Yucca hearing teleconferenced to Carson

A Yucca Mountain site consideration hearing is scheduled to be teleconferenced to Carson City on Tuesday.

The hearing, which is being challenged by state officials, will be an opportunity for people to comment on the placement of the dump.

State officials are opposing the hearings on the grounds that the environmental impact student hasn't been completed.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the state would ask the 9th U.S. Court of Appeal to block the hearings.

Members of the organization Citizen Alert say the location of the hearing in Las Vegas will reduce people's willingness to comment.

"This penitentiary-like facility underscores the tone of the DOE holding the public hostage in this process," Citizen Alert Executive Director Kaitlin Backlund said. "It is a totally unsuitable and uninviting location for a general public meeting."

In Carson City, the hearing will be shown at 6 p.m. at the Legislative Building, Room 1214.

The teleconference will originate at the Department of Energy's Nevada Operations Office in North Las Vegas.

Besides Carson, it will appear at the Desert Research Institute in Reno and at the Elko Convention and Visitor's Authority in Elko.

The conference will also be broadcast over the Internet at the site, www.ymp.gov.

Additional hearings will be scheduled for Sept. 12 in Amargosa and Sept. 13 in Pahrump.

The hearings will be among the last chance residents have to comment on the nuke dump before public comment ends on Sept. 20.

Carson residents should be able to comment on the dump during the teleconference.

According to the Department of Energy, comments may also be made by e-mail through YMP_SRAymp.gov, or by facsimile at 1-800-967-0739.

Those wishing to mail their comments, may do so by writing Carol Hanlon, U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office (M/S#25), PO Box 30307, North Las Vegas, NV 89306-0307.