Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005 | 11:18 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Floodwaters this week damaged railroad tracks in Lincoln County, and Nevada officials promptly renewed their objections to the Energy Department's plan to ship nuclear waste by rail through the county to Yucca Mountain.
Union Pacific on Wednesday found "numerous" areas of damaged track between Moapa in Clark County and Caliente in Lincoln County, spokesman John Bromley said. The approach embankments to a rail bridge roughly 30 miles south of Caliente had been scoured away, Bromley said. Near Moapa, a train derailed.
"These are record storms," Bromley said. "But flash floods in the West are famous for catching us by surprise."
Nevada officials said bad weather could one day threaten thousands of highly radioactive nuclear waste shipments if the planned national repository at Yucca Mountain is constructed.
The Energy Department last year announced it planned to use a "mostly rail" option to ship waste from sites nationwide to Yucca Mountain. In Nevada, the department aims to construct a new 319-mile rail line on mostly federal land through Lincoln and Nye counties.
The new rail line could ultimately carry 3,300 shipments of waste to Yucca in a 24-year period.
Under the right circumstances, washed out tracks could cause derailments of waste shipments and, potentially, releases of radioactive material, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office.
Rail ties were dislodged from the track in several places in Lincoln County, said Bryan Elkins, director of community development for Caliente. At least a 15-mile section of track needs to be "seriously inspected," Elkins said.
Floodwaters from snowmelt and three weeks of rain gushed into the Clover Creek Wash, which runs along -- and in some places under -- the Union Pacific tracks, Elkins said. Two trains that had been directed to Caliente to avoid damaged track Tuesday were still being held there, Elkins said Wednesday.
Union Pacific on Wednesday announced that washed out tracks, mud and rockslides had closed or restricted tracks in California and Nevada on five main routes.
Union Pacific crews are working to restore rail service in bad weather, which slows recovery. But routes could be repaired as early as the next few days, the railroad announced.
Significant track damage from weather happens only every 30 years or so around Caliente, Elkins said. But it is always a danger when fast-moving water flows from surrounding canyons into the wash, he said.
"This washout phenomena has been part of the rail's history since the 1890s," Elkins said.
"These are issues that have not been looked at carefully by the Department of Energy," Loux said.
The Meadow Valley Wash where the derailment occurred was considered a "worst case scenario" by the state when it objected to the Energy Department's planned use of Caliente as a switching station for spent-fuel shipments, chief state transportation consultant Bob Halstead said.
That rail route could bear from 6 percent of nuclear waste shipments by Union Pacific up to 85 percent of loads traveling from California, Arizona, Texas and Louisiana if Burlington Northern gets the contract, Halstead said.
Flooding in the Meadow Valley Wash occurs "with distressing frequency," Halstead said.
"Railroads in the West are dangerous," Halstead said.
Halstead said the area where the accident occurred is difficult to reach. It contains fern grottos and endangered or threatened species such as the chubb fish.
"It's a place where things aren't supposed to happen," Halstead said.
State officials and consultants have been frustrated by a lack of data about the area where the flooding occurred, said Fred Dilger, a transportation consultant to the state.
"What it shows us is what these flash floods can do," Dilger said.
But department officials said it was highly unlikely that a nuclear shipment would come across washed out tracks. Waste shipments would be more closely monitored than typical freight trains, department spokesman Allen Benson said. The tracks would be subject to much closer inspection, he added. And trains would be in constant communication with an operations center, Benson said.
"I don't think we're going to be too surprised by anything," he said.
Also, nuclear industry officials have long said that high-tech metal shipping containers used to haul waste on trains could easily survive a derailment, even in a subsequent fire.
"We're very, very confident that those casks would maintain their integrity," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Insitute, the top industry lobby group.
Even typical freight trains are monitored to the tenth of a mile at Union Pacific's headquarters in Omaha, Neb., where officials also closely monitor weather services and coordinate with inspectors in the field, railroad officials said.
But Nevada officials aren't convinced that rail shipments of nuclear waste would be safe. There are no guarantees waste containers would survive a train accident, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.
"The nuclear industry cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, foresee where the railroad tracks would be washed out, how strong the currents would be, and where the water could take the waste," Berkley said. "I didn't know they were clairvoyant."
"Transporting nuclear waste by rail or by truck across this nation is not a safe answer to the nuclear waste problem," said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.
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