Comments about ‘EPA sets Yucca radiation standards’

Wow! Rep. Matheson must either be a fast reader or have someone on staff, qualified in health physics or related science, to be able to proclaim that the revised radiation standard for humans 10,000 or more years from now is too weak.

For his information, the current (underlined) dose limit for a member of the public is 100 millirem per year: the same level as proposed in the revised Yucca regulation

Senator Reid and Representative Matheson need to go back to high school and learn some science. As the article points out, you can get 15 millirem radiation exposure from a single x-ray, and the average radiation people get from natural sources every year is 20 times that number. If you live at higher altitude, as in Salt lake, you are getting even more exposure to cosmic radiation, and if you live near the granite of the mountains up on the east bench, your exposure to radiation from uranium is even higher. Radioactive elements in coal smoke are worse. People who live in Spokane, Washington, get 1200 millirems per year from natural sources. If Matheson is worried about radiation exposure to people, he should WANT to move the spent nuclear fuel AWAY from cities and rivers, like the Indian Point power plant upstream of New York City, and put it deep underground, where only small amounts can ever escape. The aquifer under the Yucca Mountain Site is NOT used by any large number of people. It is 90 miles from Las Vegas, and is not connected to Vegas groundwater. Mankind will never be harmed by the waste in Yucca.

Yucca Mt. is not a Bush/McCain plan. Research into safety concerns and other issues started about 25 years ago. Unfortunately Reid spins his resistance as a partisan difference, when it actually seems to be a regional one. A national imperative to produce more energy is more important than regional or political agendas. Lets overcome objections and obstacles that naysayers use to impede progress! I hope the next President can overcome Harry Reid's resistance to a plan that is far better than the alternative proposal to leave nuclear waste spread out across the country.