The following is modified from a post on Motley Fool, Investment and Analysis Clubs/Macro Economic Trends and Risks (March 29. 2012):
The sad story about the Nevada Test Site - Yucca Mtn.* and high level waste disposal is as follows: To get Nevada to allow the Federal government the right to put high level nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site which is after all, Federal lands, the Federal government was going to give Nevada $125 million (a sum I thought was chicken feed) and Nevada, which had not officially complained about the nuclear device test (i.e. bombs) was all for it. Then some bean counter said that $125 million was too much and it should only be $25 million. At this point, Nevada called "Foul" and turned against it. I believe that the sum was eventually even lowered to zero.
The state of Nevada hired some real smart scientists to find things wrong with the Yucca Mtn. I know because one of my class mates hired was one of the smartest it not the smartest. He was a real talent. The Federal Government then rolled out some real smart scientists who were put on the job of showing that Yucca Mtn. was all right. I know because I was the boss of some of them for awhile. And then the war started.
So there were arguments that a volcano coming up right in the heart of Yucca Mtn. was a possibility. No, all the volcanism in that area ceased long, long ago. A glacial age was quite likely in 10,000 yrs,* and the water table would rise to cover the nuclear waste and destroy the containers. No, it is unlikely a glacial age could start that fast, and beside, the badies in the waste would be nearly all gone. What if we had a retrograde society where everyone had forgotten what radioactivity was and they dug this stuff out by mistake? Just how many people understand radioactivity today so you wouldn't have to lose a lot of talent to be retrograde. And on, and on, and on. So the smart guys in the Federal government tried to counteract the smart guys from Nevada and this went on for years.
Then just when the Federal government was going to ask to submit Yucca Mtn. to be licensed, the senior senator from Nevada and leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, asked the president for a favor to refuse the request. Plop.
I can't describe the disappointment. Scientists had spent their whole careers on this. It was like the Bridge of the River Kwai** all over only the construction plans and data gathering went on for decades not weeks or months. Even I felt it, and I got out in the late 1970s because I thought I saw where things were going. For the record, I was a proponent of granite for a storage media, but Eastern congressmen killed that because there is a lot of granite is in the East, and they don't want the repository there. We actually got a contract from the Canadians who were less squeamish (but who also abandoned granite) to work on granite which I did for awhile.
Be that as it may, I came to believe that Yucca Mtn. was a good experiment for high-level rad waste storage. And it was storage as the plans were that it could be recovered if necessary, though with difficulty. I think we might be able to forecast climate for a thousand years, but beyond that who knows? To guarantee it for a million years is silly.
So we are left with high level radioactive waste spread all over the country. Maybe that is not so bad as a successful terrorist attack would only have a limited effect. But it certainly is not ideal.
It is a terrible, terrible story and environmentalists had little to do with it, even if they didn't like it.
*http://www.yuccamountainexpose.com/Y47.htm; http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/06/dig_deeper_into_yucca.html
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai
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