Yucca Johnny targets youngsters' hearts, minds

[NVMojo]

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."

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2006/mar/24/566633580.html

[Lifelong Protester]

1. Just like that damn Eagle...

I can't remember the name of this NRA sponsorted cartoon eagle, but every once in a while I get some literature at school to use to brainwash, I mean educate, young minds in the ways of the NRA...

[Odin2005]

2. I'm not against putting all the waste in a single area...

But Yucca is not a good spot for it, the whole western US is too geologically active.

[JohnWxy]

3. Dept of Energy is the Public Relations arm of the Nuclear Power industry

Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, an environmental advocacy group, compared the Web site to techniques used by child molesters.

"They're grooming," she said. "Child molesters start out by grooming their targets, their intended victims. This is outrageous. It's disgusting, is what it is."

~~
Johnson said her group is drafting a curriculum to balance the department's message. A Citizen Alert program in the schools would focus on recycling and environmental stewardship, she said.

"We want young people to understand that we're here to protect this land for future generations," she said. "We're not going to talk Yucca Johnny in the early grades."