Editorial: Secrecy envelops nuke waste

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2003 | 8:50 a.m.

On July 13 a train carrying 125 cylinders of spent nuclear fuel secretly left an Energy Department facility in New York and arrived at its destination in Idaho four days later. Bill King certainly had good reason to be upset about being kept out of the loop. King, as the Sun reported Tuesday, oversees the police force in the New York town where the nuclear waste was being stored, and he very likely would have been first on the scene if there had been an accident as the waste was first being moved. "My own people, these volunteers that I have, could have been taken right into something that could have killed them," King said. Other officials in nearby towns weren't told about the shipment, either, he added.

An Energy Department spokesman said the appropriate agencies had been notified, but the department's definition of "appropriate" is in serious need of expansion. Lisa Gue, an energy analyst for the anti-nuclear group Public Citizen, notes that this wasn't about security but was "more about minimizing public scrutiny of the (Energy Department's) actions," especially since environmental groups had opposed that shipment route previously. While the waste from New York wasn't headed for Nevada, it is troubling nonetheless since the federal government wants to ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada for burial inside Yucca Mountain. It also is alarming that Congress is considering legislation that would permit the Energy Department to restrict the public's access to unclassified information about nuclear waste activities, such as transportation.

About four out of every 10 Americans live within 5 miles of a possible shipping route for high-level nuclear waste, a reason we believe makes the transportation of nuclear waste the Achilles' heel of the Yucca Mountain project. It's also why the Energy Department has worked so hard to keep the public in the dark about the dangers of shipping man's deadliest waste. That's even more reason why Congress should investigate this matter and force the Energy Department to be more open -- and not shut out the public -- when it comes to the transportation of nuclear waste.