Wednesday, March 24, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- As Spain continues to mourn for the 190 people killed in the terrorist train bombings of March 11, U.S. government and railroad officials said Tuesday that their nation's passenger and freight rail lines need security improvements.
They did not address the potential for increases in nuclear waste shipments on the rails.
The Energy Department has not decided how it would ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, so the Federal Railroad Administration cannot officially say how it will handle security. It was also immediately unclear how nuclear waste fits into overall rail security assessments.
If the department chooses to ship the waste mostly via rail, a new line would be built in Nevada, but the department outlined potential routes in February 2002 that would use existing freight rail lines to bring waste concentrated mainly east of the Mississippi River to Nevada.
Specific rail routes have not been named but are among the nationwide systems that need a security evaluation and possible improvements, especially on tunnels and bridges, based on comments at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday.
"In a lot of ways, our nation's rail infrastructure is probably as vulnerable today as it was prior to 9-11," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
The General Accounting Office said the responsibilities for freight shipments are still not clear between the Transportation Department and the Transportation Security Administration, which could lead to duplication or gaps in preparations.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said "We've learned from the aviation attacks that if you're not ready the results can be devastating, and now we've seen the tragedy that can come from attacks on rail.
"There are so many targets of opportunity here," she said.
The attacks in Spain earlier this month spurred Senate questions about railroad security similar to the questions that state officials and critics of the Yucca Mountain project have been asking for years about the plans to move nuclear waste across the country to Nevada.
The nuclear industry and Energy Department maintain the shipments can be done safely.
Without specifically addressing the potential nuclear aspects, the Homeland Security Department, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Association of American Railroad on Tuesday outlined what security goals have been accomplished but said there is still work that needs to be done.
Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., aims to look at a bill introduced in wake of the Madrid attack by the committee's top Democrat, Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., and 12 other senators, that would earmark $515 million in security grants for rail lines. The plans would be determined by a Homeland Security Department assessment of how to protect infrastructure, tunnels, bridges and other at-risk areas.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who sits on the Commerce Committee but was not at Tuesday's hearing, is still reviewing the legislation, spokesman Jack Finn said. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has not yet taken a position on the bill.
Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security, said "obviously we would never guarantee" that U.S. trains are safe from attack, but he said there are no specific threats against trains at this time.
Boxer asked Hutchinson about the security and the number of shipments that would move nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.
"I am familiar with it (Yucca Mountain), but don't know that level of detail," Hutchinson said. After the hearing he said he could not comment on the project's security risks.
It was unclear if nuclear waste transport to Yucca would be considered in a current study of the nation's freight rail infrastructure. Calls to Hutchinson's office were not returned.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., introduced a bill last year that calls for a comprehensive study on the risks of transporting high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain by train, truck or barge. Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., Jon Porter, R-Nev., and four other House members have co-sponsored the bill, but no further action has taken place.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the agency follows regulations set by the Department of Transportation and Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the shipment of spent nuclear fuel but will consult the Homeland Security Department when it plans the fuel shipments in five years.
Yucca critics say it creates an inviting scenario for terrorists while the nuclear industry believes more appealing targets exist and points to numerous successful shipments with little incident.
"The shipments right now are not attractive targets to attackers," said Bob Halstead, the state's transportation consultant on the project. "But once daily shipments start going to one location, on a highly predictable route, it becomes a target situation."
Nevada filed a petition in June 1999 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking for it to update its security rules for moving nuclear fuel based on terrorism concerns, Halstead said. The petition is still pending at the commission, a spokeswoman said, but classified improvements have been made to security plans.
"It's never been taken seriously," Halstead said. "We've been worrying about this for a long time. Take the Madrid rail incident as a wake-up call, if you need a wake-up call.'
But John Vincent, senior project manager for Waste Management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the Madrid tragedy is not a fair comparison since a passenger train is easier to access by the public. A nuclear waste shipment has controlled access, from the people on the train to the schedule.
Vincent said computer models allow for "thousands of tests" for the casks, or containers, used to move the waste, and there have been improvements in what casks can withstand over the last five years.
He said the best scenario is that "dedicated trains" would ship the waste since only a few cars would hold it. The Energy Department, however, has not decided whether waste will be shipped by trains moving only spent nuclear fuel or among cars on trains transporting anything toward Nevada.
An attack on a transportation cask would actually provide the "reverse" effect of what happened in Madrid, Vincent said, since "there would be no immediate deaths, no sensationalism, the casks are robust by design."
"They (the terrorists) will probably try to find another target that will do what they want to do," Vincent said.
The most explosive tests on the casks broke a uranium pellet inside a shipping case and caused 28 grams of material to come out. Vincent said in this rare case, the material is too heavy to be airborne and would be able to be contained and not cause any long-term problems.
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