Yucca (Mountain) Johnny targets youngsters' hearts, minds

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2006/mar/24/566633580.html

The Energy Department has worked for years to educate adults on the value of a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Now it is also targeting children.

A federal government Web site hosted by an animated "Yucca Johnny" suggests that the waste must be stored somewhere. And for Yucca Johnny's druthers, that "somewhere" is about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where the federal government wants to store 80,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste deep inside Yucca Mountain.

"What if we took out the garbage, but let it pile up in our yards?" Yucca Johnny asks on the Web site, www.ocrwm.doe.gov/youth/index.htm. "Over time, our neighborhoods would become very unhealthy places to live. So we have sanitary workers pick up our garbage and properly dispose of it in landfills.

"Right now, nuclear waste is piling up in a lot of places around the country ... We must be responsible for our nuclear waste and put in a place where it can never harm people or the environment."

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