Mark Dayton: “I will vote against designating Yucca Mountain as a national nuclear waste repository at this time. I do so because…”

“I will vote against designating Yucca Mountain as a national nuclear waste repository at this time. I do so because there are simply too many unanswered questions, untested designs, and unproven procedures to approve a project that has such enormous consequences. Building a safe and secure storage site at Yucca Mountain and then filling it with some 77,000 tons of nuclear waste will take the next 30 to 40 years. Throughout those three and four decades, the design, the construction, the loading, the unloading, and the safe transportation of over 150,000 pounds of extremely poisonous nuclear waste must all be done perfectly--at least almost perfectly. One accident, one rupture, one attack would have devastating effects on the lives of people today and for generations to follow, as one look at a victim of the Chernobyl nuclear accident would confirm. Now those 150,000 pounds or as much as 200,000 pounds of radioactive waste has to be stored, contained, and isolated perfectly--almost perfectly--for thousands of years.”