Construction plans for Yucca rail line could begin next year

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005 | 11 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Construction planning could begin as soon as next year for the rail line that is to carry nuclear waste across Nevada to Yucca Mountain, according to Energy Department budget documents.

That's one of the revelations in the approximately 100 pages of the department's budget submitted Monday to Congress that break down the plans to spend the $651 million requested for Yucca Mountain. It is up to Congress to determine how much money the department will actually get and the department will have to adjust its plans accordingly.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today regarding the department's overall budget request of $23.4 billion. Several other hearings will take place in the House and Senate during the next few months as lawmakers begin to put together the energy spending bill.

Margaret Chu, the department's assistant secretary who oversees the Yucca Mountain effort, emphasized Monday that the department's success with the nuclear dump plan depends largely on its ability to get full funding.

Of the coming year's $85 million budget request for Yucca Mountain-related transportation, $41 million is allocated for transportation in Nevada. Of that, $33 million is earmarked for a contract for the design and construction of a 319-mile rail line in the Caliente area.

Before the rail line can be built, the department will have to identify its exact route and will need to issue a final analysis of the environmental impact of the rail line. It plans to issue a draft analysis sometime this year and collect public comment, according to the budget.

In the mean time, the department is asking for $44 million for the national transportation plan, which covers how the department will ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from numerous sites across the nation to the proposed storage site at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

This includes plans to award a contract and pick a location for a transportation operations center and develop a transportation security plan, according to the budget, although it does not provide many details.

The department also plans to work with local governments and other organizations on selecting transportation routes.

The department selected the Caliente corridor in Nevada but has not designated any other routes in the country to ship the waste. Some commercial nuclear power plants are not near rail lines so the nuclear waste will have to be trucked to the trains.

The $44 million for national transportation includes $10 million for the casks, or the containers used to store the waste in transit. The department is working on developing a new cask.

Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said the relatively low amount of money set aside for the casks concerns him.

"It is astounding. This is the primary protection for public health and safety," Kamps said. "That is the main barrier between a catastrophic radiation release and the public."

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