Nuclear rhetoric

Nye County Commissioner Dan Schinhofen called U.S. Sen. Harry Reid a hypocrite for winking at the storage of 403 canisters containing enriched uranium in a landfill at the Nevada Test Site (now called the Nevada National Security Site).

The canisters came from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

Schinhofen is a supporter of the proposed waste dump for high level nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain, which Reid opposes.

“What we're concerned with is the sheer hypocrisy of Sen. Reid, who said Yucca Mountain isn't safe but is OK with putting this fissile material 40 feet underground,” Schinhofen told a public meeting. “The hypocrisy stinks.”

Reid's office gave a statement to the Las Vegas Review Journal: “This is not bomb grade material. The [Nye] County Commission should understand the difference between 403 canisters and 70,000 tons.”