About a Mountain

by John D'Agata

  NOTES

  Although the narrative of this essay suggests that it takes place over a single summer, the span between my arrival in Las Vegas and my final departure was, in fact, much longer. I have conflated time in this way for dramatic effect only, but I have tried to indicate each instance of this below. At times, I have also changed subjects’ names or combined a number of subjects into a single composite “character.” Each example of this is noted.

  Who

  If you take the population of Las Vegas, Nevada: Most of the statistics in this essay are based on 2005 population studies.

  “You of all people”: The best source for details about the Las Vegas Centennial is the city’s own centennial Web site, http://www.lasvegas2005.org/involved.

  “the happening of the century!”: Antonio Planas, “Parade Recalls ‘Good Old Times,’” Las Vegas Review-Journal, May 15, 2005.

  “something special happened here!”: David Mannweiler, “Las Vegas Celebrates 100 Years,” Indianapolis Star, May 15, 2005.

  if “all that really happened?”: Editorial, “Did All That Really Happen?”, Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 1, 2006.

  “as one of the greatest things”: Quoted in Las Vegas: An Unconventional History, Public Broadcasting Service, American Experience, 2005.

  What

  “You gotta imagine the land out here”: My mom went through a few real estate agents during that first summer in the city. “Ethan” is a composite of two of them.

  a lush haven that was named in 1829: Las Vegas was named by Raphael Rivera, the first nonnative to explore the valley.

  “like a godsend”…“touched by God”: Raphael Rivera is understandably a mythic figure in Las Vegas. A bronze statue of the teenaged scout can be found beside the parking lot of the Raphael Rivera Community Center near downtown Las Vegas. I first heard about Rivera’s discovery in 2004 while taking a walking tour of the city that was led by the Architecture Studies Library at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. However, in recent years, historians have begun to doubt not only Rivera’s stirring descriptions of those nineteenth-century meadows but also the discovery itself. In December 1829, Rivera was part of a trading party that was traveling from New Mexico to Southern California on horseback. On Christmas Day, the group reached the Virgin River, about 100 miles south of Las Vegas, at which point Rivera and an unnamed companion departed for what was called a “reconnaissance mission.” Five days later, Rivera’s companion returned to the camp alone, without any knowledge of Rivera’s whereabouts. After another seven days on his own, Rivera rode into camp on an exhausted horse, reporting only that he had found “a Mojave Indian village.” And nothing else. According to a 2001 interview on KNPR with Frank Wright, curator of manuscripts at the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, “none of the records that the trading party kept make any mention of Rivera describing a paradise of green meadows…. It was somewhat later, in fact, that an unknown party would happen upon the Las Vegas valley and record it on Mexican maps.” (See Frank Wright, “Was Raphael Rivera the First European to Pass Through the Las Vegas Valley?” Nevada Yesterdays, KNPR, February 2001.)

  “the most successful master planned community”: As Rosa Silver of the Office of Community and Government Relations, Howard Hughes Corporation, explained in a telephone interview on April 7, 2003.

  “Someone moves into a new Summerlin home”: Confirmed by Melissa Warren in “Summerlin Embraces Its No. 1 Status with Group Hug Event,” Howard Hughes Corporation press release, May 20, 2001.

  According to the Nevada Development Authority’s annual brochure: Then and Now: Las Vegas Perspective 2005, Nevada Development Authority, 2005, p. 9.

  the fastest growing metropolitan area in America: Technically, this statistic refers to the state of Nevada’s overall growth. However, the population of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, constitutes 70 percent of the state’s population, which makes any state statistic particularly applicable to both Clark County as well as Las Vegas. See Robert E. Parker, “The Social Costs of Rapid Urbanization,” in The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas, ed. Hal K. Rothman and Mike Davis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), p. 126.

  two new acres of land: Launce Rake, “Las Vegas Sprawl Expands Ring Around Valley,” Las Vegas Sun, September 5, 1999.

  an average of eight three-bedroom homes: Hubble Smith, “Execs: Affordable Housing in Las Vegas Hinges on Planning,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 13, 2003.

  the pipeline carries 97 percent: Joe Schoenmann, “Low Water Mark,” Las Vegas Weekly, December 4, 2004.

  now ninety feet below what it normally: Dana Wagner, “Dana Wagner’s Drought Watch,” KVBC News Las Vegas, November 15, 2004.

