Molly Ivins October 30AUSTIN — Well, we're in the endgame now on the nuclear dump in Sierra Blanca. Our next-to-last possible move is up to Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison, which could mean we're doomed. But let's not be pessimistic about it — they could have a fit of conscience and at least back the Doggett amendment. One of the saddest parts of watching Sierra Blanca in West Texas get stuck with a three-state (or more) nuclear waste dump is that they put up a beautiful fight. Poor, Hispanic (why do you think they drew the black bean in the first place?), outmanned, outgunned and certainly outspent, the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund has still put up a whale of a fight. This is community action and local organizing at its very best. Local rancher Bill Addison, who has been on a hunger strike for almost two months, was especially effective, making trip after trip to Washington on his own nickel to lobby against the dump. The Legal Defense Fund got some impressive help from people of conscience in many walks of life, most notably musicians. Bonnie Raitt, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Jimmie Vaughn, and Charlie and Will Sexton donated performances at a Sept. 28 benefit concert in Austin, and that was only part of a four-city "No Nukes" concert tour. The smartest legislative play of the long struggle — and one that Gramm and Hutchison could yet save, if only they will — was the amendment passed by Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who is one smart cookie; he learned how to dodge around right-wing majorities during his years in the Texas Senate. Doggett's amendment simply puts into the law what was in the original compact and what Govs. Ann Richards and George W. Bush have said over and over is the deal here: Use of the dump is restricted to Texas, Maine and Vermont. That's what the compact said, that's what our governors said: Only Texas, Maine and Vermont get to use it. But the reality is that the more states that use it, the better the financial deal is for the big utility companies. Rick Jacobi of the Texas Low-Level Waste Disposal Authority told the Houston Business Journal: "The site is designed for 100,000 cubic feet per year, which would cost about $160 per cubic foot. But if only 60,000 cubic feet per year of waste arrives, the price would be $250 per cubic foot." And that sure would drive up costs for Houston Lighting & Power and Texas Utilities. So suddenly, instead of our three-state compact — us and two little states in New England we hope won't generate much waste — we are supposed to leave the number of states that can dump here up to a commission appointed by the governor.
At least Doggett's amendment takes care of that threat — if Gramm and Hutchison put it on in the Senate, too. The Senate vote is any day now. You might want to get in touch with them. Rumor has it that Gramm and Hutchison are planning to let Maine object to the amendment and then say, "Sorry, nothing we could do." Since when has Texas allowed some puny New England state to dictate what it will do? (Besides, Vermont is represented by a socialist!) For those of you who are wondering why Texas is going to have a nuclear waste dump at all, it goes back to a rather clever solution to the ultimate NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) problem. Several years ago, the feds set up a deal where states could get together in "compacts" and agree which one would take low-level nuclear waste from the others for a price. Any state that took a "brown bean" (low-level dump) was let out of the drawing for the "black bean" (the national high-level dump). Any fool can see that some Western state with a lot of empty land is going to get the black bean (odds on Nevada, anyone?), so Texas may have been well-advised to take the brown. I was just in Vermont last week. Beautiful state — teeny-tiny; tourism is the biggest industry. They don't even allow billboards in Vermont, so people can see all the beautiful mountains as they drive through — no way they'd take a nuclear dump. Maine is closing down its old and dangerous nuke — of course, it would cost them less to ship their nuclear garbage here if other states helped absorb the cost. Lot of money-muscle there. The vogue phrase for all this is "environmental racism," meaning that we dump all the undesirable NIMBYs into poor, rural, minority communities that have no political or economic clout. Think that's too strong? Consider this summary of study done by two Aggie professors for the Nuclear Waste Disposal Authority in 1984: "The findings of this survey suggest that a broad-based public information campaign designed to familiarize the general public with all aspects of waste disposal siting might prove detrimental. ... A preferred methodology might be to develop public information campaigns targeted at special populations. One population that might benefit from such a campaign is Hispanics. This group is the least informed of all segments of the population. The Authority should be aware, however, that increasing the level of knowledge of Hispanics might simply increase opposition to the site." Our last possible move is to get President Clinton to veto the whole thing based on the overt racism involved. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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