SENATE VOTES TO STORE NUCLEAR WASTE IN NEVADA.

Byline: Charles Pope Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to designate Nevada's barren and politically powerless desert as the resting place for thousands of tons of radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear reactors.

Despite the 65-34 vote, however, one of the country's most complex and emotional environmental questions is far from resolved. The Senate fell two votes shy of the number needed to override a veto promised by President Clinton, and the House has yet to act on the measure.

Beyond Congress, other obstacles, both legal and technical, continue piling up much like the waste itself.

The 30,000 tons of radioactive waste in 41 states is growing at a rate of 2,000 tons a year, and many reactors will begin reaching capacity over the next 10 years. Utilities face the prospect of building temporary storage facilities to keep operating, or shutting down in extreme instances.

The issue is something Congress would rather avoid, but because spent fuel rods and other highly radioactive waste remain lethal for 10,000 years, only the government has the resources and the stability to deal with the problem.

``Politically, this is a hellacious issue to work on,'' said Bill Magavern, a lobbyist for the environmental group Public Citizen, which opposed the Senate bill. He cited the dangers of transporting the waste long distances by train and truck, and said there is no proven method for storing the wastes safely.

``The pitch from other senators is, if it doesn't go to Nevada, it could come to your state. `NIMBY' is alive and well in the Senate,'' he said, referring to the abbreviation for ``not in my back yard.''

Largely because of that sentiment, there was never any doubt during the lengthy debate that the bill would pass. The only question was whether it would gain more than the 63 votes a similar measure got last year.

Supporters were encouraged that they could collect enough votes after Washington state, South Carolina and Tennessee were exempted from being considered for the temporary site. Those states have been suggested as locations for interim storage sites because they are home to large Energy Department nuclear weapons plants.

With those states mollified, Nevada was left essentially alone.

The bill passed Tuesday directs the government to begin building an interim storage site at the Nevada Test Site, a reservation where nuclear bombs have been detonated for decades. That facility would accept waste until a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is finished.

Clinton and Nevada's two senators - Democrats Harry Reid and Richard Bryan - argue that designating a temporary site before a final decision on the suitability of the permanent facility is foolhardy because it removes an important incentive to find a permanent location.

``You all have seen bad legislation in your day, but this is the worst,'' Reid declared.