Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department shipped an undisclosed amount of high-level nuclear waste across the country last month without notice to residents, local officials or members of Congress who represent areas along the route, nuclear opponents said.
Nuclear opponents have blasted the department over the secrecy and are questioning the adequacy of current laws regarding the transportation of nuclear waste after the shipment of what was believed to be 125 cylinders containing spent fuel from New York to Idaho. The shipment took place last month, but neither the department nor contractor would confirm details on the shipment, citing security reasons.
The waste was taken from the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York in the middle of the night and shipped to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, over more than 2,360 miles, according to Public Citizen. The shipment had been delayed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the federal government banned nuclear shipments for security reasons.
Energy Department and anti-nuclear advocates say the material shipped is similar to the 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste that would come to Nevada if the Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is licensed.
"If this is how the DOE handles one shipment, what are we to expect when they are managing hundreds or thousands at a time?" Lisa Gue, senior energy analyst for the anti-nuclear group Public Citizen, wrote in a letter blasting the move.
Gue sent a letter Monday to the National Academies of Science Committee on Transportation of Radioactive Waste urging an investigation of current laws, pointing out the secrecy surrounding the shipments. The committee is in the middle of a two-year study of spent fuel and high-level waste shipments. The study is to be released to the public in 2005.
Study Director Kevin Crowley said the committee members will discuss how to address the issues at their next meeting, set for Oct. 30-31 in Denver. He said the panel is looking at a variety of issues pertaining to waste shipments so members may address public notification directly or indirectly.
Yucca Mountain, which could open in 2010, is set to store spent fuel from 103 nuclear reactors and various federal storage sites around the country. The department still needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the facility. Nevada strongly opposes the site and hopes to stop the project in federal court.
Environmental Work ing Group, a Washington-based research organization, estimates that 39 percent of the country's residents lives within five miles of a proposed truck or rail route. It launched a website last year where people can type in their address and see where the nearest route is located. About 310,000 have logged on to it in the past year, a spokeswoman said.
The department said it notified the appropriate parties and that shipment scheduling and routes have always been safeguarded.
"People were notified," said Tim Jackson, department spokesman at the Idaho Field Office. "Emergency preparedness and security was coordinated with all involved states and tribes before the shipments occurred and while the shipments were occurring."
Jackson would not confirm shipping dates or how much material moved.
John Chamberlain, who worked on the shipment at the West Valley Demonstration Project, said before Sept. 11, "many more people would have been notified" and that because of current security circumstances, there was a "definite decision" that only those who "needed to know" were notified.
Gue said that type of answer is part of a trend that will keep Nevadans from getting all of the information they should about Yucca Mountain.
Bill King, town supervisor of Ash Ford, N.Y., home of the West Valley Site, said he found out about the shipments after seeing the train engine pull up to the facility when he was coming back from dinner on a Saturday. He said he was angry, since he also oversees the local police force.
"My own people, these volunteers that I have, could have been taken right into something that could have killed them," King said.
He call the Cattarugus County Sheriff, who King later found out knew ahead of time about the movement but was sworn to secrecy. He said only a handful of deputies knew and that he heard one on the police radio later asking why the railroad crossing lights were flashing. King said trains have not moved through the town in about 10 years.
King said other local leaders in nearby towns also did not know about the shipments, and some residents became concerned when large numbers of police cars with red flashing lights started showing up. They were there for security purposes, King said, but he noted that seeing one police car in a small town is a big deal let alone seeing a large number.
"It wasn't a secret, that's just an excuse," King said. "They knew something was up when they saw the train pull up."
Rep. Amory Houghton, R-N.Y., whose district includes the site, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on July 15 saying he was surprised to learn the shipments moved in the middle of the night.
"Spencer -- really. This is irresponsible stuff, don't you think?" Houghton wrote.
Bob Loux, head of the state Nuclear Projects Agency, said there is a plan within the state for nuclear waste shipments to California or other places. He said after the alert goes out, the state policy is to escort the shipment, although it can vary from state to state. He said this may change if Yucca opens, as the number of shipments through Nevada and other states would increase.
Although the Transportation Department and NRC share responsibility for nuclear waste shipments, the DOE can regulate its own shipments, Robert Halstead, transportation adviser to the state Nuclear Projects Agency, said.
According to a May 2002 letter from former commission Chairman Richard Meserve to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., if the Energy Department takes control of waste at a reactor, the NRC would only control the transportation cask design. But if a reactor operator controls the shipping, it would have to adhere to NRC rules.
Halstead said that "sunshine is necessary" to make sure the project is done correctly but he can also see how safeguarding some of the information may be necessary since the casks are vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
"It leaves doubt in my mind on how we are going to do business in the future," Halstead said.
Meanwhile, Public Citizen does not dispute the national security implications of moving the spent fuel, but does not see the need for the "level of secrecy."
"Such secrecy fundamentally conflicts with the principles of government transparency and accountability essential to protecting the public interest," Gue wrote.
She alleged that the "silence" around the shipments was not about security but "more about minimizing public scrutiny of the DOE's actions," noting that in the past many environmental and citizen group came out against the shipment route.
Public Citizen also takes issue with a House bill that would allow the Energy Department to restrict public access to unclassified information related to nuclear waste activities. The Senate version of the bill does not contain the language. House and Senate members will meet after the August recess to iron out the differences.
All three Nevada House members, Democrat Shelley Berkley and Republicans Jon Porter and Jim Gibbons, came out against the provision in a letter sent to the House Armed Services Committee last month. They wrote they were concerned about the implications of the proposed language on the Yucca project and asked for its removal.
"While we understand the need to keep information that could jeopardize our homeland security out of the hands of terrorists, the Department of Energy has sufficient authority to do so without changing the current law in a way that negatively affects our constituents," the letter noted.
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