Nuke shipments travel city streets

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, June 7, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

A new trucking route is taking low-level nuclear waste through North Las Vegas along busy city streets, contrary to earlier assurances that it would be trucked along Interstate 15.

According to quarterly reports from the U.S. Department of Energy, from January to March 31 low-level radioactive waste was shipped along Craig Road and Cheyenne Avenue through the city to the Nevada Test Site.

North Las Vegas and state officials are crying foul, saying they have an informal agreement with the DOE that the shippers will not use surface roads to transport the waste.

The council is expected to voice its opposition tonight, voting on a resolution that asks the DOE to exclude the use of highway routes through the city and the Las Vegas Valley. The cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City have adopted similar resolutions.

Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the DOE has agreed for more than a year to work with its generator sites to encourage their shippers to avoid surface streets through North Las Vegas.

For almost two years the agreement has been successful, and the waste has been shipped along I-15 through North Las Vegas, Strolin said.

But after receiving the recent quarterly reports, the city was surprised to find out that low-level waste has been traveling along surface streets.

According to the report there were 31 shipments over the Hoover Dam and through the Spaghetti Bowl, and another seven that traveled along Craig or Cheyenne to the Test Site, 60 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"We thought we had solved the problem," Strolin said.

Nancy Harkess, a spokesman for the DOE, said while the department urges waste generators to encourage shipping companies to avoid urban areas, it is ultimately the shipper's decision.

The DOE does not control the transportation routes and cannot sanction the waste generators for taking routes contrary to the department's wishes, she said.

"There may be no blame to be had," Harkess said. "We didn't promise the waste would never be taken through urban areas. We promised we would do everything we could to keep it out of those areas."

The Test Site shipment in question is coming from the Rocky Flats Plant, in Golden, Colo., Harkess said.

Very few generators have chosen to go against the DOE's wishes, and it continues to work with the Colorado facility to encourage the shippers not to travel on city streets, she said.

"We have to continue to diplomatically encourage them," Harkess said of Rocky Flats. "They're not from Nevada, and we realize they're not that sensitive to our public, but we are."

The DOE's position was contradicted by a Rocky Flats spokesman.

"We are responsible but we have to have our routes approved," said John Corsi, spokesman for Rocky Flats. He described the material being shipped as "just dirt."

The Test Site now receives roughly 600,000 cubic feet each year of low-level radioactive waste that is buried in 55-gallon drums from other DOE sites. Shipping was halted in 1997 after several trucks leaked contaminated fluid en route to Nevada.

North Las Vegas city officials also are upset because they said they were never notified of the shipments.

The DOE is not required to inform local governments about which routes the drivers will use or what time the shipments will arrive. The waste generators do have to inform the state of Nevada, Harkess said.

Charity Fechter, a transportation planner for the city, said the arterials are not appropriate because of their high volumes of traffic and congestion.

"We're hoping to get their attention, let them know we are not happy about the situation as it is," she said of the DOE. "We consider it a breach of faith."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman took a similar but stronger approach in February, getting the City Council to adopt an ordinance banning the shipment of high-level nuclear waste through city streets. The legality of the measure has been questioned.

The DOE has targeted Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's dump for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. If the site passes scientific muster, the spent fuel rods and weapons material could start rolling through the Southern Nevada as soon as 2010.

Goodman has said that he will personally arrest the driver of the first shipment of high-level waste coming through the city.

Contacted in his office last week, Goodman said he applauded the efforts of North Las Vegas to take a stance at the local level, in hopes of stopping shipments of nuclear waste.

"I am delighted, this sends a strong message that local governments are dedicated to keeping this crap out Southern Nevada," he said.