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“An area previously determined to be the best adapted for such purposes”: Nevada, Nuclear Waste, and Assembly Joint Resolution 15 of 1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

Andrew Newman
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 432 - 465
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

NOTES

1. Office of Management and Budget, “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings,” Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2010 (2009): 68Google Scholar. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/trs.pdf (accessed 10 April 2009).

2. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Chief Financial Officer, FY 2011, Congressional Budget Request, DOE/CF-0053, vol. 7 (February 2010), 194. http://www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/11budget/Content/Volume%207.pdf. (accessed 15 February 2010).

3. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Presidential Memorandum: Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (29 January 2010). http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-blue-ribbon-commission-americas-nuclear-future (accessed 29 January 2010); and Department of Energy, Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America’s Nuclear Future: Advisory Committee Charter (1 March 2010), http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/BRC_Charter.pdf. (accessed 1 March 2010). The commission released its final report on January 2, 2012. DOE seeks dismissal of the license application with prejudice because “it does not intend ever to refile an application to construct a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain.” U.S. Department of Energy’s Motion to Withdraw, Docket No. 63-001 (3 March 2010). http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/DOE_Motion_to_Withdraw.pdf (accessed 4 March 2010).

4. Obama for America ‘08, “Barack Obama’s Plan to Make America a Global Energy Leader,” 4–5. http://obama.3cdn.net/4465b108758abf7a42_a3jmvyfa5.pdf (accessed 23 February 2010); Government Accountability Office (GAO), Nuclear Waste Management: Key Attributes, Challenges, and Costs for the Yucca Mountain Repository and Two Potential Alternatives, GAO-10-48 (November 2009): 3. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1048.pdf (accessed 21 January 2010).

5. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asserted that the project faced “a laundry list of scientific, technical, public health, legal, and safety problems. The skyrocketing price tag, the steadfast opposition of Nevadans and their congressional delegation, and the growing understanding that Yucca was a mortally flawed proposal have led to the project’s demise.” Senator Harry Reid, “Yucca Mountain,” undated, http://reid.senate.gov/issues/yucca.cfm (accessed 12 May 2010). Governors opposed to storing nuclear waste: Richard Bryan (1983–89); Bob Miller (1989–99); Kenny Guinn (1999–2007); and Jim Gibbons (2007–11); and Brian Sandoval (2011–present). who lost the Republican primary to Brian Sandoval in June 2010.

6. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 abolished the Atomic Energy Commission and created ERDA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

7. Disposal of Nuclear Waste in Nevada (short version), Assembly Joint Resolution 15, 1975, File 184, 35–36. http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Library/LegHistory/LHs/1975/AJR15,1975short.pdf (accessed 25 February 2010) (hereafter A.J.R. 15 Short). On 23 August 2010, NTS was renamed the Nevada National Security Site.

8. Solar Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1974, Public Law 93-473, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d093:SN03234:|TOM:/bss/d093query.html| (accessed 25 February 2010).

9. A.J.R. 15 provides a nine-point rationale—point 6 compresses three similar arguments into one.

10. Clark County’s unemployment rate is 13.8 percent and Nevada’s unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, the second highest in the country. The national average is 9 percent. Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation, Research & Analysis Bureau, Nevada Workforce Informer: Labor Force, http://www.nevadaworkforce.com/cgi/dataanalysis/AreaSelection.asp?tableName=Labforce (accessed 21 May 2010), U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rates for States and Historical Highs/Lows, http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/lauhsthl.htm (accessed 21 May 2010).

11. Walker, J. Samuel, “An ‘Atomic Garbage Dump’ for Kansas: The Controversy over the Lyons Radioactive Waste Repository, 1970–1972,” Kansas History 27 (Winter 2006–7): 269–71.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., 270. When the canisters were removed, the AEC discovered cracks penetrating halfway through the stainless-steel walls. Lipschutz, Ronnie, Radioactive Waste: Politics, Technology, and Risk (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 118.Google Scholar

13. William Hambleton, “The Unsolved Problem of Nuclear Wastes,” Technology Review 74, no. 5 (March–April 1972): 17; Lipschutz, Radioactive Waste, 119.

14. Hambleton, “The Unsolved Problem of Nuclear Wastes,” 18.

15. U.S. Congressman Joe Skubitz (R-Kans.) was vocally opposed from the outset; Kansas governor Robert Docking (D) became disillusioned over time. Walker, “An ‘Atomic Garbage Dump’ for Kansas,” 276, 284.