  “58 percent of its usual capacity”: Stuart Leavenworth, “Parched Las Vegas: With Growth, Drought Both Relentless, the Desert Metropolis Faces a Crisis,” Sacramento Bee, May 2, 2004.

  the lake will be completely dry: Peter Weiss, “Lake Mead Could Be Dry by 2021,” Scripps News, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, February 12, 2008.

  hydrologists from everywhere else: See Joe Schoenmann, “Low Water Mark,” Las Vegas Weekly, December 4, 2004, and Henry Brean, “Deepening Drought: Lake Level in Fast Fall,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 18, 2004.

  “I’m not even sure”: Comment from Virginia Corning, emeritus professor of Climatology, Boulder City, Nevada, in e-mail correspondence during the fall of 2003.

  “the notion that we have”: Quoted by Launce Rake in “Water Official: Drought Won’t Stop Growth,” Las Vegas Sun, June 9, 2004. It should be noted that in the years since my mom’s move to Las Vegas, the neighborhood of Summerlin has attempted to reduce its water use by encouraging residents to replace their lawns with more regionally appropriate landscaping. Homeowners can receive a dollar for every square foot of lawn that they remove and replace with xeriscaping.

  a chimney stack from a concrete plant: Scott Gold, “Drought Sends Flooded Towns to the Surface,” Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2004.

  the B-29 bomber: George Knapp, “B-29 Found 54 Years After Crashing into Lake Mead,” KLAS News Las Vegas, August 9, 2004.

  the sundae shop, etc.: Reported in “Evaluating Underwater Sites,” Las Vegas Sun, June 25, 2004.

  Even a 5,000-year-old city reemerged: Telephone interview with the Lost City Museum in Overton, Nevada, one of Nevada’s six state museums, which was established by the Civilian Conservation Corps when five miles of Pueblo Grande de Nevada, the “lost city’s” actual name, were inundated by Lake Mead’s waters in the early 1940s.

  it had come together in order to watch: Excellent implosion coverage was provided by Dave Berns, “Abracadabra…Poof!”, Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 28, 1998.

  that they needed to unseat the current record-holding huggers: As estimated by Melissa Warren, “Summerlin Embraces Its No. 1 Status with Group Hug Event.”

  When

  “We are going to watch someone single-handedly”: A good example of the abundant faith Las Vegas once had in Senator Harry Reid can be found in Jon Christensen’s “Can Nevada Bury Yucca Mountain?”, High Country News, July 2, 2001.

  “What we are talking about today”: Senator Harry Reid presided over the Yucca Mountain debate on July 9, 2002, live on C-SPAN for approximately five hours.

  “Our Favorite Politician”: As reported in “Best of the Valley 2002,” Las Vegas City Life, November 20, 2002.

  “The Most Powerful Man”: Scott Dickensheets, “The Power List,” Las Vegas Life (October 2002).

  “Ever since I was elected to Congress”: See Senator Reid’s official Senate Web site, http://reid.senate.gov/issues/yucca.cfm.

  that Americans would be less afraid: Sara Ginsburg, Nuclear Waste Disposal (Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1996), p. 27.

  the American Nuclear Energy Council began to lobby: Ibid. p. 61.

  “Of course, there’s no direct correlation”: The leader of my mom’s local activist group met with me on
several occasions during the summer of 2005 to discuss the Yucca Mountain project.

  To temporarily shift our attention away: As was eventually revealed in a document by Kent Rorem and Ed Allison entitled “The Nevada Initiative: The Long Term Program,” a confidential report submitted to the American Nuclear Energy Council in September 1991.

  Representative James Wright…convinced: See Ginsburg, Nuclear Waste Disposal, p. 31.

