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A section of a main drift in the Yucca Mountain exploratory studies facility.

Leo McFadden 1928-2013

When Leo McFadden was a boy, a bishop came to the McFadden home to recruit his brother for the priesthood. His mother said, “Leo will make a much better priest.”

When St. Albert’s church and school were located across the street from the university, McFadden told that story to one of his parishioners over her kitchen table. He was then in his first decade as a Reno priest. He would become a familiar figure over many kitchen tables of local Catholic families who are mourning him this week.

Born in Portland and raised in Las Vegas—his father worked on the Boulder Dam project—he began serving as a Nevada priest just two years after his ordination, continuing for nearly six decades, minus a period in the early 1970s when he worked in Rome.

McFadden performed innumerable baptisms, weddings, funerals and other ceremonies for a couple of generations of local Catholics. Many who knew him as children in the 1950s and 1960s continued calling him “Father McFadden” until the end of his life, though he had long since become a monsignor.

In February 1957, the Reno Gazette-Journal carried a photo of McFadden ministering in the street to victims of a gas explosion in downtown Reno that killed two and injured 49. The newspaper also carried his column for many years, written in free verse, all lower case. McFadden was a prolific writer and edited the nowdefunct Nevada Register, the newspaper of the Diocese of Reno, as the Catholic territory that encompassed the entire state was then known.

John Livermore 1918-2013

Carlin Trend and Getchell Trend discoverer John Livermore has died. Using ideas and techniques of U.S. Geological Survey geologist Ralph J. Roberts, Livermore and another Newmont mines geologist, Alan Coope, in 1961 found a site laced with minute amounts of gold. Livermore later left Newmont to form his own company, Cordex, and established several other mines of the same kind of “invisible” gold, leading to the discovery of the Getchell Trend.

The discoveries made Nevada the world’s fourth largest gold producer, and while no reliable figure is available, in 1989 they were estimated to have generated more than 90 million ounces of gold.

He was involved in mining politics and failed in an effort to reform the Mining Law of 1872 in a way that the industry could support. He contributed to campaigns of Nevada politicians from Chic Hecht to Barbara Vucanovich to Jim Gibbons. One of the few Democrats who got his support was Nick Rahall of the mining state of West Virginia.

Reno man named in suit

A Reno man involved in an attempt to bring back “traditional” boy scouting has been named in a San Francisco lawsuit.

In a Jan. 30 filing, Coast Guard veteran Mark Dietrich sued former scoutmaster Gary Hatfield and a regional Boy Scouts council, alleging Hatfield molested him between 1978 and 1981 and that it happened “despite knowledge of Hatfield’s dangerous propensities and unfitness.” The suit claims that local and regional Boy Scout officials knew of the abuse.

Hatfield, a Reno apartment maintenance worker, was quoted by KTVU in Oakland denying the charges and adding, “That’s a joke.”

In 2004, Hatfield was promoting the “Confederate Scouts of America,” a group described in its leaflets as “‘back to basics,’ with pride, honor, respect, and discipline.”

He said at the time (“Back to scouting basics?” RN&R, Nov. 11, 2004) that he did not consider the use of the term Confederate to be inflammatory: ‘I mean, whatever happened 150 years ago is no problem of mine, you know, whether it was the act of slavery or whoever broke away from who. ... The only thing is, we’re going with gray uniforms. ... And we’ve gone back to the 1959 version of the [BSA] handbook.”

—Dennis Myers

Soft sell

Obama tries a new approach to nuclear waste storage

The new Nevada Legislature has plenty on its plate this year, and its members probaby bly would be happy not to have to Dennis Myers deal again with the proposed dump for high level nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain in Nye County. But the issue is repeatedly raising its head. • President Obama’s administration announced on Jan. 11 that it will search for a new permanent site for nuclear waste storage with a target date of 2048, with temporary dumps slated for 2021 and 2025, essentially consigning Yucca to the past. • Obama’s energy secretary, Steven Chu, resigned after four years

“Under my dead body will anything be moved through our chamber without a Yucca component.”

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus Illinois Republican

during which he promoted nuclear power but torpedoed Yucca Mountain. • In Idaho, a state commission said the state has an opportunity for “significant industrial opportunity” by helping the federal government with waste storage, a finding endorsed by Gov. Bruce Otter. • In a lawsuit filed by states with nuclear power plants, utility regulators and Nye County in Nevada (which wants the economic activity the Yucca dump would bring), a court ruling is impending on whether the Obama administration can forced to move forward with development of the Yucca Mountain repository. • Four leading U.S. Senators with nuclear power ties are working in an informal group on nuclear waste legislation. • U.S. Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, a state with 11 nuclear power facilities, said he will not— as chair of a key House subcommittee— allow the Senate group’s waste management bill to pass the House without a clause designating Yucca Mountain as a repository. • Leading Eastern newspapers editorialized on Yucca.

