Protesters denounce planned nuclear waste shipments

Monday, March 2, 1998 | 8:22 a.m.

Sunday's rally marked the arrival of the three-state "Stop Mobile Chernobyls" tour in Nevada. The tour, designed to drum up opposition to the plans in two dozen cities along the shipment route, began Feb. 16 in Oakland, Calif., and will end March 12 in Utah.

Other Nevada stops this week are planned for Wadsworth, Fernley, Lovelock, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko and Wells.

The Victorian Square rally in Sparks featured speeches and songs by anti-nuclear protesters, some of whom wore gas masks and radioactive protective suits.

Residents in towns along the route "should get out on the railroad tracks and say no to nuclear waste," said Lee Dazey, director of the Citizen Alert environmental group.

"They need to let them (federal government) know at every bend that this is not acceptable ... The risks of transporting nuclear waste are just too great."

Beginning in June, the Energy Department plans to haul nuclear waste from 41 foreign countries by rail through California, Nevada, Utah and Idaho for temporary storage at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Plans call for the shipments to begin in Concord, Calif.

The preferred route is Union Pacific's Feather River Canyon line, which avoids Reno and passes through mostly uninhabited areas of northern Nevada until reaching Winnemucca.

Dazey said trains have derailed 28 times in 16 years on the Feather River line, and the federal government has expressed concern about Union Pacific's safety record.

The second preferred route is the Donner Pass line, which runs through Reno and parallels Interstate 80.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and representatives of Nevada's three other congressmen spoke out against the plans at the rally.

Reid cited a national poll that found Americans overwhelmingly oppose the shipment of nuclear waste through the nation's cities.

"This would be the first shipment of nuclear waste from foreign countries ... The solution is to leave it where it is," Reid said.

Protesters said shipment of the foreign nuclear waste would pave the way for a permanent high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied for the dump by the Energy Department.

"This is the opening act for Yucca Mountain," said Bob Fulkerson of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "If they (feds) can get the communities used to (shipping nuclear waste) on a limited basis, then they'll try for more next time.

"That's why it's important to stop these shipments."

The tour is being sponsored by Western Communities Against Nuclear Transportation, a multi-state alliance of citizen, environmental, labor, tribal and peace organizations.