  Representative Tom Foley: Ibid.

  the state of Nevada…with the forty-fourth lowest: “Population and Area,” U.S. Census 1980, Bureau of the Census (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1981).

  “There are one million people”: Quoted in Ginsburg, Nuclear Waste Disposal, p. 30.

  Senator James McClure: Ibid., pp. 27–28.

  “I would like to meet the Senator”: Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Forevermore: Nuclear Waste in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), p. 129.

  Yucca Mountain would end up holding: William L. Fox, “Mad Science: Bad Business Skewed Politics,” Las Vegas Life (April 2001).

  Environmental Impact Statement: This report was actually one of dozens of previous reports. My estimate of 65,000 pages is based on a page count of several of them, including the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada, published by the Department of Energy in 1996; the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geological Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, published by the Department of Energy in 1999; and the Supplement to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geological Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, published by the Department of Energy in 2001, which themselves total over 9,000 pages.

  the senators started their debate: The Senate debate on Yucca Mountain took place on July 9, 2002. All details concerning this debate come from observations I made based on C-SPAN’s coverage.

  a 60 to 39 vote: Steve Tetreault, “Yucca Mountain: Senate OKs Dump,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 10, 2002.

  a result that had been predicted two weeks earlier: See Vikki Kratz, “Yucca Mountain: Did Money Influence the Senate Vote?”, Open Secrets, vol. 6, no. 57, July 10, 2002.

  soft money contributions had been distributed: As reported in Yucca Mountain: Nuclear Power Industry Contributions to Senators, 1997–2002, Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, D.C., July 10, 2002. Similarly, Max Cleland from Georgia received $49,605, Ernest Hollings from South Carolina $47,750, Zell Miller from Georgia $28,500, Bill Nelson from Florida $27,350, Carl Levin from Michigan $21,749, Patty Murray from Washington $21,250, Richard Durbin from Illinois $21,050, Ben Nelson from Nebraska $5,450, John Edwards from North Carolina $1,000, and Patrick Leahy from Vermont $500. Herb Kohl from Wisconsin got nothing, but he voted for Yucca Mountain anyway.

  no explanation for the confluence that night: I should clarify here that I am conflating the date of the Yucca debate and the suicide that occurred at the Stratosphere Hotel. In reality, these two events were separated by three days.

  a boy who jumped from the tower of the Stratosphere: K. C. Howard, “Two Jump to Their Deaths at Separate Hotels,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 16, 2002.

  voted to temporarily ban lap dancing: “Lap Dancing,” editorial, Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 14, 2002.

  When archeologists found: Scott Sonner, “Hot Sauce Bottle Used in 1870 Found,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 28, 2002.

  a game of tic-tac-toe: Lisa Keim, “Oh Cluck,” Tropicana Resort Public Relations Media Information, August 14, 2002.

  another suicide by gunshot: Confirmed by Sheri Renaud, Clark County Coroner’s Office, in e-mail correspondence, May 12, 2002.

  another suicide by hanging: Ibid.

  caused a traffic jam: Megan Foster, an eyewitness to the suicide, described this in an interview at the Aztec Inn, Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 27, 2002.

  Eventually I’d learn his name: Most of the details of this boy’s life come from interviews conducted with his parents during the summer and fall of 2002 at their home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  Senator Harry Reid had accepted over $19,000: As confirmed in Yucca Mountain: Nuclear Power Industry Contributions to Senators, 1997–2002, Center for Responsive Politics, Washington D.C., July 10, 2002.

  He’d taken $4,000 from Science Applications: See Benjamin Grove, “Politicians Accepted Money from Yucca Mountain Contractors,” Las Vegas Sun, April 19, 2000. Claiming that he was unaware of Science Applications’s relationship to the Yucca Mountain project, Reid agreed to return this contribution.

  And he’d received $50,000 from Morrison-Knudsen: Benjamin Grove, “Reid’s PAC Took Donation from Yucca Subcontractor,” Las Vegas Sun, October 26, 2000. Reid did not return this money.

  had received $2.5 million: Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper, “The Senator’s Sons,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2003.

  the Western Shoshone Indians: The full story of the Shoshone protest and their legal battle for Yucca Mountain was reported brilliantly and thoroughly by Toby Eglund in “Yucca Mountain’s Other Story,” The Gully, March 28, 2002.

