News

Explosions, fire at Nye dump

The shuttered Nevada dump for chemical and low-level nuclear wastes in Nye County experienced an Oct. 18 fire severe enough that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a team to monitor.

The long-troubled site near Beatty, owned by the state but operated by a commercial firm, has 40 acres surrounded by a 400-acre buffer zone. It opened in 1962. The fire began in a trench associated with 1970s burials of waste, according to one state official. However, the state has long lacked detailed information about what is buried at the site.

It was unclear whether the officials at the scene were checking for chemical as well as nuclear issues. During a series of hearings before the Nevada Board of Health in the early 1980s, testimony made clear that the site was used for chemicals as well as nuclear materials. At one hearing a chemical explosion was described. EPA San Francisco spokesperson Rusty Harris-Bishop said in an email message, “By the afternoon of October 19, no radiation above natural background was identified by these efforts, at which time EPA responders returned to their duty locations.”

The dump became a sensitive political issue in the late 1970s and early ’80s. There were reports of sloppy procedures and transportation. Gov. Robert List (1979-1983) initially expressed his support for keeping the dump, but when Lt. Gov. Myron Leavitt threatened to close the dump if List left the state, List changed his stance. “Nevada is a gambling state, but I’m through gambling,” he said at a news conference announcing he would try to close the dump.

But shutdown required the consent of the Nevada Board of Health, dominated by physicians—and materials from nuclear medicine programs were disposed of at the dump. More than once, after testimony on operations at the site and in transport, the board refused List’s request for closure. The dump was finally shut down in 1992. It is in the same county where the federal government tried to place a dump for high-level nuclear wastes, at Yucca Mountain.

The commercial operators of the dump, Nuclear Engineering Co., responded to the bad publicity in 1981 by changing the name of their company to U.S. Ecology and continued operating the dump after shutdown. Less than a minute of silent footage taken on Oct. 18 by that corporation was turned over to state officials. It reportedly showed explosions at the site.

Role of regulators questioned

Nevada gambling regulators on Oct. 15 ruled that fantasy sports will be treated as gambling, not a game of skill. It directed websites such as DraftKings and FanDuels to end operations within the state.

It’s not clear whether other states will follow Nevada’s lead. And some observers seemed to say the Nevada regulators were acting to protect the Nevada casino industry from competition.

The New York Times, for instance, quoted sportswriter Chris Grove, who said, “It’s self-serving, but that is what the agency is designed to do—ensure an environment where the state’s licensed operators have the best chance of success, and part of that mission is to address forms of alternative gambling that fall outside the umbrella of regulation.”

In fact, there is nothing in state statutes that empowers state regulators to take action to insure the success of any business, though that impression is often created.

“I would reject the argument that this is a protective measure,” said former Nevada governor Richard Bryan, who appointed a number of state regulators during his six years as governor.

“It is the function of regulators to regulate the industry, to provide public protection, and insure the integrity of the games,” he said. “I can’t imagine that the role of the gaming commission is to protect from competition. I find that astonishing.”

If the notion that Nevada gambling regulators are protecting the business fortunes of existing businesses spread, it could severely undercut confidence in the regulatory apparatus. But critics say that often the coziness between regulators and those they regulate can create that impression. Nevertheless, Bryan said the bulk of state regulations history speaks otherwise.

“I reject that,” he said. “I think it’s wholly inaccurate. The whole history of Nevada gaming regulation says otherwise.” —Dennis Myers

In this file photo, lobbyist Randi Thompson chats at the Nevada Legislature with UNR faculty lobbyist Jim Richardson.

Anger

Competing agendas raise temperatures

At the Circus Circus Hotel & Casino—a union house—members of the NAACP by last Saturday gathered for the local Dennis Myers branch’s 70th annual banquet. It was a happy occasion, but there was also an undercurrent running through the crowd—anger over a newspaper column by local conservative lobbyist Randi Thompson.

“Where is the outrage over the black-on-black crime that happens every day?”

Randi Thompson Columnist

The piece appeared on the Reno Gazette Journal website on Oct. 22 and then ran in print in the Oct. 25 Sunday edition. It read, in part:

“So this whole Black Lives Matter movement is really ticking me off, because it’s turning into a ‘cops’ lives don’t matter’ sentiment. A black cop was shot and killed in New York, but where is the outrage for his ‘black life’? It seems that black lives only matter when the ‘black life’ is some kid thug, and the shooter is a white cop. If black lives matter, then where is the outrage over the black-on-black crime that happens every day in this country? … President Obama was quick to jump on the killing of Michael Brown as an example of a law enforcement mentality that targets blacks, yet he is silent about the daily killings of blacks by blacks in his hometown of Chicago.”

As it happened, Guardian Quest Inc. CEO Angie Taylor, a member of the Washoe County School Board, was one of the speakers at the dinner, and she mentioned Black Lives Matter favorably.

NAACP vice president Andrew Barbano urged attendees to send letters or post reader comments objecting to the Thompson column.

The following Monday morning, the Gazette Journal was notified to expect a competing essay. Meanwhile, the newspaper’s Facebook page was filling up with angry comments.

