Gary Duarte: Nevada opposes strategic importance of America

The State of Nevada has been an important service to our United States of America since being admitted to the Union as the 36th state in 1864.

Actually, Nevada had fewer than 40,000 inhabitants when it gained statehood, far fewer than the population at statehood of any other state. “Battle-Born” Nevada won statehood to help preserve the Union. Nevada sent approximately 1,200 men to fight for the Union during the Civil War, but its main contribution to the cause was financing the war with $400 million in silver from the Comstock Lode.

In those times, Nevada was for the most part an unpopulated barren desert state. These are the reasons Washington viewed Nevada as a remote test facility for atomic testing which moved the first technology businesses into the state. Washington has continued its important use of remote federal land to include the Hawthorne Army Munitions Depot, the U.S. Navy’s premier air-to-air and air-to-ground training facility and home to the Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). And, these days, the Nevada National Security Site, was previously the Nevada Test Site. Today, it’s a U.S. Department of Energy reservation. The site was established in 1951 for the testing of nuclear devices, covering approximately 1,360 square miles.

Because these facilities are remote is what helps keep them secure for the strategic security of our entire country. With such a valuable service Nevada is providing to “our United States” WHY do our political representatives oppose any or all of such issues of national security? We must provide public education in order to challenge “political opinion.” Why is it our general public seems to have more common sense than our elected politicians? Change will only come from educational engagement by the public and our representatives.

Gary J. Duarte is the director of the U.S. Nuclear Energy Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing accurate information on nuclear technology. USNEF has the goal of mobilizing citizens in Nevada and across the U.S. to design and build new fourth generation advanced reactors, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), the Yucca Mountain Repository and spent fuel reprocessing technology as science advances its economics.