Yucca Mountain Free Of Nuclear Waste example essay topic

Nuclear Waste has some effect on everyone in the world, but Native American's seem to be affected the most. One specific case of this would be Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is located 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas. This is a major metropolitan area, which is home to about one and a half million people, and of the world's most popular tourist attractions.

The plan involves moving over 77,000 metric tons of hazardous nuclear waste across the county, using rails and roads that pass through other major metropolitan areas and small towns across the country. Yucca Mountain will house spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. About 90% of this waste comes from commercial nuclear power plants, and the remaining is from defense programs. The waste is currently stored in 43 states (web). The Energy Policy Act of 1992 requires standards to be met, before the facility may be opened.

EPA's standards are designed to protect the public and the environment from exposure to the radioactive wastes that would be stored in the repository. One of the standards of the EPA is limiting the risk of cancer to civilians. They limit the radiation so that no more then 3 out of 10,000 people is at the risk of radiation causing cancer (EPA). The Government tried picking a remote location for this storage facility, so they choose the area where Nuclear Bombs were tested during the Cold War, and access was already limited. The wasted would be stored 1,000 feet under solid ground at which the effect of earthquakes is greatly reduced. The Department of Energy estimates that the chance of volcanic activity is also very slim (web).

Despite attempts to make it a remote location the Western Shoshone Indian Tribe does not see it this way. Despite a 20 year attempt to keep Yucca Mountain free of nuclear waste, the Shoshone hit a setback on February 15th when President Bush designated the Yucca Mountain site for building the nations first high level nuclear waste dump. In a letter to Congress, Bush said his recommendation was "the culmination of two decades of intense scientific scrutiny" and that construction of an underground repository "is necessary to protect public safety, health and the nation's security" because it would isolate highly radioactive materials at one remote location (web). According to the Shoshone this is not true.

"The government's own contractor, the State of Nevada and the American people have all spoken out against this site. The thousands of shipments that will be needed to transport the waste to Yucca Mountain will put 50 million people at risk who live along the transportation routes". The project is opposed by the Western Shoshone and Paiute people for whom Yucca Mountain is a sacred site. The DOE's dose modeling, used to determine "acceptable levels" of radiation release from the proposed repository, does not adequately take into account traditional Native American lifestyles and would impose a disproportionate toxic burden on indigenous communities in the area.