Letter: Nuke transport should be secret

Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003 | 8:44 a.m.

Here's my comment on your Aug. 13 editorial concerning the secrecy surrounding the shipment of high-level nuclear waste: What! Are you crazy?

Sure, let's put every self-important Tom, Dick and Harry into the loop so they and their volunteer staff will know where, when and how high-level nuclear waste is passing through any given area. Why don't we just contact Al-Jazeera and let them broadcast live updates? The people who needed to know, knew. The rest of these low-level bureaucrats wouldn't know what to do with the information if they had it.

It would be better for the local sheriff, who expressed concerned about sending his volunteer force "...right into something that could have killed them," if he instead spent his time worrying about sending his people to any chemical spill, any domestic violence call, any burglary or any fire or car wreck. These types of situations are all demonstrably more harmful to civil servants than nuclear waste.

OSCAR R. FICK JR.

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