Editorial: A warning from nature

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 4:46 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

January 15 - 16, 2005

A quote last week from a Union Pacific railroad spokesman is worthy of entry into the Congressional Record, so that Energy Department officials could never say they weren't warned. "Flash floods in the West are famous for catching us by surprise," John Bromley told the Sun. He spoke in reference to this month's rainstorms, which left numerous sections of railroad tracks in Lincoln County washed away.

The storms came less than a year after the Energy Department announced that if Yucca Mountain opens as a repository for high-level nuclear waste, the deadly material would be shipped mostly by rail. It would come from around the country over a 24-year period. The final leg of the route is proposed to be 319 miles of new rail line that would be built in Lincoln and Nye counties. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is in Nye County.

The storms last week were so intense that they washed out a railroad bridge, forcing a Los Angeles to Utah train to be sidelined at Meadow Valley Wash, near Caliente in Lincoln County. As the 54-car train sat there, with nowhere to go, it was overwhelmed by a flood. Twenty-one cars derailed, and rushing waters prevented railroad crews from even approaching them. Caliente, by the way, will become a major switching station for Yucca-bound trains under the Energy Department's plan.

Something to remember if nuclear waste is being transported by rail -- the trains will not always be moving. There will be times when they will be shunted to spurs, waiting for tracks to be cleared. They will be as vulnerable as the train at Meadow Valley Wash -- to acts of both nature and man.

The Energy Department is unconcerned, however. A spokesman, Allen Benson, told the Sun, "I don't think we're going to be too surprised by anything." Perhaps the Energy Department has found a way to control the weather. If not, it should have a chat with John Bromley.