Abstract
The Yucca Mountain Environmental Safety Collection (1970-2011) consists of reports and impact studies collected by Clark County's Nuclear Waste Division library for documenting Yucca Mountain's potential health and safety risks to Southern Nevada. The reports contain documents pertaining to potential environmental, health, financial, and safety risks from the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which is located in Nye County, Nevada. The collection contains scientific and social studies in support of and opposition to the site. The bulk of the collection includes licensing reports, site selection studies, and impact studies from transporting, storing, and handling radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Finding Aid PDF
Date
Extent
Related People/Corporations
Scope and Contents Note
The Yucca Mountain Environmental Safety Collection (1970-2011) consists of reports, guidebooks, handbooks, and impact studies on research subjects relating to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository located in Nye County, Nevada. A concentration of the collection is dedicated to the site’s licensing processes, site selection studies, and impact studies from transporting, storing, and handling radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. The collection includes environmental, gaming, health, and fiscal impacts for Clark County and Southern Nevada communities. The collection contains case studies for other U.S. states, as well as international locations, such as Canada, the Goiânia, and Native American nations, including the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, the Timbisha Shoshone, and the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians. The collection also includes maps, atlases, correspondence, and government nuclear policies.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
These records are organized into three series:
Series I. Yucca Mountain reports and files, 1988-2011;
Series II. Nevada, United States, and international case studies, 1970-2010;
Series III. Research subject files, 1974-2011.
Biographical / Historical Note
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was authorized by the United States Congress in 1987 to temporarily store radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel within Yucca Mountain’s extinct caldera. Yucca Mountain is located in Nye County, Nevada, eighty miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada near the Nevada Test Site. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 surveyed suitable storage sites for radioactive waste and fuel, and the 1987 Amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act established Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository. The Department of Energy administered the site, and the project was formally approved in 2002 under George W. Bush’s presidency.
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository faced political and community concerns over the transportation, storage, and possible detrimental effects of nuclear waste pollution and radiation exposure. Nevada Senator Harry Reid staunchly opposed the Yucca Mountain project until its termination in 2011 by the Department of Energy under the Obama presidential administration.
Preferred Citation
Yucca Mountain Environmental Safety Reports Collection, 1970-2011. MS-00786. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/f1q646
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated periodically from 2000 to 2011; accession number 2010-33.
Processing Note
In 2018, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, Lee Hanover processed the collection, rehoused the materials, wrote the finding aid, and entered the data into Archives Space. In 2019, Billy Marino revised the collection description. In 2024, Libna Garcia inventoried an additional 6 boxes and Sarah Jones added it into the finding aid.