Guest columnist Kenny Guinn: Is Yucca recommendation being made too hastily?

Kenny Guinn

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 5:27 a.m.

By Kenny Guinn

Last month Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called to inform me of his decision to press ahead with plans to bury 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

"This decision stinks," I told him, "and Nevada will redouble its fight."

In implementing its rich propaganda campaign, the nuclear industry now paints Nevada as unpatriotic, obstructionist and a NIMBY warrior. However, this is America's fight, not just Nevada's.

Very troubling, and something that should concern every citizen of this nation, is the fact the Energy Secretary made his decision without requiring any analysis of the transportation risks to the 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns through which this dangerous, volatile waste will travel.

The citizens of this country have not been told of the danger to them, their children, and future generations caused by shipping through their neighborhoods and possibly alongside their schools, stadiums or through their downtown and industrial areas, 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear fuel at a rate of 3,000 to 4,000 truck and rail shipments per year for 38 years.

Such risks include individual exposure to radiation from the mere fact the waste travels through their community, declining property values along the transportation route, and the likelihood of accidents, which would release deadly radiation into the immediate environment.

I urge every citizen to review the report entitled, "Radiological Consequences of Severe Rail Accidents Involving Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipments to Yucca Mountain: Hypothetical Baltimore Rail Tunnel Fire Involving Spent Nuclear Fuel," which can be found at the Agency for Nuclear Projects, Nuclear Waste Project Office website, www.state.nv.us/nucwaste.

This report examines the circumstances surrounding the July 18, 2001, rail accident that occurred in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel, igniting a fire that burned for five days. The report assesses the consequences of this accident had the train been carrying a shipment of spent nuclear fuel, concluding that the result of such an accident involving spent fuel would be devastating.

Due to the duration of the fire and the extremely high temperatures, the accident would have resulted in a significant and deadly release of radiation from the transportation container. This is what can happen when this waste travels through a community.

The likelihood of an accident raises additional issues such as who will pay for and train emergency response crews in each of the hundreds of cities and towns, big or small, through which this dangerous waste will travel? Who will pay for and provide the protection needed to ensure that each shipment is safe from terrorist attack?

Many claim Yucca Mountain will somehow aid national security. To the contrary, even if the project proceeds, shipments of highly radioactive spent fuel -- some 100,000 individual terrorist targets -- will not begin for years. Spent fuel will accumulate at reactor sites across the country for at least the next 50 years, even if more plants are not built.

The key to addressing this problem is to secure those sites now, possibly with the anti-aircraft guns and troops proposed this month by DOE, not simply shipping the spent fuel to another site where it will be stored above-ground for years. Under that industry-boosted scenario, Yucca Mountain will only create a massive new target, and thousands of smaller mobile ones.

There is no need to push through a project; we have time to find a storage site that does not fail the test of science or endanger the citizens of this country, as Yucca Mountain does. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said spent fuel can be safely stored at reactor sites for at least the next 100 years, and perhaps up to 1,000 years. Only by acknowledging that Yucca Mountain is dangerous and unnecessary can we finally begin the process of finding a safe and workable solution to the nation's spent nuclear-fuel problem.

Fortunately, this is a nation of laws, and one of considerable common sense. With our backing, good scientists and good lawyers can now unravel the house of cards created by years of ineptitude and political maneuvering at Yucca Mountain.

I have confidence in the common sense of President Bush, who promised me personally and in writing that the project would not be mindlessly advanced in the face of bad science.

I believe the president is a man of his word. If he changes course, however, my duty is clearly to Nevadans, and I will spare no effort to ensure that science and the law will ultimately stop Yucca Mountain from going forward. (c) 2002 Writers on the Range