Nuke waste headed from NTS to New Mexico

Thursday, Jan. 9, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

The Energy Department is planning to ship materials contaminated with plutonium used in nuclear weapons experiments from the Nevada Test Site to a repository in New Mexico some time in June, officials said.

The packages will contain clothing, tools, rags, debris and residues laced with plutonium from nuclear weapons experiments conducted from 1951 until 1992 at the Test Site.

The proposed transportation route will send trucks packed with seven 55-gallon drums along federal and state highways around Las Vegas.

"June is our target date right now," said Carl Gertz, a deputy manager at the National Nuclear Waste Administration Nevada Operations Office.

The route takes trucks on U.S. 95 to Nevada state route 373, where they will go south to California state route 127 to Baker. From there, the trucks will travel west on Interstate 15 to Barstow and then east to Interstate 40 for the trip across Arizona to Carlsbad, N.M.

California has not agreed to the shipping routes yet, said Dennis Hurtt, Waste Isolation Pilot Project's public affairs team leader.

If shipments begin during June, about 44 drums containing contaminated materials will be shipped in 2003, Hurtt said.

A plutonium particle inhaled or ingested could cause cancer, because half of its radiation remains after 24,000 years, Hurtt said. "That is why we want to remove it from the accessible environment," he told members of the Citizen Advisory Board meeting at the Grant Sawyer Building Wednesday night.

Shipments scheduled to leave the Test Site in 2003 are roughly half the wastes destined for burial in the Waste Isolation Pilot Project repository carved in New Mexico's salt bed, Gertz said. Other materials are still top secret and some are too big to fit into the shipping containers.

The Energy Department is trying to find a way to disguise classified contaminated objects, Gertz said. The New Mexico repository has not received any classified shipments from six sites nationwide.

The Energy Department has trained about 100 police, fire and medical professionals along the route in Nevada, Hurtt said, although the potential for an accident is very small. Each truck will be escorted by Nevada or California highway patrol troopers.

Since the WIPP repository opened in March 1999, three incidents have occurred with shipments, Hurtt said.