You guys really need some new material.

Right.

He was also the secret mastermind behind the invasion of Panama--Noriega was cutting into Bernie's drug profits, which negatively affected his Klan outreach program.

But I'll tell you this. Bernie is very good. I'm sick of this infighting within the Democratic Party.

Last edited Fri Sep 25, 2015, 08:20 AM - Edit history (2)

there. When I looked at what that did versus some articles I read on the low level radioactive disposal sight which was subsequently built, I'm not sure the sludge was the better option.

Trump would do this and worse in every community.

i could fill up all the boards with all the bad votes Hillary has voted for.

Would you like me to do that? I certainly can.

It was the depth of the water table that made the Texas site more viable. I do not believe it was Bernie who designated the site.
I do love how Bernie is portrayed as totally ineffective in congress, right up until he is Super Representative,

No matter what the story, I would rather vote for Bernie than vote for someone who traveled all over the world pushing fracking.

...that's right here on my "talking points" sheet!

Dunno if the problem is lack of coordination, very poor memory - or the assumption that Bernie's supporters have poor memories - or just total clueless contempt. Or all of those. But yeah. Interesting, in an appalling sort of way, to see the mud machine cranked up.

ok, your turn......

If the other side wants political hardball, I can do that. Scorched motherfucking earth.

that some want to engage given the ample 3rd way material we have to work with

Last edited Sat Sep 26, 2015, 09:07 AM - Edit history (3)

The Facility was NEVER built at the Latino Community, listed in that lovely brochure put out by a Clinton Group (or another candidate who knows)

Though I'm sure the opposition research has long known about the Compact.

Texas was most likely going to build the facility without the compact. In the bill I read there was NO site specified and TX had control of where the site would be. In addition, with a compact they could limit the type of waste they received.

However, the site was later used to ship sludge from New York City.

Biden voted for it and Pres Clinton signed it into law.

http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/blanca.html

On the house floor:

This is not a political assertion, it is a geological and environmental reality. Furthermore, even if this compact is not approved, it is likely that Texas, which has a great deal of low-level radioactive waste, and we should make the point that 80 percent of the waste is coming from Texas, 10 percent from Vermont, 10 percent from Maine, the reality is that Texas will go forward with or without this compact in building a facility to dispose of their low-level radioactive waste.

If they do not have the compact, which gives them the legal right to deny low-level radioactive waste from coming from anyplace else in the country, it seems to me they will be in worse environmental shape than they are right now. Right now, with the compact, they can deal with the constitutional issue of limiting the kinds of waste they get.


Mr. Chairman, let me touch for a moment upon the environmental aspects of this issue. Let me address it from the perspective of someone who is an opponent of nuclear power, who opposes the construction of power plants and, if he had his way, would shut down the existing nuclear power plants as quickly and as safely as we could.

One of the reasons that many of us oppose nuclear power plants is that when this technology was developed, there was not a lot of thought given as to how we dispose of the nuclear waste. Neither the industry nor the Government, in my view, did the right thing by allowing the construction of the plants and not figuring out how we get rid of the waste.

But the issue we are debating here today is not that issue. The reality, as others have already pointed out, is that the waste is here. We cannot wish it away. It exists in power plants in Maine and Vermont, it exists in hospitals, it is here.

The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] a few moments ago said, `Who wants radioactive waste in their district?' I guess he is right. But do Members know what, by going forward with the nuclear power industry, that is what we have. So the real environmental issue here is not to wish it away, but to make the judgment, the important environmental judgment, as to what is the safest way of disposing of the nuclear waste that has been created. That is the environmental challenge that we face.

The strong environmental position should not be and cannot be to do nothing, and to put our heads in the sand and pretend that the problem does not exist. It would be nice if Texas had no low-level radioactive waste, or Vermont or Maine or any other State. That would be great. That is not the reality. The environmental challenge now is, given the reality that low-level radioactive waste exists, what is the safest way of disposing of that waste.

Leaving the radioactive waste at the site where it was produced, despite the fact that that site may be extremely unsafe in terms of long-term isolation of the waste and was never intended to be a long-term depository of low-level waste, is horrendous environmental policy. What sense is it to say that you have to keep the waste where it is now, even though that might be very environmentally damaging? That does not make any sense at all.

No reputable scientist or environmentalist believes that the geology of Vermont or Maine would be a good place for this waste. In the humid climate of Vermont and Maine, it is more likely that groundwater will come in contact with that waste and carry off radioactive elements to the accessible environment.

