State: Yucca rail would go through LV

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nuclear waste destined for Yucca Mountain will still move through the Las Vegas Valley, as an Energy Department plan to use a rail route through Caliente won't prevent its shipment through the state's most populous region, state officials claimed.

The Energy Department plans to ship most of the waste to the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas via train, including a new rail line to be built in Lincoln County.

In a 120-page document sent to the Energy Department May 25, the state attempted to make clear that choosing the Caliente corridor option doesn't mean that no waste would come to Clark County. The state sent comments to the department for the department's draft environmental report on the rail line.

"Any waste coming to Yucca Mountain from Southern California and Arizona would have to go through Las Vegas, and in winter months, rail shipments coming from Texas through New Mexico and Arizona and into California would pass through Barstow, (Calif.), and the only route it would have to Yucca Mountain from there would be through Las Vegas," wrote Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

In the April announcement designating the Caliente route, the department said the private carriers would pick the routes, which could include the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe or Union Pacific lines. The Union Pacific Line runs along Interstate 15, and connects Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., with Salt Lake City and the eastern United States. Most of the waste is stored in East Coast states.

"The Caliente route, therefore, does not do as it is advertised," Loux said.

The state said that "even if DOE (the Energy Department) shipped an average of three casks per train, there could be 2,854 shipments over 24 years, or an average of two train shipments per week, through Las Vegas."

The state has been saying that a rail route wouldn't keep the waste out of Las Vegas,even before the department finalized the Caliente selection in April.

Bob Halstead, the state's transportation consultant, said at a nuclear waste conference in March that all rail shipments to Yucca Mountain, except those from the Pacific Northwest and Idaho, could travel to Caliente through downtown Las Vegas under credible alternative routing scenarios.

"In addition to the potential impacts on residents, the proximity of the Union Pacific mainline to the world-famous Las Vegas Strip and to other major commercial properties creates truly unique local impact conditions," Halstead wrote in a paper prepared for the conference.

The Energy Department did not return calls seeking comment.