Worries voiced over nuclear waste transport

\byline{Mary Manning

Friday, July 25, 2003 | 9:23 a.m.

line By Mary Manning

Urban as well as rural Nevada residents told a National Academies of Sciences panel how worried they are about plans to transport high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain Thursday night.

The Las Vegas meeting, which continues today, was the second conducted as part of the National Academy's Board on Radioactive Waste Management's two-year, $840,000 study of radioactive transport nationwide.

"The implications of the study are national," board chairman Neal Lane said.

The National Academies of Sciences is an independent body of scientific and technical experts who research issues requested by Congress or federal agencies. The nuclear waste study, however, was initiated by the National Academies itself, Lane said.

"There's enough time to do the study and it has important implications" for public perceptioins of the risks posed by thousands of shipments of spent fuel and defense nuclear wastes that will cross the nation for almost 30 years, Lane said.

The Department of Energy's own plans to move nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, are "immature," Lane said.

The Energy Department has said it has not had enough funding to complete the work necessary to submit a necessary license application. The application to build the repository must be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2004 and decide transportation issues.

Las Vegas resident Art Rader, who studied historic rail routes while earning a master's degree in archaeology, suggested the panel examine remote track lines that avoid populated areas such as Las Vegas, Reno, Tonopah and Beatty.

Since thousands of shipments will arrive in Nevada to reach Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, "we are the end of the pipeline," Rader said.

Instead of shipping radioactive wastes through Caliente or Apex, 15 miles north of Las Vegas, Radar urged the panel to examine existing tracks across Northern Nevada, then adding a 150-mile line along an abandoned route from Hawthorne to Beatty where it could be brought to Yucca.

"In history lies the best way to get to Yucca Mountain," Rader said.

Albert Verrilli, a Beatty resident, said nuclear waste shipping is a major concern for rural residents.

"Transportation is the most critical and pressing issue," Verrilli said.

"It would be impossible to truck it through Beatty without major road redesign,' Verrilli said, referring to a 90-degree turn on the main road passing through the town.

Although there is no rail route to Yucca, the Energy Department is considering building one, but has not had the funds to complete its studies.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., weighed in from Washington via a letter sent to the board. The Nevada congressional delegation favors leaving nuclear waste at the reactor sites, securing it in dry cask storage until a technical disposal method is perfected.

"Do you really want to further the interests of terrorists with mobile nuclear weapons?" Porter wrote, referring to a possible sabotage or terrorist attack on truck or trainloads of nuclear waste.

Porter noted that trucks or trains loaded with nuclear waste will pass 50 million people living less than a mile from the proposed routes.

Las Vegas asked that the panel request the Energy Department redo the final Environmental Impact Statement because radioactive waste transportation was not fully addressed.