Ohio nuke waste on its way again

Art Nadler

Tuesday, June 29, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

The transportation of nuclear waste from an Ohio facility to the Nevada Test Site has resumed, the Department of Energy reported Monday.

The shipments will continue through Thursday and will take a route through the northern part of the state. The trucks will take Interstate 80 to Wendover, then follow U.S. 93 to Ely. From there, they will pick up State Route 6 to Warm Springs and into Tonopah, then south on U.S. 95 to the Test Site at Mercury.

The decision to take a less-populated northern route puts to rest a controversy that stirred emotions in Clark County in April. Fearing that truckloads of potentially deadly nuclear waste would pass through its city limits, Boulder City passed a resolution banning any trucks from crossing over Hoover Dam.

Henderson followed suit when city officials learned that a potential route would take the loads on Lake Mead Drive.

"We strongly protested transportation on Lake Mead because there would be 25,000 people in jeopardy from the center of Lake Mead," Vicki Taylor, a spokeswoman for Henderson, said.

"We are quite pleased with the northern route decision."

Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said his organization had been apprehensive of trucks carrying nuclear waste crossing Hoover Dam. He also commended the DOE's decision Monday.

Problems first arose on Dec. 15, 1997, when a truck carrying nuclear waste from Fernald, Ohio, stopped in Kingman, Ariz. The driver discovered fluid leaking from his trailer.

Though it was determined that from one to two gallons had leaked and were not radioactive, shipments were halted. Representatives then began an investigation into the shipping program at Fernald.

The facility in Fernald has shipped 5.3 million cubic feet of waste to the Test Site since 1985. Estimates at the Fernald site predict that 110 million cubic feet of radioactive waste must be removed.