Winnemucca Blog

Associated Press:

When Congress targeted Nevada as the nation’s nuclear waste dumping ground, the state didn’t have the political power to say no.

Twenty years later, the most ardent foe of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is about to become U.S. Senate majority leader. Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s new job, which gives him control over what legislation reaches the Senate floor, could deal a crippling blow to the already stumbling project.

Among Reid’s first acts after this month’s election was to convene a conference call with home-state reporters to declare Yucca Mountain “dead right now.”

Good thing, too, because the Department of Energy is proposing a new railroad route to Yucca that would use existing rail lines from Winnemucca to Hawthorne.