16. Hambleton, “The Unsolved Problem of Nuclear Wastes,” 17–18; Walker, “An ‘Atomic Garbage Dump’ for Kansas,” 278; Thomas Cochran, “Environmental Views on the Geologic Disposal of Nuclear Materials,” presented at the International Conference on Geologic Repositories, Denver, 1 November 1999, 1, http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/nuc_11019901a_210.pdf (accessed 12 April 2010).

17. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “A Short History of Nuclear Regulation, 1946–1999: Radioactive Waste Disposal,” http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/short-history.html#waste (accessed 9 April 2010).

18. Howard Cannon to James Schlesinger, 17 May 1972, DOE Archives, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, box 7820, folder “Materials 20 Radioactive Waste Disposal,” vol. 7. The author thanks Sam Walker for providing a copy of this document. In one passage, Cannon refers to the Mercury Test Site. President of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation Troy Wade has explained that Cannon’s letter referred to Mercury “in the very general sense. In those days, many people in Southern Nevada, particularly workers, referred to the entire NTS as Mercury.” Author e-mail correspondence with Troy Wade, 25 June 2010.

19. Noting the “lack of an accepted site [for] geological disposal” at that time, WASH-1539 site selection focused on a Retrievable Surface Storage Facility (RSSF). Atomic Energy Commission, Management of Commercial High Level and Transuranium-Contaminated Radioactive Waste, WASH-1539 (Washington, D.C., September 1974), 5.3–1Google Scholar. The RSSF concept was shelved in April 1975 “amid concerns it would defer geologic disposal efforts.” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Program Plan Revision 3, February 2000, 65–66.

20. The criteria included: physical characteristics; ownership; isolation/acreage; facilities and manpower; other nuclear activities at the site; and public acceptance. WASH-1539, 2.8-1–2.8-6.

21. In 1969, a fire at the Rocky Flats, Colorado, plutonium processing facility–the second major fire in twelve years–resulted in the release of radioactive materials and the removal of the debris to the Idaho Falls burial ground. By 1970, waste from Colorado had been shipped to Idaho for fifteen years. This, and the release of two reports (one from the National Academies and one from the Federal Water Quality Administration) critical of waste-storage practice at NRTS, prompted Church to request that the AEC “immediately embark upon a program to remove this potential threat to the safety of my state.” AEC officials said they would seek congressional authorization for a high-level waste repository, probably located in the Midwest, and AEC chairman Glenn Seaborg told Church he hoped the AEC could begin moving waste from NRTS to an abandoned salt mine within a decade. Ackland, Len, Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (Albuquerque, 1999), 117–26Google Scholar, 152–59; David Albright and Kevin O’Neill, “The Lessons of Nuclear Secrecy at Rocky Flats,”Institute for Science and International Security Issue Brief, 26 August 1999. http://www.isis-online.org/publications/usfacilities/Rfpbrf.html (accessed 9 April 2010); Walker, J. Samuel, The Road to Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive Waste Policy in the United States (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2009), 48–49Google Scholar; Lipschutz, Radioactive Waste, 119; Congressional Record-Senate, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 116, part 5, 6 March 1970, 6295–6310.

22. Correspondence with Dr. Neil Humphrey, 1 June 2010; Report of Nevada Radioactive Materials Storage Advisory Committee, 18 October 1974, 52–61, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Library/LegHistory/LHs/1975/AJR15,1975longpt1.pdf (accessed 26 February 2010) (hereafter A.J.R. 15 Long 1).

23. All four of these recommendations were included in the final version of A.J.R. 15. Given the state’s “precious water resources,” the NRMSAC recommended withdrawing Nevada from consideration if the water-shield (described as “water basin” in WASH-1539) concept, as opposed to the air-cooled-vault concept, was selected for the facility.

24. Clark Lobb, “Problem of U.S. Nuclear Waste Occupies Conference in S.L.,” Salt Lake Tribune, 13 December 1974; “Utahns Fear AEC ‘Hot’ Waste Plan,” Deseret News, 13 December 1974. The author thanks the Utah State Archives and State History Research Center for providing copies of these articles.

25. Telephone interview with Bob Stewart, 11 June 2010; e-mail correspondence with Stewart, 14 June 2010.

26. Lobb, “Problem of U.S. Nuclear Waste Occupies Conference in S.L.”

27. Assembly Commerce Committee Meeting Minutes, 14 March 1975, 51, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Library/LegHistory/LHs/1975/AJR15,1975longpt2.pdf (accessed 26 February 2010) (hereafter A.J.R. 15 Long 2).

