County asked to check out new nuclear-waste routes

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1998 | 11:22 a.m.

When U.S. Department of Energy representatives sought Clark County commissioners' opinion on four proposed alternate routes to deliver low-level nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site, the response was unanimous.

"None of us wants it in the state," Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid said.

That, however, wasn't an option listed Tuesday by DOE Program Manager Michael Giblin.

Instead, DOE officials presented three new routes and also offered a fourth option, which was to continue bringing truckloads of waste across the tourist-packed Hoover Dam and through the congested Spaghetti Bowl.

On route presented by Giblin, who asked for guidance from commissioners, involved hauling waste by train to Yermo, Calif., transferring it onto a truck and shuttling it east on Interstate 15 and north on State Route 27 to the site north of Pahrump.

Another map showed the waste being taken to Caliente using Union Pacific railroads, then loaded onto trucks and hauled west on State Route 395 to State Route 6 and south on U.S. 95.

The third option involved only trucks. One route enters the valley on Interstate 15, heads north on State Route 93, skirts the Nellis Air Force Bombing Range on the north and enters the Nevada Test Site on the south. Another truck route enters California from Arizona and leads directly to the site.

County commissioners share the feelings of other local government officials and Southern Nevada residents. They insist it is too dangerous to allow truckloads of nuclear waste to drive on Las Vegas' busy highways.

"There is a fear the public has with things that are nuclear," Commissioner Myrna Williams said. "We would like the DOE to avoid the Las Vegas Valley altogether."

The way transfer courses are set up currently, more than 500 trucks carrying nuclear materials travel through the city a year. Eighty percent of all shipments to the Nevada Test Site are routed over the dam and through the U.S. 95 and I-15 interchange.

"We've been doing this for over 20 years," Giblin said. "We've run a safe and successful operation, but county and other elected officials have made it clear we need to do more."

The DOE will accept public comment on alternative routes to the Test Site until Nov. 30. Commissioners said they would examine closely the options of taking the waste into California or Caliente, a tiny town in Lincoln County.