Board OKs Yucca Mountain compensation plan

Payouts, land, water systems part of request

Royalties similar to what Alaska residents receive from the Alaska pipeline, the transfer of all federal land to private ownership, and construction of water and sewer systems are included in an ambitious request passed by members of the Amargosa Valley Town Board, if the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project becomes a reality near Lathrop Wells.

While the Nye County Community Protection Plan calls for a U.S. Department of Energy radiological waste management research center in Nye County, continued radiological monitoring by the county, a request to ship the waste by rail and transferring 2 percent of federal land to the county, Amargosa Valley board members went much further in their requests.

The Nye County Commission on Nov. 5 passed the Amargosa Valley resolution, asking for a 10- to 20-year capital improvement program, including: a drinking water system; a sewer treatment system; a complete system of paved roads; a kindergarten through 12th-grade school; higher education training; primary health care, an early warning system within a 50-mile radius; emergency qualified personnel on duty 24 hours a day; local employment from the project; compensating businesses suffering as a result of Yucca Mountain; payment in lieu of taxes to cover property taxes at 2010 levels, the first year of shipments; royalties paid to local landowners of $1 per assessed value and transfer of all property under U.S. Bureau of Land Management control.

The resolution states, "Whereas the people and community of Amargosa Valley will forever have to live with the stigma of a nuclear waste repository and all the risks and dangers of unforeseen occurrences and whereas Yucca Mountain repository will adversely impact the quality of life and lifetime investments in the region of nearly 2,000 real people so that the entire nation can benefit."

Doris Jackson, Amargosa Valley Town Board chairwoman, said the board will vote this week on whether to send copies of the resolution to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other government representatives. She said the local advisory board decided to take action after Congress passed a bill designating Yucca Mountain as the site for storage of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste beginning in 2010.

"We'd better get our hand out. I got it through the county commissioners and then it will have to go through legislation. It will have to become a law like they have in other areas," Jackson said. She said congressional legislation was passed for the DOE facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which funded investments in infrastructure.

Jackson still asked Nye County commissioners whether her board was asking for too much. Nye County Commissioner Jeff Taguchi said a lot of those issues are in the county's community protection plan, like acquiring BLM property and emergency services. Taguchi said the issue of compensating businesses and royalty payments may be difficult to pursue, because nuclear waste isn't a revenue-raising commodity, like Alaskan oil. However, Nye County Commissioner Cameron McRae said he thought nuclear waste could be a resource in the future.

Jackson thinks property values will peak in 2010 before nuclear waste begins to arrive. The resolution would require the DOE to pay her the equivalent of her 2010 property taxes, or about $3,000, she told commissioners.

"We are in harm's way, so we want to be paid for it. It might not happen in my lifetime, but it might happen down the road," Jackson said. Regarding the county's community protection plan, she said, "it didn't get right down to the facts of things and spell out exactly what they want. So I thought I'll just spell it out. So that's what we did."

Jackson said some people bought property in Amargosa Valley, then decided not to move there after they heard the Yucca Mountain waste dump was going to be nearby. She said real estate representatives now have to disclose that fact when marketing property.

The DOE should also be responsible for any negative impact on the Amargosa Valley economy, said Jackson, who owns the Stateline Saloon. She has newspapers clippings from around the world of people who have interviewed her about Yucca Mountain, which lies 20 miles north of the saloon on the California/Nevada state line.

"Like the dairy. They have $20 million invested in it. Suppose the people who buy the milk won't buy the milk?" she asked. "We all have big investments and a lot of hard work out here. If our businesses fail, we should be paid what our highest gross is out here. If it's $5 million, they should get $5 million a year."

Les Bradshaw, manager of the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities, in objections to the preliminary site evaluation for Yucca Mountain, said the DOE underestimated water use in Amargosa Valley with 15 to 25 farms using an average of 2,000 acre-feet of water per year. The county disagreed that any radioactive plume that escaped from Yucca Mountain would mix with the entire valley groundwater, stating it would likely be concentrated into one or more farms.

"If it's going to come, we've got to start this now. It'll take 10 years to go anywhere," Jackson said of the resolution. "So I thought I would send it to Reid and get it out to everybody."

Taguchi said he was reminded of when Mayor Richard Lucero of Espanola, N.M., didn't ask for anything when Los Alamos National Laboratories was first built. While the area boomed with the scientific community, the town 20 miles away from Los Alamos is now in economic decline and Lucero is now asking the DOE for assistance, Taguchi said.

Nye County Deputy District Attorney Eric Levin said a resolution doesn't carry the force of law, it's only a statement of intent or desire. Jackson said she thinks other towns like Beatty and Pahrump will pass similar resolutions. Taguchi said the resolution could be used when commissioners travel to Washington, D.C., for talks on Yucca Mountain.

Commissioner Henry Neth, who has criticized press reports that continually describe Yucca Mountain as 100 miles north of Las Vegas, ignoring Pahrump and Nye County, said the resolution focuses attention on where the facility actually is, the fact it's not just a desolate wasteland with real people living nearby.

In a speech at a public hearing on Yucca Mountain on Sept. 24, 2001, Mary Wilson, Pahrump Town Board liaison to the town nuclear waste and environmental advisory board, read a statement complaining that Las Vegas continues to reap the benefits of DOE contracts on Yucca Mountain while Nye County assumes the liabilities. She asked the DOE to negotiate directly with local communities for the PET funds, or Payment Equal to Taxes for the property value of Yucca Mountain. More work needs to be done on water migration studies, cask testing, protecting the waste from terrorists and studies of transmutation or otherwise recycling the waste, Wilson said.

"We also recommend that Nevada receive a minimum surcharge on nuclear waste brought into the state of $10 per pound. The state of Nevada and DOE should fund UNLV, among others, to do the research and build an accelerator facility at the Nevada Test Site utilizing reprocessed fuel," Wilson said. "We have made some of these suggestions before and DOE has made a start. But they need to invest much more in this area."

Besides the community protection plan, Nye County Commissioners passed two defining resolutions outlining their stands on Yucca Mountain. A county resolution passed Aug. 6 raises questions over equity. While Nye County played a major role in national defense during 40 years of nuclear testing and fighter jet training at Nellis Air Force Base, 98 percent of the county is under federal management, restricting economic development, the county resolution states. It adds the shipments from 131 sites in 39 states would funnel the nation's nuclear waste to one site in Nye County.

Nye County's resolution urges an active county role in Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing of Yucca Mountain and transportation issues.


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