28. Telephone interview with Bob List, 15 April 2010.

29. Glass, Mary Ellen, Nevada’s Turbulent ’50s: Decade of Political and Economic Change (Nevada Studies in History and Political Science no. 15, Reno, 1981), 43.Google Scholar

30. Terrence R. Fehner and F. G. Gosling, History Division, Executive Secretariat, Management and Administration, DOE, Origins of the Nevada Test Site, DOE/MA-0518, December 2000, 17, 20–21.

31. Glass, Nevada’s Turbulent ’50s, 44–45.

32. Mary Manning, “Atomic Testing Burned Its Mark: Test Site Employed Thousands, Put Many More at Risk,” Las Vegas Sun, 15 May 2008, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/15/atomic-testing-burned-its-mark/?history (accessed 5 June 2010).

33. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as Amended, Sec. 274, “Cooperation With States,” http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0980/v1/sr0980v1.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks&page=5 (accessed 22 April 2010). Other facilities operated in Barnwell, South Carolina (1971–present); Clive, Utah (1991–present); Maxey Flats, Kentucky (1963–77); Richland, Washington (1965–present); Sheffield, Illinois (1967–78); and West Valley, New York (1963–75). A facility operated by Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas, opened on 10 November 2011. For a very interesting discussion of opposition at the Texas low-level waste facility’s originally proposed location in Hudspeth County and a comparison with local perceptions of WIPP, see Chuck McCutcheon, “N-Dumps Trigger Opposite Reactions,” Albuquerque Journal, 24 February 1991, G1, G5.

34. Walker, The Road to Yucca Mountain, 126.

35. E-mail correspondence with Sam Walker, 13 May 2010.

36. For more on some of the problems experienced at Beatty and other low-level waste facilities, see Walker, The Road to Yucca Mountain, 132–37.

37. The Nevada Test Site, Background Paper 83–5, 1982, 12–13, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/lcb/research/Bkground/BP83-05.pdf (accessed 15 April 2010).

38. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 2.

39. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 4; Jane Ann Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste.” That Mann specified “warehouses” may seem odd but is no accident. The 1949 Freeport Law provided that goods in transit through Nevada could be warehoused free of personal property tax. The statute was liberalized in 1955 and became an amendment to the state constitution in 1960 and has proved very lucrative, particularly for Reno. See Glass, Nevada’s Turbulent ‘50s, 40–43.

40. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 7. At a Senate meeting in April, AFL-CIO representative George Hawes also emphasized the economic boost A.J.R. 15 would provide. Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 2.

41. Cashman Enterprises, Milne Truck Lines, Penney’s, Sears, Woolco, K-Mart, Skaggs, Safeway Stores, and the Nevada Development Authority all submitted letters of endorsement. See A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 35. Cashman Enterprises was chaired by Jim Cashman Jr., son of Nevada pioneer “Big Jim” Cashman. On “Big Jim,” see “Jim Cashman,” undated, http://www.1st100.com/part1/cashman.html (accessed 5 May 2010); “James Cashman,” undated, http://www.accessclarkcounty.com/100/Pages/commissioner-cashman.aspx (accessed 5 May 2010); and Harry Reid, Searchlight: The Camp That Didn’t Fail (Reno, 1998), 73–74.

42. Assembly Commerce Committee Meeting Minutes, 14 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 17.

43. Carter, Luther, Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust: Dealing with Radioactive Waste (Washington, D.C., 1987), 112–18Google Scholar. It was not until April 1977 that President Carter effectively ended reprocessing in the United States.

44. Telephone interview with Bill Raggio, 12 May 2010.

45. Statement of Mary Gojack, Journal of the Senate, 16 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 124–25.

46. Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, 24 March 2002.

47. Telephone interview with Richard Bryan, 27 May 2010; Steven Miller, “How Nevada’s Door Was Opened to Nuclear Waste,” Pahrump Valley Times, 27 February 2002, A5. The author thanks Steve Miller for providing a copy of this article.

48. Statement of the League of Women Voters of Nevada concerning A.J.R. 15, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 67.

49. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 10 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 122, 134–5.

50. Telephone interview with Bob List, 15 April 2010.

51. The editors also made the rather 1950s-esque argument that “this nation may only now be on the threshold of the real nuclear era. Nevada should be at the center of it. Our selection as a site for nuclear waste storage and management will give us added credentials in this new nuclear era. We cannot afford to turn our backs on it. We must be a part of it.” “Let’s be nuclear waste storage site,” Valley Times, 12 December 1974, reprinted in A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 21.

