The US Department of Energy announced in April that it would prefer to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain by a rail line that would begin in Caliente and wind 500km around the border of the test site and end at the mouth of the repository, about 160km northwest of Las Vegas. The repository would accommodate 77,000 tonnes of radioactive waste from 39 states, none of it from Nevada.
The railroad would cost US$880 million to build, the department estimates, and two loads of nuclear waste stored in casks would run through Caliente each day.
The energy department's announcement is the first significant movement in the debate since US President George W. Bush designated Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site in 2002, over the objections of Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn. Scientists have questioned whether Yucca Mountain has the structural integrity to hold up for 10,000 years.
Rural Nevadans, libertarian to their marrow, do not trust the federal government, which controls nearly 90 percent of Nevada's territory. It was the government, Detraz pointed out, that said nuclear testing was safe, and so the whole town would come out onto the ridge in the 1950s to watch the above-ground detonations at the Nevada test site with their naked eyes.
People died from mysterious illnesses. Dogs limped around with open sores.
"People back East make the garbage and we got to take it," said Michael Budreau, 38, preparing himself for an afternoon beer since he cannot find work here.
"Nuclear waste will bring money and jobs, that's for sure," Budreau said. And then almost in a whisper, he revealed what he thought the real problem was.
"Jobs will also bring new people, and if anybody around here's talking truthful, they will tell you they don't want them."
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