Despite efforts to revive it, Reid says Yucca Mountain is dead

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday the effort by House Republicans to revive the Yucca Mountain project are going nowhere.

And as majority leader of the U.S. Senate, he has considerable say over what happens to any such plan when it arrives at the Senate.

"Yucca Mountain is dead," Reid said in a telephone interview. "It's boarded up there. All the tests have stopped. To restart Yucca Mountain would cost a zillion dollars."

Reid rejected GOP efforts to put funding back into the project. That funding was eliminated in the proposed federal budget by President Barack Obama and Reid said he has no intention of restoring it.

Reid's statements came on the heels of a Washington Post story published Tuesday that described Yucca Mountain 75 miles north of Las Vegas as "a hole to nowhere" and "a case study in government dysfunction and bureaucratic inertia."

Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., both cited evidence that the earth beneath Yucca Mountain is not only wetter than originally believed but vulnerable to earthquakes. They said putting more money into the near 30 year old project would make no sense since there is a much safer solution available.

"Look at Japan," said Reid. "Not a single person was hurt or made ill by dry storage containers. If you don't have to haul them, they will protect those (expended fuel) rods for 100 years."

Reid said the solution is to store those rods at each nuclear power site.

Berkley said opening Yucca Mountain would "unleash decades of dangerous nuclear waste shipments on America's roads and railways."

She said the waste is best left where it is generated.

Reid said the exposure in Japan was caused by the cooling ponds used to store fuel rods there.

"That's what made everybody sick," he said. "We can still do nuclear power. I'm not against nuclear power. Just leave the waste where it is."