DOE: Trains destined for Yucca would only carry nuclear waste

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 | 11:13 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Trains moving nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain will carry only waste destined for the repository and no other freight, the Energy Department said Monday.

The department decided last year it would use its "mostly rail" transportation option, which includes building a 319-mile rail line through Lincoln County, but the department had been largely silent until now about details of its waste-shipping plans.

Using what it calls "dedicated train service," the department's train shipments will take only high-level radioactive waste from Energy Department sites and used fuel from commercial reactors.

Under the alternative plan, trains could have a spent fuel cask on one car and anything else shipped via train, from cars to cows to carrots, in another.

General freight trains could still be used, but the department will prefer the dedicated option to haul waste to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, according to Monday's announcement.

The department said in a document circulated to congressional offices and other stakeholders that dedicated trains will be safer due to strict regulations and less time in transit. The trains will be shorter, which will allow for better monitoring along the routes and less time idling in rail yards.

There is also a "significant cost savings" with dedicated trains, according to the department.

The Association of American Railroads has not taken a position on whether nuclear waste should be shipped to Yucca Mountain or if it should be shipped by rail.

"But if it is going to be shipped by rail, it should move in dedicated trains," said association spokesman Tom White.

White said railroads are required by law to move the waste if the government needs it moved. Nuclear waste has been moved by rail in the past and the industry knows how to do it, he said.

Nevada officials strongly oppose the proposed repository and do not want to see any shipments come to Nevada, but Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency of Nuclear Projects, said dedicated trains are the better option.

"DOE had been resistant to the idea," Loux said. "The bigger question is: Why are they announcing this now?"

The project still faces numerous legal, regulatory and financial problems that have plagued it since its inception two decades ago. It was supposed to open in 1998, then 2010 and now is not likely to open until 2012 at the earliest.

Bob Halstead, the state's transportation consultant, said that as far as Yucca Mountain transportation issues go, the dedicated train question was second only to the matter of whether full-scale testing would be done on the casks in which the waste is to be shipped.

"Dedicated trains are a no-brainer," Halstead said. "They should have made a big public announcement with bells and whistles and neon signs and fireworks that they were doing this."

Kevin Kamps, spokesman for Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an anti-Yucca group, likewise says that dedicated trains should be the only option. Mixing high-level waste with other freight would be a "disaster in the making," Kamps said.

But the Energy Department seems to be leaving itself the option of using mixed-cargo shipments by arguing that both dedicated and mixed shipments are safe, Kamps said. According to the policy statement, "DOE shipments have been and will continue to be made securely using both DTS and general freight service."

"They're trying to play both sides of the fence," Kamps said. "They're definitely leaving themselves an out for some reason.'

Halstead said this matter has always been a public relations problem for the department because the public seems to prefer dedicated trains but the department never took a position on it. If the department was solely going to use dedicated trains, it would have made a bigger deal out of it.

He suspects the timing of the announcement had to do with a National Academy of Sciences meeting this week by a panel studying nuclear waste transportation. The meetings are closed and they are working on a report. He said the department may have also received word that a Transportation Department study on dedicated trains -- which has been going on for 15 years -- may be finished soon.

He estimated using dedicated trains could cost up to 40 percent more than the alternative, but the higher costs could even out over time based on using fewer casks and other factors.

Department spokesman Craig Stevens said making the decision on the trains now will allow the department to move forward with outreach to states and tribes regarding routing, planning and training.

Yucca critics have long complained about the department's lack of notification to potentially affected cities along the routes where waste will be moved.

Nevada's congressional delegation does not want to see any trains, dedicated or otherwise, bring waste to Nevada.

"The recent attacks in London and last year's train bombings in Madrid should be a stark reminder of the vulnerability of America's rail system," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears perfectly content to move forward on a plan that will paint a giant bull's-eye on shipments of nuclear waste and on the communities through which they will pass. Given the current lack of resources for securing America's rails, this is the height of irresponsibility and will leave our families in danger."

Nevada senators said the Energy Department's announcement did not ease their fears about the dangers of shipping waste.

"It's not a solution because we don't want the waste coming there in the first place," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the DOE policy announcement a "smoke screen" to disguise concerns about transporting tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste.

"What the Department of Energy seems to be missing is that they have nowhere to ship the waste. Yucca Mountain is never going to open," Reid said. "This latest make-believe attempt further demonstrates that there is no real plan. In this so-called policy, DOE turns a blind eye to the most serious of threats like a terrorist attack or accident, and does not bother to factor in that a number of plants cannot ship by rail, nor is there a rail in Nevada running to the proposed site."