Consent

The Obama plan, announced by Secretary Chu, implements the recommendations of the federal Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which called for a “consent based” storage site, essentially proposing a less adversarial site search than that which produced Yucca.

Energy industry spokespeople responded angrily. Steve Skutnik wrote on his energy industry-sponsored blog, “If one is to unilaterally dismantle nearly three decades of standing policy of nuclear waste disposal policy, a little more should be expected in terms of an alternative. The [Obama] report would not be it.”

The Senate group includes Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (whose state has the highly polluted Hanford nuclear site on its border), Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander (whose state has three nuclear power facilities), California Sen. Diana Feinstein (four nuclear power facilities) as well as a senator without that kind of tie—Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski. But Murkowski receives heavy campaign funding from energy sources. The Senate group seems to want Yucca opened but is working on other alternatives because of the political realities.

Wyden joined the group when New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman left the Senate. Under Bingaman, the group drafted a bill providing for a nuclear industry subsidy group called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) within the Department of Energy (DOE). The group was working within the “consent-based” approach recommended by President Obama’s commission. Bingaman wanted an application for a permanent waste dump before permitting any waste to be moved to temporary dumps, but that view may now leave with him. Wyden, who joined the Senate group after Bingaman’s departure and replaced him as chair, is amenable to shipping waste to temporary sites without a permanent site applicant in hand.

Rep. Shimkus, who chairs an energy and commerce subcommittee of the House Energy and Environment Committee, told the Hill, a congressional newspaper, “Under my dead body will anything be moved through our chamber without a Yucca component.” His state receives 48.2 percent of its power from nuclear and its waste was supposed to go to an Eastern repository. Federal promises were made in the 1970s that there would be two repositories, East and West, and that the West would not have to accept Eastern waste. Those promises were broken by Congress and President Reagan in 1987. The Obama plan calls for reviving the approach. Secretary Chu’s statement read:

“A consent-based siting process could result in more than one storage facility and/or repository, depending on the outcome of discussions with host communities. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) envisaged the need for multiple repositories as a matter of equity between regions. ... As a starting place, this strategy is focused on just one of each facility.”

The Shimkus promise to block any nuclear waste bill that did not designate Yucca as the site for storage got heavy coverage from nuclear industry publications and sites like Power Engineering International magazine.

Commentary

The Washington Post, in an editorial reprinted by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Bangor Daily News, Charlotte News & Observer (all nuclear power markets), observed on Feb. 3:

“Every step, the administration insists, must be ‘consent-based,’with localities accepting waste facilities in return for their economic benefits and perhaps some additional compensation. Congress tried forcing Nevada to take the country’s waste, the thinking goes; this time, the government should try recruitment rather than compulsion. We are skeptical that many localities would volunteer to host waste facilities, particularly the permanent repository, no matter the economic benefits. But perhaps the administration’s staged approach might be a way to convince communities, with each step building confidence that this material can be stored safely.”

The competing Washington Times in Washington, D.C., editorialized on Jan. 21, “At the core of the repository struggle is the fact that nuclear power is anathema to the trendy but expensive windmill and solar panel lobby that holds sway over the administration’s energy policy. Throwing obstacles into the path of safe disposal is a backhanded means of clouding the future of affordable nuclear energy. If the White House has its way, the repository will be sited in NeverNever Land.”

The Times, a Unification Church publication, described the Yucca dump as “already constructed and virtually ready for use,” which is not true (“Yucca tale flourishes,” RN&R, May 5, 2011). Only $8 billion in suitability study construction has occurred at the site, with about $100 billion in construction still to be done. The editorial also describes the site as “surrounded by the Nevada Test Site,” a claim often made by advocates of the dump to suggest that the land is already contaminated. In fact, the Yucca site is just inside the western border of the Test Site and is upwind from the area where bomb tests were conducted.

The Times editorial drew a letter to the editor from Joseph Strolin of Minden, former director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office: “If the scientific and fair process for selecting repository sites set up in the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 had been allowed to prevail in 1987, the country very likely would have a national nuclear waste repository today, albeit not at Yucca Mountain. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future studied the lessons to be learned from the failed Yucca Mountain program and produced a series of sound, workable recommendations that, if implemented, have the best chance of finally solving the country’s nuclear-waste problem.” Ω

“A consent-based siting process could result in more than one storage facility.”

Steven Chu U.S. Energy Secretary

Eat your heart out, Colin

Michio Kaku listens offstage as science college dean Jeffrey Thompson introduces him to an audience at the University of Nevada, Reno. A crowd of 1,700 turned out to see the noted physicist, and excited students jostled for his autograph and photos after his lecture.

