Nevadans: Barge plan could hurt Yucca support

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, March 19, 2002 | 11:23 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials say the proposal to use barges as part of a massive effort to transport the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada could make it tougher for lawmakers in Congress to support the Yucca Mountain project.

"It is inherently dangerous to transport nuclear waste -- period," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "When are people going to wake up and realize this is an absurd proposal?"

Nevada officials have loudly argued that it would be perilous to transport highly radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants to Yucca Mountain for permanent burial. The federal proposal relies heavily on trucks and trains to haul 77,000 tons of waste through 43 states to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But the plan also could employ barges at sea and river ports that could be used to haul waste to trains for the trip to Nevada, according to the Yucca Mountain project's environmental impact statement, prepared by the Energy Department.

Barges could be used at 17 nuclear power plants situated on waterways far from railroad tracks. The plants are found on both coasts, the Great Lakes, and three major U.S. rivers, according to a Gannett News Service analysis.

About 21,572 tons of the nation's waste ultimately bound for Nevada could be transported by barge at some point on its trek, Gannett reported.

Shipments of highly radioactive waste would be safe, nuclear industry and Energy Department officials say. Highly radioactive nuclear waste from research reactors have been shipped across the ocean without incident, Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said.

"This shouldn't be too alarmist," Davis said.

The environmental impact statement said shipping waste by barge could actually reduce risks of accidents in some cases.

"(DOE) analyses concluded that the consequences of accidents from barges would be of the same magnitude as those for other modes," the statement said.

But Nevada officials, entrenched in an anti-Yucca Mountain battle, are skeptical.

"It's stupid that the DOE would want to take this on," said Bob Halstead, a waste transportation consultant hired by the state of Nevada. "The bottom line is that it is not easy to move this waste."

The proposal to use barges is baffling because waste would be vulnerable to terrorists and accidents on slow-moving barges chugging through unsecured ports, Nevada lawmakers said. Those concerns should weigh heavily on the minds of other lawmakers who represent districts with busy ports or waterfronts that draw tourists, Nevada officials said.

A vote on the Yucca Mountain project in Congress is expected this year.

"(The issue) has resonance everyplace," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "It appears to me that the DOE doesn't know how it's going to ship the stuff. I just can't imagine that they are considering this, but they are. How do you think the longshoremen are going to feel about this -- the people who are going to have to load this stuff?"

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said that a terrorist attack or an accident on a waste-toting barge could create an "environmental catastrophe."

"It's not like it would be on a highway where (the waste) wouldn't move," after a terrorist attack, Ensign said. "Just think about all the people downriver after a terrorist attack. You would have an accident like the Exxon Valdez."