There is widespread scientific evidence to suggest, on the other hand, that locations in Texas, some of which receive less than 12 inches of rainfall a year, a region where the groundwater table is more than 700 feet below the surface, is a far better location for this waste.


http://www.c-span.org/congress/bills/billAction/?print/1410681

Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to speak out this evening about an enormously important issue that has seldom, if ever, been addressed on the floor of the United States Senate. I understand my colleague needs to leave at 7, and I am going to try to figure out a way to accommodate him if at all possible. My understanding is, I will also have a chance to speak more about this in morning business.

This issue I want to address tonight has variously been called `environmental discrimination,' `environmental equity,' `environmental justice,' or `environmental racism.' These terms are used interchangeably to describe the well-documented tendency for pollution and waste dumps to be sited in poor and minority communities who lack the political power to keep them out.

Environmental justice has been at the center of the debate over H.R. 629, legislation granting congressional consent to the so-called Texas Compact. If passed unamended by this Congress, the Texas Compact would result in the dumping of low-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors in Texas, Maine, and Vermont--and potentially from nuclear reactors all over the country--in the poor and majority-Latino town of Sierra Blanca in West Texas.

Environmental justice is an issue that demands the full attention of the Senate. If we pass this legislation unamended, we can no loner pretend to be innocent bystanders as one poor, minority community after another is victimized by political powerlessness--and, in some cases, by overt racism. We can no longer pretend that a remedy for this basic violation of civil rights is beyond our reach. That is the ultimate significance of this legislation--and of this debate.

The moral responsibility of the Senate is unavoidable and undeniable. If we approve H.R. 629 without conditions, the Compact dump will be built within a few miles of Sierra Blanca. There's really very little doubt about that. And if that happens, this poor Hispanic community could become the premier national repository for so-called `low-level' radioactive waste.

If we reject this Compact, on the other hand, the Sierra Blanca dump will not be built at all. The Texas Governor has said so publicly--more than once. It's as simple as that. The fate of Sierra Blanca rests in our hands.

Compact supporters would prefer that we consider the Compact without any reference to the actual location of the dump. But that simply cannot be done. It's true that H.R. 629 says nothing about Sierra Blanca. But we know very well where this waste will be dumped. In that respect, the Texas Compact is different from other compacts the Senate has considered.

The Texas legislature in 1991 already identified the area where the dump will be located. The Texas Waste Authority designated the site near Sierra Blanca in 1992. A draft license was issued in 1996. License proceedings are now in their final stages and should be completed by summer. Nobody doubts that the Texas authorities will soon issue that license.

There's only one reason why this dump might not get built--and that's if Congress rejects the Texas Compact. In an April 1998 interview, Texas Gov. George Bush said, `If that does not happen,' meaning congressional passage of the Compact, `then all bets are off.' In the El Paso Times of May 28, Gov. Bush said, `If there's not a Compact in place, we will not move forward.'

For these reasons, we cannot fairly consider H.R. 629 without also considering the dump site that Texas has selected. Sierra Blanca is a small town in one of poorest parts of Texas, an area with one of the highest percentages of Latino residents. The average income of people who live there is less than $8,000. Thirty-nine percent live below the poverty line. Over 66 percent are Latino, and many of them speak only Spanish.

It is a town that has already been saddled with one of the largest sewage sludge projects in the world. Every week Sierra Blanca receives 250 tons of partially treated sewage sludge from across the country. Depending on what action Congress decides to take, this small town with minimal political clout may also become the national repository for low-level radioactive waste. And I understand plans for building even more dump sites are also in the works.

Supporters of the Compact would have us believe that the designation of Sierra Blanca had nothing to do with the income or ethnic characteristics of its residents. That it had nothing to do with the high percentage of Latinos in Sierra Blanca and the surrounding Hudspeth County--at least 2.6 times higher than the State average. That the percentage of people living in poverty--at least 2.1 times higher than the State average--was completely irrelevant.

They would have us believe that Sierra Blanca was simply the unfortunate finalist in a rigorous and deliberate screening process that fairly considered potential sites from all over the State. That the outcome was based on science and objective criteria. I don't believe any of this is true.

I am not saying science played no role whatsoever in the process. It did. Indeed, based on the initial criteria coupled with the scientific findings, Sierra Blanca was disqualified as a potential dump site. It wasn't until politics entered the picture that Sierra Blanca was even considered.

