Bryan steps up nuke campaign

Friday, Aug. 4, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

All Nevadans need to help spread the word that the fight against shipping nuclear waste cross-country is a fight for people in all states, Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said today.

His remarks came two days after a tandem gasoline tanker erupted into a gigantic fireball on U.S. 95, sending shivers down the spines of local officials charged with looking out for Nevada's interests in the event Yucca Mountain becomes the nation's repository for high-level nuclear waste.

Had the truck's cargo been high-level nuclear waste, state and federal computer models show that hundreds of neighboring residents would have been killed and thousands injured or exposed to radiation.

Should Yucca -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- be approved by Congress, shipments of deadly waste would be regularly transported through the Las Vegas Valley beginning as soon as 2010 and lasting for 30 years.

Experts say an accident involving a leak of radiation would be inevitable over that amount of time.

And because the shipments would originate from other parts of the country, people in other states too should worry, Bryan says. The senator today said he commends the Nuclear Information Resource Service for sending a mock nuclear transport cross-country over the past several days to draw national attention to the danger.

The model of a shipping cask was placed on a flat-bed truck for people around the country to inspect and think about. In the event of actual transportation, the cask would be in a sealed container and secured in a specially sealed truck. Nevertheless, experts said a severe accident, such as the one Wednesday on U.S. 95, could cause radiation to escape into the environment.

Today, the cask wrapped up its mission while parked in front of the Lloyd George Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas.

Bryan and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., both attended a rally this morning with the cask as the centerpiece. Both told a gathering of demonstrators that they are happy the cask -- exaggeratedly dripping with green slime -- made its point to the American people.

"Advocates of transporting nuclear waste show no concern for putting millions of Americans at risk," Bryan said. "All Nevadans need to help spread the word that it is not Nevada's fight alone."

Berkley said, "Shipping tons of nuclear waste through densely populated communities on roads and on rails is as dangerous as anything I can imagine.

"People will not want to come to the Chernobyl of the West if the waste comes here."

The Nuclear Information Resource Service, Citizen Alert, Shundahai Network and the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force launched the mock cask over a month ago from Michigan. It was scheduled to begin the return trip to Michigan today.

Representatives of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who have consistently opposed anything to do with storing nuclear waste in Nevada, also attended this morning's rally.