Why Should We Care About Yucca? Are There Serious Safety Concerns?

by Johnny Gunn

If you are among the few that were amazed by the tremendous lack of interest in the recent EPA hearings dealing with new standards for radiation hazard, it probably means you are among the few who really give a hoot about whether or not Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository comes on line. The concept simply isn't a part of most Nevadan's lives. Should it be?

For the most part those who are to be affected the most either live along the transportation corridors in other states or won't be born for another 10,000 to 250,000 years. One person in Pahrump said at the hearing, why should I be worried about storing nuclear waste? I lived through hundreds of above ground nuclear explosions during the 50s and 60s.

Someone living along a major interstate rail line is more apt to be "nuked" by way of a train wreck than someone living within 100 miles of the repository, even if the most strict radiation standards in the world are put in place. So why the huge fight over radiation standards, placement of a repository in Nevada, alleged lies and fabrications coming from DOE and other federal agencies? It has a lot to do with what in the real world would be called "truth in advertising." In the world of the bureaucrat, getting your way regardless of the truth seems more important in the Yucca Mountain discussions.

There are many reasons not to be in favor of the repository, not the least of which is those proposed standards, standards vastly relaxed from the international norm. But setting that aside for a moment, the repository is only so large, and it's already known that there is more waste existing today than there is available storage space. Couple that with continued building of nuclear power plants nationwide and the continued operation of existing plants, and you have an equation that spells disaster.

Not for those living 10,000 to 250,000 years from now, but for those living near southern Nevada today. Casks piling up, water seepage eating away at the concrete, earthquakes doing the shake-rattle-and-roll thing, and threats of terrorist attacks. Nuclear waste spreading its deadly radiation into the ground water that supplies southern Nevada is very real. Ground water is already seeping into the Yucca Mountain tunnels.

All that aside, it will be railroads bringing hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste through neighborhoods across the country that will pose the greatest threat to Americans. An example of the danger: In Reno there is a new sublevel set of rail lines running through the middle of downtown. Train cars using the trench, as it's known, are longer than the trench is wide. We've all seen pictures of train wrecks hundreds of times, and almost without fail we see railcars stacked into accordion patterns. That wouldn't happen in the new Reno train trench. The cars would be forced upward and outward from the trench.

Now assume for a moment that the train wreck in question is one in which many of the railcars are loaded with high level nuclear waste. Project this potential disaster into thousands of communities from coast to coast, and it is obvious that safety is not a current concern of the DOE or those in charge of trying to create a central nuclear waste repository.

Reno and most of northern Nevada has been rather blasé about the whole Yucca situation, and it's time for them to understand that the intercontinental rail line across the northern counties will be host to trainloads of high level nuclear waste. Residents in most of the other states will also find trainloads of high energy nuclear waste moving through their state, cities, and neighborhoods.

As was pointed out in congressional hearing recently by Utah Senator Bennett, on-site storage of nuclear waste is the only sensible approach to the problem. But of course that doesn't include the fact that our government in all its shortsightedness made a contract with the nuclear power industry that the government would be responsible for all the waste. This contract was written and signed before Congress or the general public had even contemplated a nuclear waste repository. Nuclear energy producers got away with one for the time being.

No other government in the world has been this shortsighted when dealing with nuclear energy. Every other country that has nuclear energy facilities demands the waste be stored at the nuclear energy site. There are no trains carrying thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste through high-density population centers. There are no vulnerable casks sitting underground and being eaten away by migrating water.

If you are under the impression that moving water doesn't have much of an effect on concrete, drive across any high Sierra pass following spring thaw. The population of southern Nevada will be threatened from the moment those casks are placed underground, not 10,000 to 250,000 years from now. The population of many states and cities along interstate rail lines will be threatened from the first train load to pass through their area.

It's time for the United States Government to come clean with everyone. The contract with the nuclear energy industry was wrong. Say so, pay the reparations, and create a safe system of storage. Work toward creating a safe and sane program instead of ramming it to the citizens you are truly supposed to be representing.

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