Sam Gibbons: “the rhetoric surrounding H.R. 1270, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997, is often technical and rarely illustrative in…”

“the rhetoric surrounding H.R. 1270, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997, is often technical and rarely illustrative in a personal manner, where the impact will be the greatest. Many American cities around this country are going to be affected by this act. Typical American cities such as St. Louis, MO, will become nuclear refuse hubs as radioactive waste is transported and funneled from subsidized nuclear powerplants through St. Louis to the proposed nuclear storage site in Nevada. Residents of St. Louis should know that this waste will travel along Interstate 70, next to North Memorial Drive and the Mississippi River, meaning that if an accident were to occur and a small fraction of the shipping cask's contents were released, it would be sufficient to contaminate a 42-mile square area that would take 460 days to clean up. This would devastate downtown St. Louis, endanger the people living there, contaminate the Mississippi River, threaten every city and person downstream. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues were sent to Congress to serve and protect their constituents, not mandate a physical, environmental, and economic disaster upon them.”