Cask design among concerns

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | 10:15 a.m.

Edward and Glennda Jackson were among the 12 residents who turned out for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission informational meeting Monday in Pahrump, but the couple left with more questions than answers.

At the top of their list was whether or not the federal agency had approved a safe cask design to transport the 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste through Nye County to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. NRC officials are still deciding what type of tests it will perform on the casks.

"We wanted to know what was going on," said Edward Jackson, a semiretired immigration attorney who moved to Pahrump about two years ago. "But I'm not even smart enough to know what the issues are."

Monday's meeting was part of a multi-agency effort to familiarize rural residents with the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Similar Energy Department-sponsored events were held in Nye and Lincoln counties in previous weeks.

Earl Easton, a Washington, D.C.-based transportation advisor for the NRC on hand for the meeting at the Bob Ruud Community Center in Pahrump, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas, said the agency had yet to approve the containers' designs. Each of several designs is now going through a series of durability tests. Computer models are being used.

The NRC also is expected to conduct a few live, full-scale tests of at least one of the designs in a series of "probable accidents."

Those tests are expected to continue through 2009 at an estimated cost $32 million to $47 million, he said.

"It's an ongoing process," Easton said. "A lot of these tests are meant to minimize the number of shipments (to Yucca Mountain)."

Opponents of Yucca Mountain as well as people just concerned about public safety have noted that the waste is likely to be shipped by both train and truck commission so a variety of scenarios need to be tested.

Patricia Cox, a Nye County commissioner, said she was not yet satisfied with answers from the NRC about the proposed casks. Cox was on hand at the meeting, but said she heard little that was different from previous conversations with the agency.

"We need to be sure there's some kind of safety in place," she said. "I personally don't think it (the tests) has been enough for this big (of) a project. We don't have a say in stopping it (the Yucca rail) but we do have some say in protecting our citizens."

John Wolfe, a retired airplane mechanic and Pahrump resident, liked what he saw at the meeting, saying it would bring jobs and economic development to the county.

"I'm impressed with the work they're doing and what they're putting out," he said. "They're going to do it whether we want it or not. I don't see what the problem is."

For Sheldon Bass, a member of the Nevada Land Use Planning Advisory Council and a Pahrump resident, said Monday's meeting barely scratched the surface, as a fragmented approach to the proposed nuclear waste repository will cause more problems than solutions.

And in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 319-mile route for the dangerous cargo seems particularly vulnerable, he said.

"My concern is on the assumption (that it's safe)," Bass said. "We've got a problem now. It's called terrorism."

Hal Nelson, a Pahrump resident on hand to represent Citizen Alert, an anti-Yucca advocacy group, said Monday's meeting was more effective than previous efforts to drum up support for the project.

His primary concern was whether the NRC could act independently in testing the viability of proposed shipping methods, he said.

"I am totally opposed (to the Yucca Mountain project) but I do believe the people doing these studies (the NRC) are taking it seriously," Nelson said. "At least it's a start."

The Jacksons, meanwhile, are among a growing contingent of rural Nevadans who have resigned themselves to the project, which many consider inevitable.

"This is not a debate," Edward Jackson said. "A debate occurs when you have one side against another. I think these people who are being Chicken Little are chasing a pipe dream. It's a waste of time."