Yucca Mountain
Washington state is suing the federal government as it works to ensure waste from the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site has somewhere to go.
The feds have moved to abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, long intended to store waste from south-central Washington’s Tri-Cities. The site houses the highly contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation and the Northwest’s only commercial nuclear plant.
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna says abandoning the site 90 miles from Las Vegas, without an identified alternative, would put the state’s people and environment at risk.
Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons fired back at word of the lawsuit, inviting Washington to “volunteer to have the nation’s nuclear waste dump located within their borders.” (AP)