52. “Atomic Energy Offers Best Source for Fuel Supply,” Las Vegas Sun, 12 December 1974, reprinted in A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 22. For a powerful critique of the Reactor Safety Study, see Ford, Daniel, The Cult of the Atom: The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission (New York, 1982), 138–71.Google Scholar

53. The Las Vegas Sun would soon change its tune. Owner Hank Greenspun adamantly opposed Yucca Mountain until his death in 1989; Greenspun’s son Brian, currently president and editor of the Sun, has continued the fight.

54. “Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Deserves Study,” Las Vegas Sun, 13 December 1974, reprinted in A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 23; Flangas, Remarks to the AEC public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Management of Commercial High Level and Transuranic Radioactive Waste, Salt Lake City, 9 December 1974, reprinted in Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes: Exhibit A, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 10.

55. Letter from Nye County District Attorney William Beko to the AEC, 5 November 1974 and Letter from Andrew M. Eason, Chairman of the Nye County Board of County Commissioners to the AEC, 5 November 1974; both reprinted in A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 28, 26.

56. Elmo J. DeRicco, Director of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, “Statement in regard to A.J.R. 15,” Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 101.

57. Assembly Commerce Committee Meeting Minutes, 14 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 51. Bremner was citing Mahlon Gates, but the author has not been able to find any Gates testimony suggesting that the way nuclear waste was stored at the time was “not safe at all.”

58. The NRMSAC Report recommended that if the AEC selected NTS, a seismic hazards study should be conducted using the same degree of conservatism as the AEC’s “Seismic and Geologic Siting Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants.” Letter from Chancellor Neil Humphrey to Governor Mike O’Callaghan, 23 October 1974, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 102.

59. Statement of Mary Gojack, Journal of the Senate, 16 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 124–25. Five months earlier, William Flangas had offered some cold comfort, predicting: “For those wastes to be disturbed would take a geologic upheaval so catastrophic that the escape of any of those wastes would be of little consequence by comparison to other damages.” Flangas, “Storing and Managing Nuclear Wastes at the Nevada Test Site,” 12.

60. Prepared remarks of Susan Orr, Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 40.

61. Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 58; Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste”; telephone interview with Sue Wagner, 18 May 2010.

62. Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 58. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s chronicle of one hundred people who had major impacts on Las Vegas over the city’s first century, Ford “wasn’t the sole founder of either, but the local chapter of Sierra Club and Archaeo Nevada, dedicated to preserving Nevada’s natural resources and prehistory respectively, were born in her living room.” See “Jean Ford (1929–1998): In a League of Her Own,” http://www.1st100.com/part3/ford.html (accessed 25 May 2010).

63. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 8.

64. Assembly Joint Resolution No. 15, File Number 184, Statutes of Nevada 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 128 (emphasis added).

65. The AEC understood this from the beginning. For example, in a January 1951 cable to headquarters, Santa Fe operations manager Carroll Tyler suggested that the AEC emphasize “local pride in being in the limelight” in its Nevada Test Site public relations campaign. Fehner and Gosling, Origins of the Nevada Test Site, 53. Playing the patriotism card for civilian nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel storage did not work later for Yucca Mountain, but the “national security” argument did play a role in the successful siting of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. In the latter case, the linkage was much clearer—WIPP only receives waste from the U.S. nuclear weapons program. McCutcheon, Chuck, Nuclear Reactions: The Politics of Opening a Radioactive Waste Disposal Site (Albuquerque, 2002), 198Google Scholar, and telephone interview with McCutcheon, 7 May 2010.

66. Flangas, “Storing and Managing Nuclear Wastes at the Nevada Test Site,” 20. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 8.

67. Gojack’s terrorism concerns were influenced by the testimony of Richard Sill, a physics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. One of Sill’s more extreme predictions was that “excessive reliance on nuclear energy will force us to go to breeder reactors. . . . This absolutely guarantees that we shall have to become accustomed to terrorist activities using nuclear weapons . . . and terrorist breaching of radioactive processing, transportation and waste storage facilities . . . that will result in both the loss of several major American cities per year due to detonation of clandestine atomic bombs and the imposition on America of a police surveillance and security system.” Written testimony of Sill, Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 60. Emphasis in original.

68. “Statement of the League of Women Voters of Nevada concerning A.J.R. 15,” 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 65–66; Letter from the Consumers League of Nevada to Assemblyman Paul May, 10 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 86; Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 9.

