Nevada leaders focus on train safety report

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 29, 2001 | 11:20 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada leaders are pointing to recently released national statistics that show railroad derailments are on the rise to focus more attention on the dangers of transporting nuclear waste to Nevada.

"We don't want to capitalize on what is a tragic situation," said Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, "but if it will help us get information across that transporting nuclear waste is unsafe, we'll do that."

Guinn has asked the Nevada Legislature for $5 million this year to launch an advertising campaign in states that contain future transportation routes for rail and highway shipments of nuclear waste to Nevada. The money also would be used for legal actions to block the shipments.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who sits on the House Transportation Committee, hopes the committee uses the statistics to tackle rail safety rules this year.

"You cannot expect train after train after train loaded with nuclear waste to go through this country without any concern for the communities that the trains will be passing through," Berkley said today. "The statistics will demonstrate that the more trains you have, the more accidents will occur."

Berkley this week created a list of all the House members who represent areas on the waste transportation routes in an effort to pressure them.

"When people across the country start to realize how this could have a direct impact on the health and safety of their communities, we might finally be able to build the political will in this country to look for sensible long-term solutions," Berkley said in a statement.

Congress in 1987 tapped Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to be the nation's burial ground for nuclear waste. The waste is now stored at nuclear power plants nationwide. Nevada leaders aim to spark nationwide opposition to the plan by appealing to leaders in transportation route states.

"This study shines a spotlight on what Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been saying all along, that transporting nuclear waste is dangerous business," the senator's spokesman Nathan Naylor said.

Train derailments increased 18 percent over the past four years, according to statistics kept by the Federal Railroad Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation.

Derailments on track and in railyards increased from 1,741 in 1997 to 2,059 in 2000, the agencies report, partly because the number of train trips has increased. Officials said poorly maintained track and inadequate inspections by railroad companies also may be to blame.

Federal and state rail safety officers number just 550 people, and industry inspectors have dwindled. They are responsible for checking 230,000 miles of track, the agencies say. The numbers surfaced on Capitol Hill in connection with a congressional hearing held today on derailments.

But Railroad Administration officials stressed that accident rates on tracks that carry passengers and hazardous materials have decreased. Many accidents occur in railyards as operators hitch train cars, officials said. Track failures cause .54 derailments per 1 million miles of train travel, a DOT spokeswoman said today.

"Track caused derailments are at a record low for the past two years," the spokeswoman said.

Still, the overall derailment increase worries Nevada leaders. "We are concerned about accidents along rail routes that carry passengers -- we should be more concerned about routes that would carry nuclear waste on our railways and highways," said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.

The most recent significant derailment occurred earlier this month when an Amtrak train derailed in Iowa with 257 aboard; one person was killed and 96 people were injured. The incident happened in an area where a rail defect had been recently patched, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said.

The Associated Press

contributed to this article.