I don't know the reasons the location was chosen, but I'm sure Sanders had nothing to do with it. I don't know the facts though. With his efforts to bring home the bacon with a known failed fighter jet, politicians will be politicians. Maybe there is more to it.

Finding places to store nuclear wastes is a huge problem.

Vermont is far, far from being the only state forced to confront the problem. Criticizing proposed solutions is easy work. Coming up with viable alternatives is much harder.

I have a great deal of contempt toward the message posted at the top of this page. I'm an unapologetic Bernie Sanders supporter, and I'm going for the soft, stupid jugular of anyone who wants to lie about my candidate in order to prop up a bringer of death.

That's the type of question Bernie will have to deal with - he can't just do that childish well Hillary voted for bad things too.

If Hillary's stuff can be challenged, so can Bernie's, so you're deflecting with the best of the Hillary supporters.

No way to claim any moral high ground after that announcement.

catch him off guard with that one.

If this is the type of alternate reality tripe the establishment is going to attack Bernie with then there is little doubt they are extremely afraid of voters of all stripes migrating to the better candidate. So, they've started the whisper campaign to cover the Black community, and now the Latino community. Any guesses how Bernie dissed the LGBT community? I can't wait to see if they are next. Something like, Oh sure, Bernie SAY'S he was for gay marriage way back when, BUT then he went and got himself STRAIGHT married so was he REALLY ever in favor of gay marriage, or was it just a ruse? That's why we support Hillary because she came out in favor of gay marriage Tuesday.

I'm not a Clinton supporter. It was Bernie Sanders' position at the time.

and I think that Bernie Sanders is simply a politician with a good schtick...I could have posted this story about Sierra Blanca a long time ago...and it was Paul Wellstone that called HR 629 "enviornmental racism" simply because racism was very blatantly the reason that the cite was chosen...ypu should go an look at Wellstone's late night speech on c-span video as I did, I think that it was one of Wellstone's greatest speeches.

And yes, it was racism.

That the State of Texas had sought from the outset to find a community in which English is a second language is not even a matter of speculation; it was the advice given by two Texas A&M professors in their state-commissioned public opinion study in 1984, at the beginning of the state’s search for a likely site. The general public everywhere is going to oppose this dump, they found, and the more that people feel they know about the project, the higher their level of opposition is likely to be. “A preferred methodology may be to develop public information campaigns targeted at special populations. One population that might benefit from such a campaign is Hispanics, particularly those with little formal education and low incomes. This group is the least informed of all segments of the population. The Authority should be aware, however, that increasing the level of knowledge of Hispanics may simply increase opposition to the site, inasmuch as we have discovered a strong relationship in the total sample between increased perceived knowledge and increased opposition.”

How original.


First you tried to prove he was opposed to marriage equality (and failed) and now you're claiming he's an environmental racist.


And you pulled the strawman "A lot of Bernie Sanders supporters cannot bear to hear that Sanders is not perfect." out of your bag of tricks too.


At least you're consistent.


And you've got an easy road ahead, many others blazed that trail long before you got here.


Thanks for the opposition research, I guess everyone needs a hobby.

Paul Wellstone said it, I didn't.

One of his greatest floor speeches...

http://www.c-span.org/video/?107441-1/senate-session

Actually, I have watched much of this debate and there are things in this debate that Bernie Sanders says that I agree with

Hillary might not want to go there!

Ever stopped that campaign from flinging shit?

to sign the legislation against his will. He apparently had a secret agenda to kill minority groups en masse. Who could have known

Craig Monk from Texas says:

New York in 1979 commissioned the alleged mob back Merco to dump million of tons of Class B and unprocessed sewage sludge on Sierra Blanca Tx. Today the sewage dump still exist on top of the ground and NY continues to ignore their negligence for Texas.
There is a continuing struggle of citizens to stop this ill conceived practice everywhere. Whether you realize it or not it affects your food and water sources. Why would Whole Foods ban any produce grown on sewage sludge?

Major player in this schema is the EPA, USDA, the CDC and US legislature which pulled the trigger on it in 1990. It has gone too far and now if the EPA was to come clean about contamination millions of acres of farm land the resulting lawsuits by citizens and farmers would exceed the national debt.

