"Most of the foundations are totally against gambling and totally against everything that Las Vegas stands for," Treichel said. "So, why would they give their money to save Las Vegas?"
Las Vegas' mayor echoes the thought. "We were considered the armpit of the world at that time. They thought Nevada was a wasteland and Nevada was a throwaway," Goodman said, referring to the year Congress voted to create Yucca Mountain. "What would be more normal than putting nuclear waste in Las Vegas?"
But judgments made in 1987 lack validity today, Goodman said.
"Nobody could have foreseen what we have become," he said. "Las Vegas is unique, a place that symbolizes America. You are free to express yourself here. You are free to go to the cusp of what is legal. You are free to have fun. This dump could end all of that."
Goodman and the City Council passed a law banning shipments of nuclear waste through the city, a measure the federal government has not bothered testing. But Goodman vows to personally block any trucks on the freeway that attempt to transport waste through his city.
Meanwhile, Sandoval, the state's Republican attorney general, is pushing two additional lawsuits against the Energy Department, one charging that it shortchanged Nevada in payments and the second challenging the plan to build a rail line from the state border to the dump site.
"We term this project a political mugging," Sandoval said. "We were politically powerless to put up a meaningful opposition at the time. That is why we always sought the courts. I see Yucca Mountain dead as a legal outcome."
Nevada officials argue that the nation should stop to reconsider the entire idea of burying nuclear waste. Instead, they say, the waste should be stored above ground for the next 100 years until an advanced society with greater intellect and resources knows how to better handle the problem. Energy Department officials say such a plan represents a huge long-term environmental risk at waste storage sites, many close to waterways and major cities.
Michael Voegele, a senior scientist at the project, has heard the arguments for more than 25 years during a career dedicated to building the dump -- a span that has covered the tenure of seven Energy secretaries.
