Editorial: State must witness all cask tests

Thursday, Dec. 12, 2002 | 9 a.m.

As the state with the most to lose if Yucca Mountain indeed opens as a nuclear waste dump in about eight years, Nevada has a right, and an obligation to its citizens, to be fully involved in all safety studies. The mountain, after all, is only 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the fastest growing area in the country. Yet our state is being snubbed.

Last month, for example, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, a panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, spent three days hearing testimony regarding nuclear waste transportation. The Energy Department and the nuclear industry were well represented. Transportation companies testified. But Nevada representatives were not even informed of the meeting, much less invited to testify. The advisory committee is scheduled on Wednesday to present the testimony to the NRC, which is the agency charged with determining if Yucca should be licensed. Nevada is asking for the presentation to be delayed until it can also provide testimony. We support that request, but the best the NRC has offered is to hear Nevada's experts during some as-yet-unscheduled meeting -- a meeting that would likely come long after Wednesday, thus diluting the testimony's effectiveness.

This type of treatment is why Nevada is insisting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allow qualified state representatives to participate when the agency tests the casks in which the nuclear waste would be transported and buried. It would, unfortunately, be naive to wait for an invitation. One of the state's major criticisms is that Congress this summer approved Yucca Mountain without knowing how the casks would perform under stress. We can envision the NRC trusting the Energy Department and nuclear industry officials to conduct the testing on their own. There is too much at stake -- the lives of Nevadans and everyone along the cross-country transportation routes -- for this to be allowed.

Transportation casks must be able to withstand immersion, high-force impacts and explosions (in the event of truck or rail accidents), and direct hits from terrorists' weapons. Burial casks must be tested for their rates of degradation over time and their ability to withstand such natural forces as earthquakes and ground water. It's critical that qualified officials from Nevada, those who understand everything from metallurgy to weapons technology, witness the tests and have a say in how they are conducted.