Who we are - continued

Who We Are

Esmeralda County's Repository Oversight Program's (ROP) purpose is to review, monitor and evaluate federal siting activities at Yucca Mountain. The objectives of this program are:

Maintain oversight of the Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management program.

DOE continues to consider a number of possible rail routes to transport nuclear spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain from the nation's nuclear power plants and defense facilities, including rail routing through Esmeralda County. Esmeralda’s ROP works effectively in maintaining oversight in impacts, effects, and risks of proposed transportation routes.

To inform and educate the public we have established a public information center at the ROP offices in Goldfield with an official Yucca Mountain reading room. We are providing a quarterly newsletter with current news and information focusing on Yucca Mountain and direct impacts to Esmeralda County. We are working with the DOE, OCRWM office and State of Nevada Nuclear Projects office to provide public speakers to county residents.

We plan and organize tours for both adults and students to the Yucca Mountain site, and provide Esmeralda County residents with an understanding of the repository siting effort.

We are monitoring and attending meetings related to the repository Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the EIS Supplemental Rail Corridor, transportation, and surface facility changes and other events and activities which could impact the citizens of Esmeralda by the opening of the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste facility.

Monitor key technical meetings and activities of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board(NWTRB), Department of Energy's Affected Units of Government (AUG) and the State, Tribal and Local Government meetings.

The town of Goldfield is 160 miles NW of Las Vegas and once had almost 20,000 residents during the height of the gold mining boom, and now it has a couple hundred. The surrounding landscape is a churned up mining area, littered with tailings piles, and remains of equipment and structures, underlain by hundreds of miles of tunnels and adits. Some of the stately turn-of-the-century buildings remain, decayed, abandoned, or in a partially restored state. The Goldfield Hotel, the largest remaining structure in town, was once one of the great hotels of the west. Over the past couple of decades, millions of dollars has been spent in failed attempts to restore the hotel. But even the modern improvements are now decaying. This hotel, and much of the surrounding region, was featured prominently in the existential road movie "Vanishing Point." More information on our photo page.