September 20, 2007
LC Commissioners Accused of Misusing Federal Funds

By Dave Maxwell

Marge Detraz of Caliente, outspoken critic of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project and co-chairman of the Lincoln County Nuclear Opposition Committee, told the County Commissioners at their regular meeting Monday, that they were all guilty of misusing federal funds by paying for studies to be done in Lincoln County for alternative railroad routes through the county for the Department of Energy to use to move nuclear waste to the planned Yucca Mountain storage facility. Mrs. Detraz is a strong supporter of U.S. Senator Harry Reid’s efforts to defeat the DOE project at the highest levels in Washington. Adding fuel to her comments before the Commissioners were statements made earlier by Vaughn Higbee to the Commissioners that new surveys of the proposed alternative railroad routes will not work as well as had been hoped, and it is going to cost the DOE considerably more money than first envisioned to build railroad lines in the county.

Her complaints have been made to the Board on several occasions that spending thousands of dollars of federal money for environmental and impact studies for alternative routes is a misuse of funds because Senator Reid is not going to allow Yucca Mountain to be completed anyway. Mrs. Detraz said, “He means it. And Harry Reid is the Majority Leader of the Senate. He has almost as much power as the President.”

In response, Commissioner Chairman Ronda Hornbeck said the Commission had a responsibility to the people of the county for the studies that have been done thus far to consider the problems that could arise with having nuclear waste come through this county. “If we did nothing, shame on us,” she said.