Be warned and research what I am saying. Your family and health depend on it.
Dec. 1, 2014, 6:03 pm

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/37/49/dtg-sludge-boats-newtown-creek-2014-12-05-bk_37_49.html

I have to track down what the poster said, but it sounds legit to me (not to sure about the estimated damages). At least a lot more legit than Politifact and Camp Clinton.

Found it: http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/merco.html

refused the license and the nuke dump site was never built...one of the main points in the Congressional debate (which you can still find on C-Span) is that the Compact was open-ended...meaning that, sure, Maine and Vermont could start sending their waste there (low-grade radioactive waste, that is) but that other states would want to join in and use that site.

If Governor George W. Bush did anything, he actually tried to close that loophole (his dumb ass was good for something every once in a while)...apart of the fear was that Texas would make it open-ended at some point and other states would send their low-grade nuclear waste to the site.

This OP gets a big fat F for Fail.

that I don't see Biden as an alternative to Clinton

Now you can't have it both ways!

OBTW, 2/3 Latino in that part of Texas is pretty white.

Do you own an atlas or a Google?

This is a big day. I've finally seen a post actually attacking Sanders. I'm going to have reprioritize my thoughts on this...

The Anti Clinton-Anti Sanders ratio has tipped from infinity to a really huge, but real, number...

As I recall, Bernie opposes using nuclear energy when as now, we have no safe way to dispose of the waste.

But, Bernie explained that while no place is really safe for storing. Nuclear waste, the geology in the area where the waste is sent is much safer than Vermont because the groundwater lis much further from the surface in thatarea of Texas.

And the usual suspects fell for it.

BERNIE HATES BROWN PEOPLE ARGLE BARGLE!!1!

Sanders repeatedly said during the debates which go back to 1997) that he would rather all nuclear reactors be shut down but since they are not, the (low-level radioactive waste) has to go somewhere...he made a good point.

I would have appreciated it, though, if Sanders had acknowledged the concerns of the Sierra Blanca community (as Sheila Jackson Lee and Eddie Bernice Johnson did, in spite of supporting the bill).

There are parts of the debate where Sanders also comes off as an insensitive asshole that really didn't give a fuck where it went as long as it left Vermont.

Waste from medical uses will remain.

was the issue here.

Yeah Vermont itself isn't highly populated, but it is part of an ecosystem that is densly populated,, is near the water supply for Boston, not far from the Capital District of New York, and near the Hudson River which flows into New York City. A nuclear leak there would have far-reaching consequences for millions of people.

Sierra Blanca is ~25 miles from the Mexican border right on the Rio Grande...talk about being near water..remember, this was a foreign policy issue as well for both Bill Clinton and (yes) Governor George W. Bush.

There were protests outside the American embassy in Mexico City.

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Bernie was right in his original warnings about nuclear power, in terms of waste. There is basically nowhere that crap can be put without potential jeoprdizinyg people and places. It is a matter of which wrong place, with the least potential environmental impact.

But the casting of this as an example of Sander's "insensitivity" to Hispanics is bogus. There are plenty of Hispanics, as well as whites, blacks and people of all races in the northeast, southeast,west etc.

to have been chosen because of racism; Paul Wellstone had documented evidence of that that he presented on the Senate floor.

In some ways this is like Sanders' vote on the crime bill where, by and large, he doesn't have to live with the potential collateral damage (which he did know) because it is not in his state (granted a lot of stuff is like that).

And sometimes Senators have to choose lesser evils.

and sometimes opinions differ as to what constitutes "the lesser evil."

Did I do it right?

against marriage equality? Those were as recent as 2008?

The stench of desparate efforts is just overwhelming at this point.

wanted Donald Trump to be President!

But he ran out of time so he found a Latino community to dump it on instead.

My word! I'll bet Hillary has something to say about that!

If you're a dairy farm with a giant pile of manure and a home gardener wants to buy it to compost are you going to keep the stinky manure and turn down the cash?

Why choose a poor community?

FYI, I live 10 miles from the Vermont waste in question and it's currently in storage on site there and will be until the end of time. Not the best of options since the site abuts the Connecticut River and the Connecticut flows past a number of large cities.

Edited to add that I do not live in a poor area and the town where the waste is stored is not a poor town. It's there. It's safely stored for now and it's guarded. If it happened to be near the Mexican border I'm sure the same would be true, plus it would provide some jobs for that area.