69. The AEC’s gubernatorial public relations effort was less than successful. Bad weather prevented the delegation from reaching Carson City, so Governor Russell was told over the phone by a “public relations man” and AEC chairman Gordon Dean couldn’t complete a phone call to California governor Earl Warren. Dean did talk with Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron and visited the Nevada congressional delegation, meeting with Senator Pat McCarran on 10 January and Senator George Malone and Congressman Walter Baring on the morning of 11 January. Fehner and Gosling, Origins of the Nevada Test Site, 55–56; Titus, A. Costandina, Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics, Nevada Studies in History and Political Science (Reno, 1986), 97–98.Google Scholar

70. Glass, Nevada’s Turbulent ‘50s, 44, 46. Russell was also a supporter of the AEC’s programs. In 1952, he commented: “It’s exciting to think that the sub-marginal land of the proving ground is furthering science and helping national defense. We had long ago written off that terrain as wasteland, and today it is blooming with atoms.” Titus, Bombs in the Backyard, 97.

71. According to the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau Research Library, the exact percentage of federal lands in Nevada is hard to determine. The most reliable information comes from a 1985 Department of Conservation and Natural Resources study, and most likely the percentages have changed little in the last twenty-five years. According to the study, 85.2 percent of Nevada (roughly 60.276 million acres) is federal land with the largest departmental administrators being: Agriculture—7 percent; Defense—4 percent; Energy—1 percent; Interior—72 percent. In addition, a little over 1 million acres is Indian land. “Nevada Statewide Policy Plan for Public Lands,” developed by the Counties and Cities of Nevada and the State Land Use Planning Agency of the Division of State Lands, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, State of Nevada, under authority of Senate Bill 40 of the 1983 Nevada Legislature (NRS 321.7355, Carson City, June 1985), 4. According to DOI’s Bureau of Land Management website as of May 2010, BLM public lands make up about 67 percent of Nevada’s land base. See http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en.html (accessed 29 May 2010).

72. Disclaiming title to the unappropriated public land on its territory was a condition for Nevada’s admission to the Union. Not surprisingly, federal domain breeds resentment. A typical refrain: “Why should an ‘environmental group’ [the Bureau of Land Management] in Washington D.C. dictate what we do?” Telephone interview with Bob List, 15 April 2010.

73. See Nevada Assembly Bill 413, “Sagebrush Rebellion,” 1979, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/lcb/research/library/1979/AB413,1979.pdf (accessed 3 June 2010). Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming passed legislation modeled on AB 413; Hawaii and North Dakota passed resolutions of support. See Cawley, R. McGreggor, Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics (Lawrence, Kans., 1993).Google Scholar

74. Telephone interview with Bob List, 15 April 2010; Hang Tough! Grant Sawyer: An Activist in the Governor’s Mansion, oral history interviews with Grant Sawyer, conducted by Gary E. Elliot, narrative composed by R. T. King (Reno, 1993), 211.

75. Mike O’Callaghan to AEC, 28 October 1974, DOE Archives, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Box 7928, Folder “Materials 20 Radioactive Waste Disposal,” vol. 3. The author thanks Sam Walker for providing a copy of this document.

76. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 6; Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 56–57; Minutes of Senate Government Affairs Meeting, 12 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 120.

77. Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste.”

78. Journal of the Senate, 16 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 126.

79. Telephone interview with Bob Loux, 23 June 2010.

80. Journal of the Assembly, 17 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 17, 26.

81. Senator Richard Blakemore (D), “the father of the Sagebrush Rebellion,” was the only legislator to represent Nye County, as well as Esmerelda, Lincoln, Mineral, White Pine, and parts of Churchill and Eureka. Blakemore’s support can, in part, be explained by his business interests: trucking and mining.

82. Journal of the Assembly, General File and Third Reading: Assembly Joint Resolution No. 15, 18 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 20. Robert Weise had earlier not voted on Amendment 4594 because he felt he had insufficient time to make up his mind. The real head-scratcher is Robert Heaney, who cosponsored the bill, then proceeded to vote against it. Some insight into Heaney’s conflicted mind-set may be gleaned from remarks he made on 7 March following testimony from the Foresta Institute. After stating that he was an environmentalist and member of the Sierra Club, the assemblyman observed that waste was already at the test site and suggested that perhaps the national policy on nuclear development should be reviewed with emphasis on alternative energy sources. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 8.

83. The absentees, Melvin Close and Helen Herr, were both Clark County Democrats.

84. Ed Vogel, “There was a time when Nevadans fought to get a nuclear dump,” Ely Times, undated, http://www.whitepinenwpo.com/there_was_a_time_when_nevadans_f.htm (accessed 16 May 2010).

