Report examines risk to nuclear containers

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001 | 10:32 a.m.

AMARGOSA VALLEY -- A 1999 federal study found that anti-aircraft fire could penetrate a nuclear waste shipping container, but only a trace of radiation would be released if it did, a Department of Energy official said Wednesday.

However, the DOE has not studied the threat from a fully fueled jetliner crashing into a nuclear container or a terrorist removing the end of a shipping cask to release the radioactive material inside, officials said.

The revelations came during a public hearing on a DOE plan to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

More than 60 people from Nevada and California spoke in the rural community 12 miles southwest of the proposed repository, and their fears of more terrorist attacks dominated the hearing.

The summary of the 1999 DOE Sandia National Laboratory report came from Lake Barrett, acting director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. It found, he said, that a weapon's fire could blow a hole in the double-walled transportation containers carrying nuclear waste.

But it also found that if a container was ruptured by weapons fire, an amount of radiation the size of a man's thumbnail could be released, Barrett said.

The DOE did study a scenario of a 737 jet crashing into a nuclear container at 340 mph, without a fire or explosion, Pam Adams, a spokeswoman for the DOE Yucca Mountain Project, said. The plane did not penetrate the container, she said.

Other terrorist threats to nuclear waste shipments haven't been evaluated, Barrett told the group.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that would license a Yucca Mountain dump, does not require such scenarios, he said.

But, Barrett said, it would be almost impossible to remove 10-inch steel bolts from the ends of a nuclear container. Using high-tech equipment, it takes about a day to open a container, he said.

Science teacher George Tucker challenged the DOE to prove an acetyline torch or a power tool in the hands of a terrorist would not easily open a nuclear container. Containers proposed by the DOE would protect the nuclear waste inside two stainless steel walls with a lead shield in between layers to prevent radiation leaks.

"I bet you I could cut right through the side with a power saw," Tucker said.

Farmer Ralph McCracken said he has worried about Air Force training pilots crashing into a nuclear waste container at the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, or into a radioactive cargo.

Ralph and his wife, Deborah, said they have cowered inside their mobile home on Farm Road when low-flying jets zoom over their farm. "If Nellis Air Force Base can't keep track of their own jets, because they're flying so low, how do you track a clandestine plane?" he asked.

"You've got a leaky mountain, leaky containers and you expect us to survive it all," McCracken said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged Nevadans in a prepared statement to keep challenging the Yucca Mountain repository. Reid said he is especially concerned about a terrorist attack on a nuclear waste container.

"I challenge you not to give up," Reid said. "I promise you we will stop transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. It would be vulnerable to a terrorist attack."