Vol. 4, No. 2
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November 15, 2006
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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Top News Story:
DOE Adds Reno To Public Hearing
List For Nuclear Rail Plan
No Other Cities Along Union
Pacific Rails Included
by Johnny Gunn
Prodding from the Nevada State Agency for Nuclear Projects has forced the Department of Energy (DOE) to add Reno to its short list of cities where public hearings are being held regarding what they call the Mina Corridor. A transportation plan to bring high-level nuclear waste from power plants around the nation to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository has never been developed and the one to be discussed has been on the table before. While this current plan would cause high-level nuclear waste to travel through every city in northern and western Nevada, only Reno and Fallon are on the hearing's list. All the other hearings are in southern Nevada.
The plan according to DOE is for rail shipments of nuclear waste to travel on the main intercontinental Union Pacific rail lines across Nevada, coming from the east and the west. At a point east of Fernley the rails go south through Fallon, Schurz, and Hawthorne to a point south of Mina. The existing rail ends at that point but a rail bed, deteriorated by time and weather is still in evidence south to near Beatty. DOE plans to rebuild the rail line and the nuclear waste then will travel near Tonopah, Goldfield, Beatty, and eventually end up at Yucca Mountain.
It is not a new plan, but one that has been on the back burner for several years due to opposition from the Walker Lake Paiute tribe in Schurz. Their opposition to nuclear waste traveling through the reservation has been lifted and DOE is attempting to put the transportation plan back into effect. DOE has a meeting scheduled for Fallon this evening (11-15-06) at the Fallon Convention Center from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The Reno meeting is scheduled for November 27 at Lawlor Events Center on the UNR campus from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Many communities in northern Nevada are not even aware that this new rail plan exists or that their voice is not considered loud enough to be included in the discussion. From Elko to Fernley there are few newspapers, fewer still radio stations, and DOE is taking advantage of this lack of communication to force the issue according to Bob Loux of the state nuclear projects office.
DOE has extended the period for public comment to December 12, but Loux says that is not enough. In a letter to Edward Sproat the Yucca Mountain DOE director, Loux says, "I ask that you withdraw the current notices and issue new Federal Register Notices that extend the announced comment periods to a minimum of 90 days." Loux also wants "scoping meetings to be held at all locations within the final 30-days of the comment period." DOE's response has been to include Reno in their itinerary of meetings, and to extend the comment deadline to December 12, far less than Nevada officials asked for.
Leaving the entire tier of northern Nevada communities in the dark about the rail plan is at the least a devious attempt to circumvent the public hearing process Loux believes. In the Sproat letter Loux says DOE should "Announce scoping meetings at the following locations, in addition to those announced: Reno, Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Lovelock, Yerington (all in Nevada), and Salt Lake City, Utah, and Sacramento, California."
Loux says there are no maps available to describe the proposal, and a visit to the Yucca Mountain web site proves the point. Go to http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov and the map of Nevada is a simple highway map.
As has been reported several times, the transportation plans offered by DOE were written more than 20 years ago and do not reflect current activities such as terrorist actions that could take place. When the canisters to transport the waste were conceived and built, the idea of suicide bombers was not well known, but since that time as reflected in the daily press they exist worldwide. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says if a canister fails following an attack or derailment, an area of 40-square-miles will be contaminated with high-level nuclear waste, the most dangerous product on the face of the earth. This part of the transportation plan is not on the menu for DOE public hearings.
On November 10 a railroad train derailed on the Union Pacific tracks west of Reno, the same tracks that would carry the nuclear waste if the DOE plan is approved. Two men were killed and others injured in the wreck and thousands of gallons of flammable liquids burned for two days. That wreck should be a wake-up call to political leaders throughout northern Nevada to demand safety procedures far above what is called for today. One well placed shoulder fired missile at a train in Reno's subsurface railroad trench that runs through the heart of the biggest little city would create havoc for weeks if not months.
The concept of terrorists attacking one of these trains anywhere along their journeys is more than possible in today's current political unrest. The Yucca Mountain project began during the cold war when the U.S. Government decided it would be safer to hold high level nuclear waste at a single underground location. Many believed at the time the waste could be stolen by Russian forces and turned into nuclear weapons. Scientists and those involved in worldwide political intrigue now believe the concept of the terrorist creating chaos is more likely to happen.
Calls for keeping the waste at the energy plant sites are coming from all sides in congress and elsewhere, and the idea of reusing the waste is also on the table. DOE refuses to even consider the options. They are locked into a contract that is out of date and filled with 21st Century problems. Some believe the only answer is for Congress to either renegotiate the contract with the nuclear industry or simply end it, take the losses, and start from scratch.
The Nevada Observer attempted to get reaction from several public officials in northern Nevada concerning the proposed plan to transport the waste through various communities. Washoe County Manager Katie Singlaub said "We will have people in attendance (at the public hearing)." She went on to say, "We have several departments that may have an interest in the impacts of this project including Emergency Management, Sheriff's Office, District Health Department, and Public Works, among others." One problem voiced by a Reno official has to do with Homeland Security.
"Homeland Security issues may be involved in anything the city might be able to do," according to Steve Frady a spokesman for the Reno Fire Department and Reno Police Department. Reno Mayor Bob Cashell and Reno City Manager Duane McNeely did not return phone calls on the issue. Representatives from Elko and Winnemucca are expected to be in attendance on November 27 for DOE's Reno hearing. The meetings are open to the public and comments will be accepted.
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