AG fighting O’Donnell bid for railroad to Yucca

Thursday, March 22, 2001 | 10:09 a.m.

Nuclear hotline

The Clark County Nuclear Waste Division on Friday will launch a hotline to record public comment on a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository.

Southern Nevada residents can offer their opinions on the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. All opinions will be heard by members of the county Comprehensive Planning Division staff.

The number is: (702) 455-5820

Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa was expected to testify today against a state Senate resolution for a rail line to Yucca Mountain because the measure could send the message that Nevada might be willing to accept radioactive waste.

Senate Joint Resolution 4, sponsored by Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, calls for building a track to the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository. No rail line leading to the mountain exists.

O'Donnell, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, scheduled a hearing on the bill at 1:30 p.m. today in Carson City with a simulcast at the Sawyer State Office Building, 555 E. Washington Ave., Room 4401.

Nevada's elected officials, including Del Papa, strongly oppose the burial or storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Department of Energy does not plan to send nuclear waste to the mountain before 2010.

"We believe siting the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is fundamentally flawed," Del Papa said.

"It sends the wrong message to those in Congress and the nuclear power industry," she said. "The wrong message is that Nevada is willing to accept a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain as long as transportation of deadly radioactive waste avoids Las Vegas and is accomplished by rail."

Congress originally directed that geological disposal of 77,000 tons of commercial reactor and nuclear weapons waste be isolated from people and the natural environment at a dry, remote site, Del Papa said.

"Yucca Mountain is in an active earthquake zone and is clearly not capable of isolating this deadly waste from the human environment," she said.

Del Papa added that shipping nuclear waste from power plants mostly along the East Coast jeopardizes residents across the country and poses unacceptable risks not only to Nevadans, but to 53 million residents living nationwide within a mile of federally approved highways.

A Clark County official said O'Donnell's resolution ignores the fact that the Department of Energy, in charge of studying, building and operating a repository if Yucca Mountain is proved scientifically sound, has not yet designated transportation routes.

The DOE has not spelled out how it plans to ship the nuclear wastes -- up to five truckloads per day for 30 years in Southern Nevada -- from nuclear power reactors or its own nuclear weapons sites across the country, said Fred Dilger, who is in charge of transportation for the county's Nuclear Waste Division.

"It's premature for the state to designate routes," Dilger said.

A designated road or railroad track would have to connect to all other national routes, though none have been designated as nuclear waste avenues by the DOE, he said.

"That takes years of negotiations with the states and communities along the way," Dilger said.

To date, the DOE has focused studies on the Yucca Mountain site and has not considered the effect on surrounding populations, transportation or the impact on local economies, Dilger said.

O'Donnell said he does not want the state unprepared if DOE, Congress and President Bush approve the Yucca Mountain repository. The senator said it is irresponsible for lawmakers not to take measures that would protect the largest population in the state and the Las Vegas tourist-based economy.

Del Papa said there is an alternative to shipping radioactive waste to Nevada.

"I, personally, believe that dry cask storage is a more economical and safer alternative," she said.