Study details effects of Yucca dump

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, July 19, 2000 | 11:33 a.m.

Nuke study

The study of the risks of transporting nuclear waste along the Las Vegas Beltway will be presented at 7 tonight at North Las Vegas City Hall, 2200 Civic Center Drive.

Chances are one in 90 that a nuclear accident will occur in the Las Vegas Valley within 24 years if a high-level nuclear waste repository is built at Yucca Mountain and local roads are used to ship the waste to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, according to a new study.

The study, commissioned by the city of North Las Vegas, assumes that 50,000 shipments of high-level nuclear waste will travel along the northern segment of the still-incomplete Las Vegas Beltway, which will pass through North Las Vegas, Clark County and Las Vegas.

The findings of local research firm Louis Berger & Associates also project that the Las Vegas Valley could lose billions of dollars in sales and millions of dollars in tax revenue. The company based its study on the federal environmental impact statement filed for Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied for a dump to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from commercial nuclear power plants and defense activities. If approved, it is forecast to open in 2010.

Even if no accident occurs, transporting nuclear waste through the Las Vegas Valley presents dangers, the study says.

Driving past a heavy-haul truck carrying high-level waste would expose drivers to measurable dosages of radiation, the study says. People living or working near the roadway also would be exposed to repeated amounts of radiation.

In addition, the prospect of nuclear hazards could keep visitors from the valley, said Bob Loux, director of the State Agency for Nuclear Projects. Businesses may set up shop elsewhere, rather than take their chances near the beltway.

City officials across the valley cheered the study, calling it concrete evidence of why nuclear waste should not be trucked through the valley.

Calls Tuesday and this morning to the Department of Energy were not returned. North Las Vegas staff members declined to comment until the results are released tonight.

Clark County officials say the report is so convincing that it could force the DOE to draft a new environmental impact statement to examine the risks.

The DOE's current impact statement, which used 1990 census data, did not address transportation concerns through the Las Vegas Valley nor the expected future growth along the beltway. It considered only the environmental impacts of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The North Las Vegas report is the first to assess the risks of shipping high-level nuclear waste along the northern beltway. The state Agency for Nuclear Projects awarded the city a $50,000 grant in May to conduct the study, which discusses the beltway's infrastructure, growth projections and economic impacts.

The northern beltway, which eventually will link Interstate 15 to U.S. 95, will pass through 7,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management property that North Las Vegas is proposing to turn into master-planned communities.

It also will run through Town Center in Summerlin, which Las Vegas is pegging as a high growth area.

Those plans forecast 24,500 acres of residential and business development within two miles of the beltway by the time it is completed.

That would bring 197,000 residents, 196,000 employees and 24,000 students enrolled in public schools within two miles from the beltway, according to the report.

City leaders valleywide have complained that the DOE's statement does not take such growth and transportation into account.

"If you were going to go construct a Burger King in Nevada, you would have to do a more penetrating transportation analysis," said Fred Dilger, planner for the Clark County Nuclear Waste Division.

The study assumes up to 44,250 shipments of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear waste would travel along the northern beltway over the 24 years it would take to fill the repository.

That would average two roundtrip transports a day, on 220-foot long heavy-haul trucks.

According to the study, the populations near the beltway would be exposed to low doses of radiation during the transportation of nuclear waste and would be exposed to higher doses of radiation in the event of an accidental release of radioactive material.

Roger Patton, senior vice president for the firm, said there still has not been a determination of what the consequences of an accident would be.

"The DOE really hasn't done a very good job of doing an analysis looking at transportation," he said.

Part of the problem is that the impact statement characterizes the northern beltway as an interstate.

But the newest report points out that when the beltway opens in 2001, it will only be a four-lane asphalt road.

"Imagine driving along a frontage road somewhere with 20,000 other cars -- rush hour -- and you have to drive next to one of these things," Dilger said of the heavy-haul trucks. "You will get a measurable dose of radiation. Do you think that has an effect on transportation? Of course!"

Clark County officials say there is no funding yet for the final plan for that portion of the beltway: a six-lane sunken freeway. They don't expect the project to be completed until 2020.

The study also found that the transportation of waste could result in significantly lower levels of economic activity and reduced property values around the valley.

The valley could lose up to $1.3 billion in sales activity, 41,600 jobs, $4.2 million in state business tax and $30 million in sales and property tax if nuclear waste is brought on the beltway, according to the report.

The numbers are based on anticipated economic activity in 2020 and compared with the assumption that the waste transportation will alter land use and industry in the area.

"The study itself is worth every penny," Dilger said. "It may help support any litigation the state or county chooses to file against the DOE because it didn't read any of the planning documents in the valley.

"That means we think we've got enough to get the (EIS) kicked out and make them go back and redo it," he said. "It was that bad, that far wrong."