85. Roll call on A.J.R. No. 15, Journal of the Senate, 16 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 33.

86. Journal of the Senate, 16 May 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 121, 125–26.

87. A suggestion by Silver City resident Bonita Brown that the Environment and Public Resources Committee request expert testimony elicited two remarkable admissions: Bob Price responded that that was not the committee’s function, while Chairman Bremner explained that the legislature did not have sufficient funds to request expert attendance, but the committee had visited the Test Site. Assembly Environment and Public Resources Committee Meeting Minutes, 10 March 1975, A.J.R. 15 Short, 12–13.

88. Senate Government Affairs Meeting Minutes, 24 April 1975, A.J.R. 15 Long 2, 58; Telephone interview with Thomas Wilson, 2 June 2010.

89. Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste.”

90. Telephone interview with Bob Stewart, 11 June 2010.

91. Spent Fuel Test-Climax: An Evaluation of the Technical Feasibility of Geologic Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Granite, Final Report (UCRL-53702), compiled by W. C. Patrick, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 30 March 1986, iii, 1–2. The author thanks Troy Wade for providing a copy of this document.

92. E-mail correspondence with Troy Wade, 25 June 2010; Vogel, “There was a time when Nevadans fought to get a nuclear dump”; Spent Fuel Test-Climax, Final Report, iii.

93. Morrison, “State Politicians Once Courted Nuclear Waste”; telephone interview with Richard Bryan, 27 May 2010. On March 10, 1975, Assembly Speaker Ashworth emphasized to the Environment and Public Resources Committee that the resolution merely advises the federal government that Nevada is interested in hosting a storage facility. A.J.R. 15 Long 1, 112.

94. In 2004, the mayor of Caliente in southeastern Nevada, referring directly to A.J.R. 15, told the State legislature’s Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste that town leaders have not wavered in their support of the repository; “The political winds basically changed in the rest of the state.” The South Carolina legislature has also not forgotten A.J.R. 15. A 2009 concurrent resolution mentions the resolution in its justification for urging the U.S. Senate to endorse Yucca Mountain’s suitability as the nation’s repository. The bill has passed the Senate and is currently being considered by a House Committee. See Ed Vogel, “Mayor says Yucca shipments would benefit Caliente,” Las Vegas-Review Journal, 20 April 2004; S. 655, South Carolina General Assembly, 118th sess., 2009–10, http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess118_2009-2010/bills/655.htm (updated 23 November 2009; accessed 5 June 2010). South Carolina hosts DOE’s Savannah River Site.

95. Telephone interview with Bill Raggio, 12 May 2010; Sue Wagner with Victoria Ford, edited by Hoadley, Richard and Coles, Kathleen, Through the Glass Ceiling: A Life in Nevada Politics (Reno, 2005), 280Google Scholar; Telephone interview with Thomas Wilson, 2 June 2010.

96. Senate Bill 56, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/lcb/research/library/1985/SB056,1985.pdf (accessed 14 April 2010); Senate Bill 67, 7 June 1985, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/lcb/research/library/1985/SB067,1985.pdf (accessed 14 April 2010); A. Constandina Titus, “Bullfrog County: A Nevada Response to Federal Nuclear-Waste Disposal Policy,” Publius 20, no.1 (1990): 124, 134–35.

97. Miller, “How Nevada’s Door Was Opened to Nuclear Waste,” A5. Nye County historian Bob McCracken has described Nevada public opinion as “soft” on nuclear waste—“what is in it for us?” Telephone interview with Bob McCracken, 11 December 2008.

98. A comparable north-south divide occurred in New Mexico over WIPP, and Jacob has noted a similar dynamic at work in areas of southern Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, and Washington. See McCutcheon, Nuclear Reactions, 44–58; Jacob, Gerald, Site Unseen: The Politics of Siting a Nuclear Waste Repository (Pittsburgh, 1990), 42Google Scholar. There was also strong local support in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and San Juan County, Utah, for siting investigations, but state officials were firmly opposed. Macfarlane, Allison and Ewing, Rodney, eds., Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 35Google Scholar; Carter, Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust, 151–53.

99. Daniel Metlay, “Appendix A-1: Radioactive Waste Management Policymaking,” in Managing the Nation’s Commercial High-Level Radioactive Waste, 223.

100. Ibid., 223. In 1983, former New Mexico governor and ERDA consultant Jack Campbell remarked: “To start exploring in thirty-six states and provoke thirty-six emotional outbursts was simply going to prolong the agony.” Carter, Nuclear Imperatives and Public Trust, 131. It is difficult to escape the irony of this observation in light of the criticisms that would be leveled at DOE’s siting process less than a decade later by Nevada officials.

