawmaker also acknowledged his efforts had failed to change
many votes since the Senate last considered the proposal in 1997. 'We
ended up just about where we were last time,' he said, referring to
the Senate's 65-34 vote in 1997.
A 1982 law required the Department of
Energy to find a waste site. The Yucca Mountain
site, which Murkowski proposed, is 90 miles from Las Vegas. Although
it is the only site under consideration by the government, it has yet
to win final approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
site is not ready to accept the wastes, and it would not have to
begin taking them until 2007 under the bill.
Since many of
the nation's nuclear wastes would have to be shipped to Nevada from
nuclear power plants in the East, Colorado officials fear many
shipments would have to travel across their state. Most of the wastes
would be shipped by train, but Campbell said Thursday the train and
truck routes would take the wastes through Denver, posing an
unacceptable risk.
Trucks would travel the Interstate 70 corridor,
across high mountain passes and through narrow, steep Glenwood
Canyon. Any accident could devastate Colorado, Campbell said in an
interview before the vote.
'It would be terrifically
dangerous,' Campbell said. In a Senate Appropriations Committee
hearing, he recalled how paralyzed Colorado officials were when a
truckload of torpedoes overturned at the Interstate 25-Interstate 70
interchange in 1984.
Campbell said no state wanted the wastes.
'l likened it to building a nice home and putting a
septic tank on your neighbor's land,' Campbell said. 'You get the
nice home, and guess what your neighbor gets?'
'We all want
to get rid of that stuff,' he said. But as a former Air Force
serviceman based in Nevada, Campbell said he wasn't confident the
Yucca site was safe.
'The land out there has earthquake fissures, and
there is the possibility of contaminating water,' he said. 'And until
it is certified as safe, I'm reluctant to send it all out there.'
He added that once the waste is in Nevada, even on
a temporary basis, 'no state is going to allow it back in'
its borders.
Allard, who supported the previous Senate bill,
did so again Thursday.
'Today's vote was very important to
Colorado, which has waste sites within close proximity to residential
areas and in particular to residents who reside near the former St.
Vrain nuclear power plant in Platteville,' he said in a
statement, noting that the nation's utilities ratepayers have been
paying for the costs of a nuclear storage facility for years. 'They
are entitled to have that commitment honored.
'Based on
research I have conducted, I believe the best option is to move this
nuclear waste to a permanent storage that is away from populated
areas.'
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Allard Campbell
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 2000 
