NUCLEAR WASTE: NOT IN NEVADA'S BACK YARD

When House- and Senate-passed versions of a bill creating a temporary nuclear waste dump in Nevada goes to a conference Committee, it will be debated against the backdrop of an all-out effort by that states' two U.S. senators to scuttle the legislation. They don't want nuclear waste from all over the country, and they are working hard to convince communities across America that there is a genuine threat to public safety in transporting the stuff.

Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan were in St. Louis recently. They said some 5,000 shipments a year of nuclear waste would pass through that area, headed for Nevada.

Once a final version of the bill is written, President Clinton has said he will veto it, but there appears to be enough votes to override the veto. Some 30,000 tons of radioactive waste have been created, and efforts to find a way to dispose of it have been going on for years. The legislative plan is to use the Nevada site temporarily while a permanent solution is found -- although no one has come up with much of anything in that regard.

If nothing else, the travels of Reid and Bryan are putting a spotlight on the problem of nuclear waste. It's too bad, however, that they don't have an alternative to the plan before Congress.