101. Thomas Cochran and Arthur Tamplin, “Nuclear Waste: Too Much, Too Soon,” paper presented before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation, Hearings on Nuclear Waste Management, 1 May 1978, 15, http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_78050101a_26.pdf (accessed 22 May 2010); Union of Concerned Scientists Fact Sheet, “A Brief History of Reprocessing and Cleanup in West Valley, NY,” December 2007, http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/west-valley-fact-sheet-final.pdf (accessed 22 May 2010).

102. Telephone interview with Richard Bryan, 27 May 2010. Coincidentally, James Bridges’s The China Syndrome was released on 16 March, twelve days before the accident.

103. Titus, Bombs in the Backyard, 105–13.

104. Vogel, “There was a time when Nevadans fought to get a nuclear dump.”

105. Kraft, Michael, Rosa, Eugene, and Dunlap, Riley, “Public Opinion and Nuclear Waste Policymaking,” in Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste: Citizens’ Views of Repository Siting, ed. Dunlap, , Kraft, , and Rosa, (Durham, 1993), 8.Google Scholar

106. In July 1989, legislation was approved that prohibited the storage of high-level radioactive waste in Nevada. The Assembly voted: 38 yea; 3 nay; and 1 absent. The Senate voted: 11 yea; 3 nay; and 7 not voting. Assembly Bill No. 222, chap. 866, 6 July 1989, 39, 107, 108, http://www.leg.state.nv.us/lcb/research/library/1989/AB222,1989.pdf (accessed 17 June 2010).

107. See Implementing Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste Technology Platform, “IGD-TP–Background,” last updated 16 February 2011, http://www.igdtp.eu/ (accessed 2 May 2011).

108. Östhammer resident Erik Waernulf is representative of the mind-set attributed to acclimation: “I think the closer you live the less scared you are. The waste has to be stored somewhere, so why not here?” Per Nyberg, “The town that wants nuclear waste,” CNN, 24 April 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/04/24/sweden.nuclear.waste/ (accessed 25 April 2011).

109. Until the early 1990s, TVO (the utility operating two reactors at the Olkiluoto site in Eurajoki) was conducting the repository search by itself due to the failure to conclude reprocessing negotiations with BNFL and Cogema—spent fuel from the two reactors at Loviisa and operated by Fortum was to be reprocessed in the Soviet Union with all waste remaining there. The collapse of the Soviet Union and a Finnish law banning the import and export of nuclear waste left Fortum without a disposal path, so it joined TVO to create Posiva Oy. Juhani Vira, “Winning Citizen Trust: The Siting of a Nuclear Waste Facility in Eurajoki, Finland,” Innovations (Fall 2006): 69–71.

110. Mark Elam and Göran Sundqvist, “Meddling in the KBS Programme and Swedish Success in Nuclear Waste Management,” paper prepared for the conference Managing Radioactive Waste: Problems and Challenges in a Globalizing World, University of Gothenburg, 15–17 December 2009, 17, 7, http://www.cefos.gu.se/digitalAssets/1292/1292039_Elam__paper_.pdf (accessed 8 April 2011); Mark Elam, Linda Soneryd, and Göran Sundqvist, “Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Safety–Validating New Build: The Enduring Template of Swedish Nuclear Waste Management,” 15, http://www.cefos.gu.se/digitalAssets/1291/1291664_Soneryd__paper_.pdf (accessed 10 April 2011); Vira, “Winning Citizen Trust,” 77.

111. Juhani Vira, Posiva Oy’s vice president for research, has proffered an ethical dimension to repository support in municipalities with nuclear power plants, pointing out that some letters to the editor in local Eurajoki and Loviisa newspapers argued that, “having enjoyed the various benefits from the nuclear power plants, the people should now recognize their responsibilities for the wastes as well.” Vira, “Winning Citizen Trust,” 74.

112. As envisioned by Finland, the KBS-3 Concept would be designed as follows: copper canisters with cast-iron sleeves surrounded by a bentonite buffer. Storage tunnels in the crystalline bedrock repository will be backfilled with Friedland clay blocks and bentonite pellets. See Posiva Oy, “The Safety Concept,” http://www.posiva.fi/en/safety/the_safety_concept (accessed 10 May 2011).

113. Elam and Sundqvist, “Meddling in the KBS Programme and Swedish Success in Nuclear Waste Management,” 16–17; Elam, Soneryd, and Sundqvist, “Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Safety—Validating New Build,” 7.

114. SKB, “Research and Technology,” http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____24519.aspx (accessed 10 May 2010); SKB, “The Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory,” http://www.skb.se/upload/publications/pdf/%c3%84sp%c3%b6%20Laboratory%20webb.pdf (accessed 10 May 2011).

