Simulated accident addresses nuke waste safety concerns

Thursday, March 12, 1998 | 12:56 p.m.

What would happen if a truck loaded with high-level nuclear waste wrecks in Las Vegas during rush hour traffic?

The answer is nobody knows -- yet.

But on July 10 Clark County officials will conduct a simulated accident in the middle of the congested "spaghetti bowl" where Interstate 15 meets U.S. 95 in an attempt to find out.

"The accident will be graphic," promised County Commissioner Myrna Williams, a persistent foe of a permanent nuclear waste dump proposal by the Department of Energy for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"The public and the DOE need to be aware of how really disasterous this would be for the county that has 92 percent of the state's population," said Williams, a member of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission.

Williams spoke Wednesday at the Nevada Legislature's Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste meeting in Las Vegas.

State Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, questioned what good the drill does for public safety.

"What have we done other than scare the population?" he asked referring to the planned simulation.

Dennis Bechtel, in charge of nuclear waste issues for the county, responded by saying the exercise will test federal, state and local emergency response to such an accident.

In previous local disasters, such as the explosion of Pacific Engineering & Production Co.'s plant near Henderson in 1988, communications equipment failed and emergency crews couldn't talk to one another for hours, he said.

"The question is: do we have the appropriate emergency resources?," Bechtel asked referring to a potential nuclear waste transportation accident.