  “The said tribes agree”: The Ruby Valley Treaty is officially called the United States Treaty with the Western Shoshoni, 1863. It was ratified on June 26, 1866, and includes a total of 689 statutes.

  “I’m not a lawyer”: Further details about the Yucca Mountain controversy within the tribe were explained to me by Corbin Harney, Spiritual Leader of the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, in an interview at his home in Tecopa, California, on July 23, 2002.

  the United States Indian Land Claims Commission: Keith Rogers, “Western Shoshones File Yucca Lawsuit,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, March 5, 2005.

  “the final distribution of this fund”: Quoted in “Western Shoshone Payout Bill Clears Congress,” www.indianz.com, June 25, 2004.

  the Western Shoshone Land Claims Distribution Bill: Jerry Reynolds, “Bush Signs Western Shoshone Legislation,” Indian County Today, July 9, 2004.

  a multi-billion-dollar mining corporation: As confirmed in “Barrick Gold Corporation,” International Directory of Company Histories, vol. 34 (Farmington Hills, MI: St. James Press, 2000).

  a major campaign contributor to Senator Harry Reid: Thomas Edsall, “Balancing Nevada, National Interests,” The Washington Post, February 1, 2005.

  the primary shareholder: Lisa Wolf, “Shoshone Use Film, Courts to Fight Gold Mine on Sacred Land,” Environmental News Service, December 3, 2007.

  the single most important source for domestically mined gold: As reported in “Nuclear Waste, Gold, and Land Theft in Newe Sogobia,” Earth First, vol. 24, no. 6 (2000).

  Where

  I went to the Yucca Mountain Information Center: At one point, there were several Yucca Mountain information centers throughout the state of Nevada. The center that I visited, in North Las Vegas, has recently closed. The only remaining one is in Pahrump, Nevada. The visit detailed here is based on several trips that I made to the center in the Village Meadows Mall between 2001 and 2003.

  “We are representing the city”: I have altered the identity of the teacher chaperoning these forty-five students, as well as the middle school they attended. The details of my interactions with this teacher and her students are a composite of experiences with two different Las Vegas public schools over a period of two years at the Information Center.

  an Educational Outreach Specialist named Blair: The name and identity of “Blair” have been changed.

  School programs such as this: See Ginsburg, Nuclear Waste Disposal, pp. 73–74.

  In fact, the Las Vegas superintendent: Emily Richmond, “Garcia Seeking Bright Side of Yucca,” Las Vegas Sun, November 7, 2003.

  Shelley Berkley introduced an amendment: Steve Tetreault, “Berkley Calls on DOE to Fire Yucca Mountain Cartoon Character,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, March 31, 2006.
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  “I was pretty surprised therefore”: “Testimony of Dr. Victor Gilinsky, former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, May 22, 2002.

  63,000 gallons of water: William L. Fox, “Mad Science: Bad Business Skewed Politics,” Las Vegas Life (April 2001).

  “it was apparent that the original standards”: Quoted by Matt Bivens in “The Yucca Lemon,” The Nation, March 5, 2002.

  “a new kind of miracle metal”: As revealed by Victor Gilinsky in “Miracle Metal an Embarrassment for Yucca Backers,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 25, 2003.

  “We strongly urge you”: Quoted by Ryan Slattery, “Independent Nuclear Dump Report: Waste Canisters Will Leak,” Indian Country Today, November 12, 2003.

  But in a letter from the Department of Energy: Ibid.

  So, on the morning of May 12: See Suzanne Struglinski, “State Test Shows Corrosion at Yucca,” Las Vegas Sun, May 12, 2004.

  “Don’t you agree that your studies”: Quoted in Matthew L. Wald, “Science Will Catch Up at Waste Site, U.S. Says,” New York Times, January 31, 2002.

  a facility that was discovered: As reported by Ginsburg in Nuclear Waste Disposal, p. 22.