Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Energy Department intends to sharply increase its truck shipments of what it calls low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site, and state officials say there's probably nothing they can do about it.
Energy Department officials briefed state representatives Wednesday on plans to truck waste from Fernald, Ohio, near Cincinnati, to the site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for burial.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Office for Nuclear Projects, said it was unlikely the state would be able to halt the shipments.
Loux said the material being shipped to Nevada has a higher level of radioactivity and is more dangerous than low-level waste. The federal plan calls for 3,750 truckloads of the waste over an 18-month period starting this May and ending in November 2005.
From May to October this year, there will be an estimated 23 trucks per week operating four days a week. Then from this October to November 2005, about 100 trucks a week will dump their radioactive loads at the Test Site.
Carl Gertz, assistant manager for environmental management at the Test Site, said: "The bottom line is this is the only site in the country" where the waste can be buried.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said this "situation raises the additional worries about the exact type of waste -- whether it is truly low-level or more dangerous."
"As Mr. Loux has said, it seems unlikely Nevada can stop these shipments," said Gibbons, who pledge to monitor the progress of the plan.
Uranium was processed at Fernald and then shipped to defense factories for use in nuclear weapons. The plant shut down production in 1989 and cleanup has been under way since then. It has 14,000 to 15,000 cubic yards of the waste material that's headed to Nevada for burial.
Jeff Wagner, spokesman for Fluor Fernald, the contractor overseeing the clean up, said the waste includes leftover material from uranium ore brought over from the Belgian Congo in the 1950s. The ore had a higher natural uranium level than ore in the U.S., Wagner said.
There's also a fine talc-like substance of clay and rock tainted by thorium. Wagner said a binding additive will be used to hold the powder together for shipment.
All of the waste has a special low-level waste classification since it it not high-level waste, spent nuclear fuel or other material tainted by radioactive substances.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she is troubled by the shipments because the waste would only add to the contamination at the Test Site, which has been the nation's nuclear proving grounds.
"I am troubled as well by the large number of radioactive waste shipments that will be required to bring this material to the Test Site, a scenario that will only increase pollution and the chances of an accident on our highways," she said. "This disposal plan relies on DOE's (the Energy Department's) questionable classification of this material as low-level waste, despite the fact it will remain dangerous for a millennium." Gertz said there were 2,460 shipments last year of low-level waste shipped to the Nevada Test Site. The shipments did not go over Hoover Dam or through the Spaghetti Bowl in downtown Las Vegas.
The proposed Fernald shipments would bypass Las Vegas.
In the winter, the shipments will go through Arizona to Needles, Calif., then to Searchlight, west to Baker, Calif. and then north to the Test Site.
In the summer, the shipments will come in from the north, down Highway 6 to the Test Site.
Gertz said that of the last 5,000 shipments from various locations only three have strayed from those routes.
Those trucking companies that don't follow the approved alignment could lose their contracts with the Energy Department, he said. The drivers could face dismissal.
"We're very comfortable with these routes," Gertz said.
There will no be any notification that the trucks are coming through Nevada. The trucks will have the necessary signs on them to identify the contaminated materials.
John Sattler of the Energy Department said the department is not required to get any additional permits from the state to ship the waste from the Ohio facility.
Loux asked how the department designated this material as low-level waste, and Energy Department officials promised to give him the analysis on how the material was classified.
Loux said there might be a possibility that the Interior Department hasn't cleared the use of the land at the Test Site for the burial of this material.
The waste is expected to be buried in a trenches 25 to 27 feet below the surface. Gertz said this would "sufficiently isolate" the material from harming humans. He said the water level at the burial site is 775 feet and that radioactivity will not seep down to the water.
There are no fractures in the ground at this site that would allow the radioactivity to reach the water table, he said.
Rain would channeled away from the burial site, he said.
The material is now being stored in silos at Fernald. Sattler said there is concern about the structural integrity of the silos.
The Nevada Test Site has set aside 95 acres for burial of waste from other states.
The cleanup and disposal of waste at the Fernald site is estimated to cost $400 million over a 15-year period. Sattler said 80 percent of the contaminated material is being treated and will remain at the Ohio site. But the rest, which has a higher level of contamination, has to be shipped out of that state, he said.
Loux said the state cannot file a lawsuit because the Ohio site has been designated a federal Superfund cleanup site.
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