115. Elam and Sundqvist, “Meddling in the KBS Programme and Swedish Success in Nuclear Waste Management,” 16.

116. Bruce Breslow, “Yucca Mountain—Lessons to be Learned and a Strategy for the Future,” Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future—Disposal Subcommittee, 7 July 2010, 2, http://brc.gov/Disposal_SC/docs/Bruce%20Breslow-NV%20Agency%20for%20NP-Final.pdf (accessed 15 November 2010).

117. In November 1978, the NRC drafted general criteria for a geologic high-level waste repository that included provisions for “multiple engineered barriers against the release of radioactivity . . . and would base its assessment of a proposed repository’s safety on a ‘defense-in-depth’ approach that established multiple independent barriers.” In January 1981, DOE published a two-volume report that advanced a defense-in-depth approach, combining “several man-made and natural barrier components.” Walker, The Road to Yucca Mountain, 165, 168, 170–71.

118. Elam and Sundqvist, “Meddling in the KBS Programme and Swedish Success in Nuclear Waste Management,” 3.

119. Sam Knight, “How 2 Swedish towns vied for nuclear waste,” Financial Times, 18 September 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e8ea6602-a322-11de-ba74-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1KGgF5rbg (accessed 17 March 2011); SKB, “Continuing Cooperation with Two Municipalities,” http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____28886.aspx (accessed 10 May 2011). See also Elam and Sundqvist, “Meddling in the KBS Programme and Swedish Success in Nuclear Waste Management,” 17.

120. Nuclear Energy Agency, Radioactive Waste Management Committee, Forum on Stakeholder Confidence: 2nd FSC Workshop—Executive Summary and International Perspective, Turku, Finland, 19 February 2002, 6–7, http://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/docs/2002/rwm-fsc2002-1.pdf (accessed 10 May 2011).

121. Margot Roosevelt, “U.S. Turns to Sweden as Model in Nuclear Waste Storage,” Los Angeles Times, 21 February 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/21/nation/la-na-nuclear-waste21-2010feb21 (accessed 18 July 2010).

122. Finland’s geology is remarkably uniform, which made for simplified site characterization. This is particularly important in terms of promoting public understanding of the process. In contrast, the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act necessitated the characterization of three different geologic formations: tuff in Nevada, bedded salt in Texas, and basalt flows in Washington. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, The Report to the President and the Congress by the Secretary of Energy on the Need for a Second Repository, DOE/RW-0595, Washington, D.C., December 2008, 10, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/info_library/program_docs/Second_Repository_Rpt_120908.pdf (accessed 10 May 2010).

123. Vira, “Winning Citizen Trust,” 70, 75.

124. Macfarlane, Allison, “Is It Possible to Solve the Nuclear Waste Problem?” Innovations (Fall 2006): 89Google Scholar. Emphasis added.

125. Vira, “Winning Citizen Trust,” 80.

126. Task Force on Radioactive Waste Management, Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Earning Public Trust and Confidence: Requisites for Managing Radioactive Wastes, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., November 1993, 36.Google Scholar

127. John Gervers, “A Local Government Perspective on Intergovernmental Relations at the Yucca Mountain Project,” presented at BRC on America’s Nuclear Future, Disposal Subcommittee, Washington, D.C., 7 July 2010, http://brc.gov/Disposal_SC/docs/ClarkCountyTestimony7-7-10.pdf (accessed 15 July 2010).

128. Summary Statement of NEI President and CEO Marvin S. Fertel before the BRC on America’s Nuclear Future, 25 May 2010, http://brc.gov/pdfFiles/May2010_Meeting/NEI%20BRC%20Statement%20052510.pdf (accessed 26 May 201).

129. Darrell Lacy, Nye Co. Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office, “Basic Concepts for a (Name your State)/Responsible Entity Agreement For willing acceptance to host a Geologic Repository For Spent Nuclear Fuel & Defense High Level Waste,” June 2010, presented at BRC on America’s Nuclear Future, Disposal Subcommittee, Washington, D.C., 7 July 2010, http://brc.gov/Disposal_SC/docs/Concepts%20for%20a%20-Name%20your%20State-DOE%20Agreement%20V4.pdf (accessed 15 July 2010).

130. Steve Tetreault, “Nevada Postmortem: DOE Failed to Win Trust on Yucca Mountain Project,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10 July 2010.

131. Ann Stouffer Bisconti, “‘Not’ in My Back Yard! Is Really ‘Yes’ in My Back Yard,” Natural Gas and Electricity, January 2010, http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/newplants/reports/article-not-in-my-back-yard-is-really-yes-in-my-back-yard-ann-bisconti-january-2010 (accessed 23 August 2010).