Tell Me Again Why Yucca Mountain Was Closed?

From the Pahrump Valley Times:
Pahrump Town Manager Bill Kohbarger said he had two different impressions before and after a special presentation on the transportation of radioactive nuclear waste through the heart of Pahrump.
On Tuesday evening, Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Office consultant Dr. Michael Voegele provided an in-depth look at the logistics involved in transporting waste to the Nevada National Security Site NNSS .....
Radioactive materials classified as high level according to Voegele has a specific site where it can be legally stored now that a Yucca Mountain repository is uncertain.
“I can’t tell you there is a place to put it. If it is classified as high-level nuclear waste, it has to go into a repository and right now, we don’t have one of those. Yucca Mountain would be the proper place to put this material. I won’t make the argument that it is closed. Legally, Yucca Mountain is a designated repository but Harry Reid because of his position in congress has been able to stop that process from going forward. I don’t call it closed because we have lawsuits that we think we will win that will restart the process,” he said.
At present, he suggested that high-level nuclear waste will end up being stored at the Nevada Test Site, which happens to be designated for low level waste.....
Kohbarger, noted that such shipments could possibly benefit the town economically.
“It can create jobs and revenue for the town of Pahrump. Someone’s going to build a truck stop; 25,000 transports each year for 250 days at 10 trips a day. Can you imagine if we just got half of them to stop for fuel or food? It will generate revenue for some businesses in this community. John Pawlak from the Nuclear Waste Advisory Board said he we could get money for allowing the trucks to drive through the community and I’m sure the feds would do that. When I looked into it in Carlin, they were going to give us a million dollars a year for seven years to let the trains go through there. We used that money to purchase public safety equipment,” he said.
Voegele, meanwhile, provided some sobering facts about exactly how Uranium decomposes once it is eventually stored away.
“The most common naturally occurring Uranium element is Uranium 238 and it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Uranium 233 has a half-life of 159,000 years. By and large it is an extraordinarily long time,” he said.
Voegele echoed Kohbarger’s position that that the safe transportation of the waste has a potential economic benefit for the town.
“How many of those trucks can stop for fuel in Pahrump? That is the question that could be asked. A bypass around town could detract from commerce in Pahrump,” he said.   http://pvtimes.com/news/25000-nuclear-waste-shipments-through-town-each-year/
One of the big reasons why Yucca was shut down was because of transportation concerns but now it seems there is very little, if any concern for the transportation of the urnanium and it might have some positive economic impacts for Pahrump.