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FROM: Bill Stremmel DATE: June 7, 2019 TO: Pahrump Nuclear Waste & Environment Committee (NWEAC) members CC: Nye County Board of Commissioners + members of the public in attendance NNSS:spent fuel storage site due to demise of Yucca Mountain underground repository Latest disappointing developments in the House and Senate regarding the third year in which the $120 million appropriation for DOE to complete Yucca Mountain licensing studies prompt this epitaph for the project and contemplation of prospects for the nation’s inventory of spent nuclear fuels coming into Nevada anyway. As with most public policy fiascos, blame can be equally divided across the aisle. Rah- Rah pro-Yucca Midwestern Representatives with a single-minded goal of getting the waste out of their districts fail to consider upgrading Nevada’s freight rail network to avoid the non-starter of trucking the entire inventory over the road. Rail extensions from Caliente and Hawthorne should not even be considered infrastructure plums. Rather, they are integral to the repository. Yucca’s demise may prove to be a victory for Nevada's political elite, their obstinacy in the end coming back to haunt the state. Sometime in the perhaps distant future there will be an accident with or, heaven forbid a theft of spent fuels from one of the 100+ sites around the country. A national emergency will be declared, the fun and games will be over, and the "Riot Act" will be read to Nevada politicians. They will look more pathetic than Southern segregationists standing in the schoolhouse door. Those opposing integration were up against the Supremacy Clause in the original Articles of the federal constitution, and the 14th Amendment. Yucca opponents are flouting two clauses: Supremacy and Commerce among the original Articles. They are in denial about the federal government's prerogative over its vast landholdings in Nevada embracing numerous facilities critical to national security. The SNF's will be moved, all of them by truck, of course, and much of it right up I-15 and US-95 (No, there will never be an "Interstate 11, Nevada politicians having forgotten that lesson from preschool "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours") into aboveground storage at the test site. Right next to the weapons-grade plutonium DOE covertly shipped there last fall that should have left a lot of egg on the faces of Yucca opponents. Management of a nation's infrastructure is a good prognosis of where it is going as a civilization: Will it continue in the ascendancy, remain on a plateau, or decline? Disturbing trends in infrastructure which have become apparent over the last 50 years are to be opposed to any substantive project, open-ended budgets of public monies with no accountability, confusing legitimate goals within a realistic technical framework with myopic absolutism, and, or course, Not In My Own Backyard. In part this was an inevitable reaction to ill-conceived grandiose edifices built before due consideration was ---PAGE BREAK--- paid to the natural environment, community preservation, and particularly those uprooted. But increasingly it is political expediency because it's always easier to play on people's fears by opposing something than to embrace change. Over these years I've seen so many good projects go down the tubes, or hopelessly compromised and corrupted in purpose, while vast sums are thrown at other whimsical schemes. Yucca is the culmination of these unfortunate trends. And with so much more is stake in terms of national security and environmental protection, this "Waste of a Mountain" is a sorry testament as to where we are headed as a nation and a state. There never has been a statewide referendum, or even, if I am correct, within Clark County, to gauge public sentiment about Yucca Mountain. If those ostriches in Carson City, Vegas and DC would pull their heads out of the sand and open their ears as well as their eyes, they would realize that opposing Yucca is no ticket to getting reelected. Ask Dean Heller. The vast interior of Nevada will remain flyover country for the elites in Vegas, Reno and Carson City. No Interstate 11, no upgrading or extensions to the rail freight network, and motorists will be at even greater peril on US-95 with expanded lithium mining dependent exclusively on over-the-road trucks. Reno's problems will be limited to transportation but Vegas will be dealing with a double whammy of water and transportation with respect to both local gridlock and insufficient intercity capacity for its economic lifeblood. And there will be no federal largess for solutions costing many billions of dollars, ranging from a desalinization pipeline to high-speed rail and transit connecting the airport with Strip attractions. The NNSS tour discussed in April needs to happen sooner rather than later with a view towards that facility starting to receive dry casks from around the country. That development should leave quite an omelet on the faces of our “leaders”.