Among the reasons for anger by those attending the banquet was that it has been their experience that it is whites, not blacks, who ignore crime in black neighborhoods. Whites tend to discuss it mainly when it serves to divert attention from other issues— and no one was able to locate other newspapers columns by Thompson in which she discussed the issue. Black leaders, on the other hand, have long thrown attention on the matter and have also been in the forefront of those critical of other black leaders for downplaying the problem. In fact, some critics of supposed black apathy toward black-on-black crime cited some black leaders—though Rudolph Giuliani’s citation of Bill Cosby’s 2004 criticism of black parents for insensitivity to crime and morality may lack credibility in 2015.

In 1970, Andre Brimmer—the only black member of the Federal Reserve Board—called on other black leaders to pay more attention to crime in black neighborhoods: “While the rising incidence of crime has been a source of embarrassment to many Negro leaders, far too many have remained ambivalent toward the problem—perhaps through fear of providing comfort to racists masquerading behind a mask of law and order.” But that did not keep him from pointing out that blacks “will need the vigorous support of the white community—and I am not fully confident that this will be forthcoming to the extent required.”

That same year, Urban League leader and D.C. City Councilmember Sterling Tucker said overlooking crime in black areas “is highly injurious, not only to society, but more particularly to the recipient of all this commiseration—the black man himself.”

In 1984, Urban League leader Rev. Ernest Ferrell of Florida said of a new crime prevention program for black neighborhoods, “We’re not going to tolerate crime in our neighborhoods any more.”

In 1988, Dr. Richard Williams, a Florida African American leader, said at a three-day community/police conference, “It’s like preventive maintenance—you can solve problems before they become problems. It brings about understanding between both officers and community residents.”

In 1997, black columnist Walter Williams wrote, “Crime is a major problem and lies at the heart of other major problems faced by blacks. High crime translates into low rates of businesses in black neighborhoods. ... Crime drives upwardly mobile residents out, and the neighborhood loses stabilizing influences.”

Some say it goes back farther than that. South Carolina columnist Linda Darnell Williams traced such concerns to Harriet Tubman and early 20th century journalist Ida Wells-Barnett.

Thompson’s essay was less inflammatory than comments by other conservative leaders. For instance, where she wrote, “it’s turning into a ‘cops’ lives don’t matter’ sentiment,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the BLM movement is “calling for the murder of police officers.”

Thompson said later that her criticism was principally directed to the White House, “not about the local attitude or the movement itself necessarily.”

Some criticism of the BLM movement is poorly informed or relies

on stale information. For instance, Fox personality Martha MacCallum said on the air, “What about black-on-black violence? Where is Al Sharpton on that? Where is the president on that?”

That quote caught the eye of Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, who wrote, “Funny you should ask. Sharpton made a publicized trip to Chicago in November to focus attention on the city’s chronic violence. Last year, Michelle Obama attended the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old black honor student who was shot, allegedly by a black gang member. The first lady later returned to Chicago to converse with students at a school that is nearly 100 percent African-American. ‘In choosing Harper High School for the visit, the White House noted that 29 current or former students there had been shot in the last year, eight of them fatally,’ reported the Tribune. The president also came here, meeting with kids involved in a mentoring program for at-risk adolescent boys, bemoaning gun violence and telling a crowd on the South Side, ‘Our streets will only be as safe as our schools are strong and our families are sound.’ ”

Moreover, crime rates among blacks have been falling dramatically for many years—homicide by half, other violent crimes by 60 percent. And there seems to be little recognition that it is not just black neighborhoods where most crime happens—it’s low income neighborhoods with residents of all colors. There may also be little understanding that, according to the Fatal Encounters database, one citizen is killed by police every eight hours.

Moreover, claims by some conservatives that criticism of the police has caused a “Ferguson effect”—an increase in crime caused by police afraid to do their jobs because of public scrutiny—has foundered because there is no evidence for it, as FBI director James Comey acknowledged last week. But there is some evidence that crime was rising before Ferguson. Comey also said, “Law enforcement can actually use hashtag Black Lives Matter to see the world through the eyes of people who are not in our line of work and see how they might perceive us,” Comey said. “And I believe that those members of the black community can use hashtag ‘police lives matter’ to see the world through law enforcement eyes and see the heart of law enforcement.”

There was little of that kind of outreach. When we asked Thompson if any of her critics had asked to sit down with her to talk, she said no.

“I’d welcome it,” she said. “But until then it’s just my observations.” Ω

“Crimeliesattheheartof othermajorproblemsfaced byblacks.”

Walter Williams Columnist

Craning for a look

Three cranes extend around the east side of the Nevada Museum of Art where $5.5 million in construction of a sky room atop the structure is underway. The expansion will create 4,800 square feet of space, including a banquet kitchen and retractable floor-to-ceiling glass walls, that should be ready for use in February.

2015 reno philfamily concert

FREE Family Concert

November 7, 10:00 a.m. Pre-Concert activities 9:00 a.m. Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts 100 S. Virginia St. Reno, NV 89501 Featuring The Composer is Dead narrated by KTVN Mike Alger, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with 17 year old soloist Nathan Barnes, and music from Star Wars.

Reserve your seats online at www.renophil.com