Hearing in Nevada to focus on Nellis, nukes

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 | 9:43 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A congressional hearing in Nevada next month will consider the effect that nuclear waste shipments to the potential Yucca Mountain storage site could have on Nellis Air Force Base.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., called for the hearing to discuss the possible impact that transportation routes might have on military readiness, spokesman Jack Finn said via email Wednesday. The hearing could expand to nuclear waste transportation nationwide and its influence on the military in other states as well, Finn said.

Ensign is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee. The hearing is tentatively planned for Jan. 13 but other details like specific location or possible witnesses have not been worked out, Finn said.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper and Air Force Secretary James Roche sent a letter to Congress in September saying they knew of no route to the Energy Department's proposed nuclear waste site, planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, that would avoid sensitive areas of the Nevada Test and Training Range. There are also concerns about how the transportation routes could affect flights in and out of at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas.

The range and base are adjacent to DOE and Bureau of Land Management property.

In June, the Sun obtained a declassified Energy Department report completed a year earlier that said that airplanes pose a potential danger to Yucca Mountain and the shipping routes to the mountain. But the report was not clear about how significant or likely that danger would be.

The Energy Department has said that potential plane crashes are not a realistic scenario because the specific number of flights that travel over the site, although difficult to pin down, is limited.