Bullfrog County was a county in the US state of Nevada created by the Nevada Legislature in 1987. It comprised a area around Yucca Mountain enclosed by Nye County, from which it was created. Its county seat was located in the state capital of Carson City away, and its officers were appointed by the governor rather than elected.
Created in response to a planned nuclear waste site in the area, it was meant to discourage the construction of the site via high property taxes and to direct funds from the site that would have otherwise gone to Nye County directly to the state government. Its creation produced various legal issues for the state, and critics suggested that its existence prompted a conflict of interest for the state in the site's placement. Upon a lawsuit by Nye County, its creation was ruled in violation of the state constitution in 1988, and it was dissolved back into Nye County the following year.
Background
The United States federal government had plans to create a disposal site for radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, then within Nye County. Alongside Texas with a site in Deaf Smith County and Washington with the Hanford Site, Nevada was one of three states to be considered for such a site, and like the other two fought it bitterly. The name derived from the Bullfrog Mining District in the area, in turn named due to the area's gold ore being colored like a bullfrog. There had been an earlier attempt to create a Bullfrog County out of southern Nye County in 1909, but Nye County blocked the proposal. This tax burden, possibly up to $25 million a year for the state, was meant to deter the waste site's creation by making it prohibitively expensive to use the land for a radioactive waste dump. The law stipulated that if the repository was not built in the county, it would be dissolved and reincorporated into Nye County. In the legislature's haste to get the bill passed, the county was not assigned to any of the state's nine district courts and thus had no district attorney or judiciary.
Dissolution
The existence of Bullfrog County had the potential to create serious legal problems for the state of Nevada.<!-- Not in the clipping of the source, will work on better verification These criticisms were not assuaged by a meeting of the commissioners on October 6 where they adopted a resolution to oppose the location of the dump at the site. On February 11, 1988, retired Supreme Court of Nevada justice David Zenoff conducted a special hearing and found Bullfrog County's creation to be unconstitutional. Zenoff found that since Bullfrog County had no residents, it did not have a representative government. He also ruled the provision of the law giving Bryan the power to appoint the commissioners and sheriff ran counter to the democratic process. In compliance, the state legislature abolished Bullfrog County in 1989 and the territory was retroceded to Nye County. Yucca Mountain was ultimately selected as the site of the repository, but its construction has been delayed due to continued opposition from the state and area.
See also
- Bullfrog, Nevada
- Beckham County, Kentucky, a similarly short-lived county found in violation of its state's constitution