But I also think the crap they call "green laundry soap" is just over priced Tide.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. I remember the BS sales job in the 1960's about "almost free" electricity. In any case, the waste is here now and IMHO it's best to store it in an area that isn't heavily populated and has the least chance of having a natural disaster cause havoc. The Vernon, VT site does not fit either of those criteria, but it is what it is. I don't think this is something to go after Bernie about.

chooses to dump its' garbage in a politically powerless area with a lot of poor people and Hispanics...

which is par the course of these environmental things; poor communities and communities of color get the very raw end of the deal.

And Sanders had to have known the racial reasons that Texas chose the site as well as the geological reasons...of course, the Vermont legislature had voted for it so...

But because this was a bill that Bernie sponsored and got passed, it is perfectly okay because he "probably didn't know they (Texas) would be dumping the shit in a poor community."

there's already a couple of comments in this thread about how Hillary's HUSBAND signed this bill, lol.

The fact is that in order to win the nomination, Sanders will have to peel off a LOT of Hillary Clinton supporters.

One of the things that some Sanders supporters are selling to POC is Sanders' civil rights record...that Sanders WILL act on behalf of racial justice and Hillary will sell you down the river at the behest of Goldman Sachs...or something like that.

But we see here with the Sierra Blanca issue (which the Texas NAACP was against...so much for that 100 NAACP score...Jim Hightower denounced Bernie Sanders to his face...and no one is going to say that Jim Hightower is NOT a progressive) and with the 1994 crime bill that, at times, Sanders has concerns other than racial justice (like getting re-elected...)

Nonetheless, spirits were high on Thursday morning, August 20, as the West Texans, along with about twenty Vermonters, trudged up and down the lush green hills on their way to a Springfield rally, where Bernie was scheduled to speak. They'd driven two thousand miles and walked nearly a hundred, and they'd had a wonderful time, meeting Vermonters, talking with them about the Sierra Blanca dump, and changing quite a few minds. Gary Oliver explained some of the group dynamics this way: "There'd been all this tension on the walk, because it's been planned since February, and we just got invited two months ago. But the issues [nuclear power and nuclear weapons] are two warts on the same hog."

Before the rally Sanders invited the three West Texans to meet with him privately, and the Texans eagerly agreed. The meeting was no longer than Sanders' attention span - when it comes to Sierra Blanca. "He didn't listen," Curry said. "He had his mind made up." Afterward, Bernie was giving his pro forma campaign speech, never mentioning nuclear power or nuclear waste. Sierra Blanca activist Bill Addington, who'd arrived just that morning to join the march, along with his neighbor María Méndez, had had enough, and he yelled from the crowd, "What about my home, Bernie? What about Sierra Blanca?"

Several others joined in. "What about Sierra Blanca, Bernie?"

Sanders left the stage, which surprised no one in the small Texas delegation. Earlier, he had told them, "My position is unchanged, and you're not gonna like it." When they asked if he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca, he said, "Absolutely not. I'm gonna be running for re-election in the state of Vermont."

A few people took Bill Addington to task for being so rude. Then all the marchers took the stage, to sing a unique version of "Down by the Riverside." One of the new verses was, "I'm gonna lay down my nuclear waste, down by the riverside." The West Texas marchers sang along.

Asked how he felt about the rally, Hal Flanders summed it up: "I'm disgusted."

Texas has vast expanses of uninhabited land so the stuff can be protected. The only affect that would have on the poor is to increase the available job market. They wouldn't be any closer to nuclear waste than I am sitting at my computer in beautiful, rural New Hampshire. The truth is, you're scrambling for a way to bash Bernie because Hillary is losing steam. If she's indicted on anything you might be stuck with Bernie anyway. Oops.

There's a real risk of the waste being on the banks of the Connecticut River as Hurricane Irene demonstrated not long ago. Your beef is with the State of Texas and the developer of the site, not with Bernie.

Or something.

I love how Vermont is now a target for anti-Bernie folks who think that people who live in white states are automatically racists. It started the day Bernie announced and it's only gotten worse.

It's so...liberal.

that despite what they might think, they're really white. LOL.

Currently an expat living in the Bible belt but I appreciate all of the people who defend my homies here.

It was a good real estate deal and I had no idea way back then that NH was so backward politically. But I suppose that's nothing to someone living in the Bible belt. Condolences.

I've lived in other states but the south is a whole other world for this atheist.

Beam me up.