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UPCOMING IN 2013

2/14 Fresh Bakin’s Valentine’s Day Fan Appreciation Night ft Smalltown DJs (Canada) Boggan,Trill Pickle, Joe Snarky, Wombat Combat 1 Up 10pm FREE 2/15 The Scumfrog, Sparkinzi, The Rhino, Zach Rawlinson, DJ Bacy 1 Up RENO 21+ 10pm 2/16 Pumpkin, Coop da Loop, Justin Levi Lakeside Tahoe City 21+ 9:30pm 2/17 lowRIDERz, Stephan Jacobs, Rundown, DubCOlinG Lakeside Tahoe City 21+ 9:30pm 2/28 Minnesota, Sabo, Protohype, Shawna, DCarls, Slayers Club, Zombass (STS9 afterparty) blu nightclub South Lake Tahoe 21+ 11pm 3/1 Minnesota, Sabo, Protohype, Shawna, DCarls, Slayers Club, Boggan 1 Up Reno 21+ 10pm 3/7 Zomboy, Archnemesis, Boggan, 530, Stensen 1 UP Reno 21+ 10pm 3/8 dirtybird invasion ft Justin Martin, Christian Martin, Worthy plus Miss Cooper, Acure, Sugar Showers 1 Up RENO 21+ 10pm 3/9 dirtybird invasion ft Justin Martin, Christian Martin, Worthy plus Flook Lakeside Tahoe City 21+ 9:30pm 3/15 Trocadero Ballroom Grand Opening featuring Amine Edge & Dance, AFS, more Trocadero Ballroom (back room of El Cortez) Reno 21+ 9pm – 2am 3/16 PANTyRAID, Brillz, PRSN Montbleu Showroom South Lake Tahoe All ages 8pm 3/16 PANTyRAID aferparty at RAW Bar ft Amine Edge, PRSN, more TBA 21+ 11pm 3/23 Emancipator, Little People, Odezsza Breeze Tahoe Biltmore 21+ 9:30pm 4/20 Love and Light, JPOD the Beatchef, The Pilot 1 Up Reno 21+ 10pm 6/21 – 6/24 THE BOUNCE Twain, CA Info at www.thebouncefestival.com

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Tahoe torn

The Nevada Conservation League has started a petition to repeal SB271, a measure which would remove Nevada from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency if the state does not meet conservation efforts for the lake by 2015.

“SB271 passed with almost no analysis of its impact on the Tahoe Basin,” wrote board of directors Jennifer Taylor in an email. “This bill passed the Legislature in the last 15 minutes of the 2011 session, putting in motion a timetable to strip all environmental protections from one of our nation’s treasures, one of the special places of the world, as Governor Sandoval has called it. The very features that make Lake Tahoe so unique are those that are most threatened by this bill, but these impacts have not been fully analyzed. The bill was an irresponsible developer’s dream, stripping away regulatory authority and taking a hard-line approach on future negotiations.”

The NCL argues that of four conditions Nevada must meet by 2015, only one is attainable, according to TRPA community liaison Jeff Cowell—the water quality restoration plan of the Lake Tahoe Regional Plan (“Lakeside view,” Jan. 3). The regional plan—along with Mobile 2035, which seeks to improve sustainable transportation at the lake—aims to improve existing structures to reduce pollution of the lake’s water. The regional plan went into effect on Feb. 10.

View the petition at www.tinyurl.com/SB271Petition.

Deflowered

Flowers for Valentine’s Day might seem like an appropriate gift for a nature lover, but the flower industry is rife with unethical and unsustainable practices.

Last Valentine’s Day, Mother Jones reported that flower farms in Colombia and Ecuador employed thousands of children in unsavory working conditions. Around 63 percent of flowers sold in the floriculture industry are grown in Ecuador, and 23 percent in Colombia. According to the International Labour Organization, Ecuador had more than 40,000 child workers in 2000. Colombia’s numbers were similar, but the country has enacted new labor laws faster than Ecuador, which is currently under scrutiny for child labor practices.

Toxic pesticide use is also rampant in order to grow perfect flowers that maintain shape and structure while in transit to the United States. Long-term exposure to pesticides and fungicides has caused many workers to become ill.

In the U.S., an organization called VeriFlora created a labeling system for sustainablyand organically-grown cut and potted flowers, similar to the labels of organic food.

—Ashley Hennefer

ashleyh@newsreview.com

ECO-EVENT

Learn about the environmental impact of ski resorts at a discussion hosted by the Sierra Club. Representatives from the Sierra Nevada Alliance will discuss the report card created by the Ski Area Citizens Coalition. The report card rates resorts on sustainability. Feb. 14, 7 p.m. Free. Bartley Ranch Regional Park. For more information, contact Valerie Andersen at gbgprograms@toiyabe.sierraclub.org.

Got an eco-event? Contact ashleyh@newsreview.com. Visit www.facebook.com/RNRGreen for more.