Columnist Benjamin Grove: Shippers eye share of Yucca windfall

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 | 4:44 a.m.

EVERYONE knows the high-profile players in the ongoing saga over Yucca Mountain are focusing a lot of attention on how all that nuclear waste would get to Nevada.

The Energy Department is asking Congress for millions of dollars to develop its shipping plan. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing its role in testing and certifying the giant steel containers used to ship waste. And Nevada officials are banging a familiar drum: Shipping waste is not safe.

But there's another, less visible player here: the waste-shipping industry. It appears the shippers have been busy, too -- whispering in the Energy Department's ear as the department drafts waste-hauling plans that could make them rich.

In September the Energy Department quietly posted its waste-shipping plan in the form of a 26-page "Statement of Work," a draft outline designed to give potential contractors an idea of what would be involved in shipping 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.

The department asked for feedback on the document, and about 600 comments poured in from roughly 40 organizations, including the state of Nevada.

The Energy Department won't say who else submitted comments, but sources say the waste shippers were well represented. And it's a reasonable guess they had a lot to tell the department about how to better tailor the contracts to benefit the waste-hauling industry.

For example, Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International, a Washington-based shipping company, said he objected to the department's apparent preference for hiring a single transportation contractor to manage the whole campaign, as opposed to hiring a number of regional contractors.

"As a small business, my comment was that I thought there should be some preference for small businesses," Edlow said.

Then, last week, this curious item: the trade publication Energy Daily reported that the Energy Department is now planning a "substantially" new transportation plan.

Had the department rewritten its plans to appease the shippers?

Department officials say no. Yucca spokesman Allen Benson said the department is still reviewing reams of comments, and he denied the department made "substantial" changes to its plans. Final decisions about shipping contracts have not been made, Benson said.

But the question remains: With so many stakeholders, who will the department rely on most for feedback as it crafts its complex transportation plans and contracts in the next few years?

Yucca watchdogs, including the state of Nevada, should keep a close eye on the relationship between the department and the shippers.

The department should craft its transportation plans and contracts based on what's best for public safety, not what's best for the train and trucking companies that stand to make a fortune hauling waste to Nevada.