I was young and dumb and not political so it really didn't matter. And there wasn't much exposure to southern living on the beach which is where I spent most of my time. I can't imagine living in the south now. It's really too bad since now I'm old and wouldn't mind skipping the snow and ice part of New England. I'm sorry you'll be missing foliage season. This year is predicted to be better than usual because of the dry weather. You can already feel that fall nip in the air.

Fresh homemade apple cider, horseback rides in the brilliant woods, leaves crunching underneath ...man I miss it.

So he co-sponsored the bill and got it through congress.

Thats really unfortunate. It must be horrible for the poor people living in that area.

How very surprising

It is in the Congressional Record.

Of course they weren't. In the end, no waste was dumped there at all. We still haven't figured out what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and other sources. There have been lots of ideas, but there are objections to each and every one of them.

House members are always under pressure from constituents in their states to do something about the nuclear waste in their state. Nobody wants it. There's no good plan for storing it, really. The plan Sanders voted for was one of those plans. It never happened, and wasn't going to dump the waste in that town anyhow. It would have created a facility near that town. That didn't happen, either. Every proposed site for disposal will have an impact on the area near where it is located.

This has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders' opinion about Hispanic Americans. Nothing at all. It is an unjustified issue in 2015.

However, that is only a short-term option. Frankly, there is no good way to deal with it. Every storage and disposal option has many drawbacks. The reality of it is that there is plenty of that waste that needs to be dealt with. We should have anticipated that long ago, but did not.

Nuclear power generation is not safe, and cannot be made to be safe. That said, we did build all of those plants and have to deal with our decision to do so. How we will do that is still undetermined.

I'm an opponent of nuclear power generation, and have been since the 1950s, when there was a meltdown in the very first commercial nuclear power plant near my home. My opposition, however, did not lead to a ban on such plants, and many have been built. Now, we must deal with the reality of past poor decisions.

The plants exist. The waste exists. Those are facts. We must figure out what to do with that waste. There are no options that do not have drawbacks. But some solution needs to be found that will have the least impact. I do not know what that option is.

If the waste could be stored without environmental worry or worries about the plant blowing up, I would be all for it. If the GOP would put more energy into scientific research on this instead of worrying about planned parenthood, we might find some good clean energy here.

In the 1997 debate that I've seen on HR 629, Eddie Bernice Johnson said that IF she lived in the area that she would probably be opposed to it but...she lived in Houston where a lot of this low-level waste is generated by universities and medical centers/hospitals...it's a complex problem; NO ONE wants these materials in their area.

It's complicated.

And, yes, communities of color often suffer the brunt of things like this.

had any vested interest in this issue...that did not stop Wellstone from being a true champion on this issue, however.

BTW, this project was more of an Ann Richards baby than anything else

He's from Vermont. He's going to vote in ways that help Vermont. This isn't rocket science, people.

A short time later Shumlin appoints her to this cushy commission position. It is a governor appointed position. Not the only one she is currently on. I believe the other commission she is on is by governor appointment as well but I didn't take the time to read the rules like I did the first one. She was appointed to it after the Sanders favor as well. She is listed on the Vermont Economic Development Authority website as a commissioner.

Sanders campaigns for Shumlin, a short time later Sanders wife gets appointed to two commission seats by Shumlin. The definition of cronyism. Thanks for the mention of the link. I provided it here in my op yesterday. Politicians will be politicians.

Puppies that look like this:



He's a puppy eater who hates latinos. Even more than puppies.

I agree it was a bad vote. I don't know why Sanders voted for it without hearing from him directly, and it's late so, my educated guess is there was a lot of pressure to find a place that would have as little environmental impact as possible. As I understood it then, the elevation of the area was considered "good" and that the remaining town of Sierra Blanca, 5 miles west of the proposed site was 30% vacant, boarded up buildings. There was much ado over money that the county in TX would receive from states participating in the pact. The only library in Sierra Blanca was built, among other pluses for the tiny community that lived well below the poverty level, and was never expected to thrive again in any way. This was also low-level nuke waste that would all have dissipated within 100 years.

Even after Clinton signed it into law, the committee in TX that had to give final approval for the site did not do so after much community protest, which is a good thing. When citizens are against something and protest, it's always excellent when community/state officials listen and give heed to their wishes.

I wouldn't have wanted the waste near my community, but I don't know where my state stores such, like Gov. Snyder would tell anyone? Also, I do still support Bernie Sanders for President.

Here's an old post that gives a lot of info on these events:

http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/texans-defend-sierra-blanca-community-against-nuclear-waste-disposal-1996-1998