New nukes — as well as old nuclear
waste — may soon be headed West: Tucked inside the
2004 Water and Energy Appropriations Bill was $11 million for the
Modern Pit Facility, a factory to build plutonium triggers for
nuclear bombs (HCN, 9/1/03: Courting the Bomb). Now, it’s up
to the Energy Department to decide where to build that facility:
Los Alamos or Carlsbad, N.M.; the Nevada Test Site; Texas or South
Carolina.
Congress also allotted $580
million for Yucca Mountain, the federal
government’s choice for storage of the nation’s
high-level radioactive waste (HCN, 8/5/02: Yucca heads for the
courts). Of that, $55 million will go toward transportation
studies. “This Congress will rue the day it got in bed with the
nuclear industry,” Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., told her
colleagues.
That same water and energy
spending bill also contains a provision to keep water out
of the Middle Rio Grande: A rider added to the bill by Sen. Pete
Domenici, R-N.M., prevents the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from
using San Juan-Chama water to keep the Rio Grande flowing for the
endangered silvery minnow. Though the minnows won’t get any
water, biologists will get about $7 million to study them (HCN,
8/4/03: Truce remains elusive in Rio Grande water fight).
Congress also passed the Defense
spending bill, which gives the military $401 billion and
grants the Pentagon exemptions from the Endangered Species Act and
the Marine Mammal Protection Act (HCN, 3/31/03: While the nation
goes to war, the Pentagon lobs bombs at the environment). Now, the
military can designate its own version of critical habitat for
endangered species, without oversight from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, and the Navy can redefine “harassment” of marine
mammals.
And sadly, one of the
West’s mangy mascots has gone to the great boneyard
in the sky: The Auditor, the dreadlocked canine who lived for 17
years at Butte, Montana’s Berkeley Pit — one of the
nation’s biggest Superfund sites — died peacefully in
his doghouse last month (HCN, 12/9/02: Like Butte, a lonely dog
hangs on).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Follow-up.
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