THe LocaL Newsroom Cannabis Convention Goes to Pot Cannapalooza canceled after first being OK’d by Mandalay Bay By Kate Silver
Two partygoers celebrate at the Palms during the “wake” for Yucca Mountain. Photo by Brenton Ho
what’s next for Yucca mountain? Amid the celebration, uncertainty lingers By Jessica Prois Nearing the end of a “wake” celebrating the Department of Energy’s application to withdraw the license for nuclearwaste storage at Yucca Mountain, Jenna Morton called for one last cheer from the crowd of more than 100 local activists and politicians. “Yippee, Yucca is dead!” the partygoers chanted as wellworn battle signs reading “Bush Lied” and “Nevada Is Not a Wasteland!” dotted the crowd during the March 9 party at the Palms’ Ghostbar. Former Sen. Richard Bryan delivered a “eulogy” for Yucca Mountain and credited Sen. Harry Reid with “driving the silver stake into the heart” of the project. Morton, co-owner of N9NE Group and organizer of the event, called the fight a “David and Goliath”-type battle. She has testified at DOE hearings and been a vocal critic of Yucca Mountain over the years. However, just because the DOE withdrew its application, that doesn’t mean the issue is dead. “Isn’t there a saying that ‘It ain’t over until the fat lady sings?’” says Martez Norris, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, a nuclear waste storage advocacy
group in South Carolina that represents regulators and kingpin utility corporations. “From my perspective, it’s premature to celebrate. You’ve still got lawsuits in the courts.” The state of Washington, South Carolina’s Aiken County and the state of South Carolina have all filed motions to intervene in the hearing for the license withdrawal. Washington is home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the country’s most contaminated site. Yucca Mountain has been the intended destination spot for Hanford’s waste and used nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s hearing board has yet to rule on other intervening groups as well. Then there will be a number of appeals, says Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, a state-run agency that advises the governor and Legislature. But he hopes the NRC will approve the withdrawal application this year. There’s nothing on the table in terms of future plans for Yucca, Breslow says. Ideally, he likes to think the DOE could be convinced to restore the mountain back to its natural state, which would include filling in a fully developed tunnel that is five miles deep and 25 feet wide, but there haven’t been any salient ideas put into place. “I’ve only heard the joking from wine storage to bunker-busting bomb testing,” he says. Norris supports the controversial idea of reprocessing waste at Yucca, which involves separating plutonium and uranium from nuclear waste so it can be reused in reactors. “It’s still the law of the land, but why not turn it into a reprocessing center?” she argues. “It would be a windfall in creating good-paying jobs in perpetuity. And it’s out in the desert. It’s isolated.” But that’s exactly the problem, Breslow says. He cites water rights and earthquake faults as the main roadblocks to reprocessing, pointing out that the five water basins in the area have already been allocated. He also says it’s actually cheaper to buy fuel than to remake it. “It’s a ludicrous proposal based on quicksand,” he says. “Yucca Mountain, in middle of the desert with no water and multiple earthquake faults, would be the single worst location in the country for reprocessing.”
Louis Woznicki was planning the cannabis celebration to end all cannabis celebrations: Cannapalooza. The contract for the event was signed back in September. It was to be held March 19–21 at Mandalay Bay and bring to town 200 vendors and 50,000 to 75,000 attendees. By January, Woznicki had spent around $250,000 on national marketing and was in talks with lighting and entertainment aficionados. That’s when the 62-year-old businessman learned that Mandalay Bay terminated the event, no explanation given. (MGM Mirage officials said that policy prohibits them from revealing details of business contracts with any convention customer.) “When I got the news I just kind of imploded,” Woznicki says. “It wasn’t anger, my world just caved in on me. I invested a quarter of a million dollars in putting this show together.” What irks Woznicki the most is that he was straight with the convention staff when he signed the contract. “I said are you completely comfortable with what I’m going to do here? I’m going to put on a trade show about cannabis. It’s going to be a lot about education of the cannabis industry but there’s also going to be a commercial element.” He was clear that the commercial element would include vaporizers, bongs, glassware, advanced growing systems and more—and he urged Mandalay Bay staff to run it by their legal department. He says he was still met with enthusiasm and support. But by January, that enthusiasm and support turned to tension and suspicion. Because of the nature of the event, Woznicki still had some concerns and requested to meet with officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He says he wanted to answer any questions they had, and let them know that he’s a successful businessman in the textile industry, not “some idiotic doper from L.A.” At the meeting, Woznicki says he felt ambushed. He’d expected an informal chat. What he found was nearly 25 ofContinued on page 39 March 18-24, 2010 Vegas Seven
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