Vol. 4,  No. 10          March 15, 2007

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Feature Story:

Yucca Problems Mount For

DOE: Transportation, Costs

Not To Mention Congressional

Opposition From Harry Reid 

by Johnny Gunn

Opposition to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository continues to build as Nevada and congressional foes gather more and more information detrimental to the concept.  Nevada's U.S. Senator Harry Reid, majority leader of the senior house has been quoted often saying the Yucca Mountain project will never open while he is on watch.  Nevada's political leaders have put aside their politics and are as adamant as Reid over opposition to the plan.  There are solid scientific reasons for the opposition.

The safety of the material while in transport is one issue that has not registered in many minds across the country.  Most of the high level nuclear waste, described by the National Academy of Science as the most dangerous material on earth will be shipped by rail in casks that have proven incapable of withstanding attack by modern military armament.  The rail shipments will travel through thousands of communities coming from nuclear energy plants and weapons facilities located in most sections of the country.

Most DOE transportation statements discuss safety testing dating from the early 1980s well prior to the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the current practice of suicide bombers completely willing to kill themselves in order to make their point.  The idea of military weapons being used against the transportation casks is not discussed by the federal agency in charge of planning. 

In tests conducted in 1998, the casks could not withstand the effects of military weapons.  Tests conducted since then have had the same results.  Modern weaponry such as shoulder-fired missiles and shoulder-fired mortars has a devastating effect on the transportation and storage casks.  Millions of lives could be jeopardized by transporting the high level nuclear waste by rail.

Nevada's Nuclear Projects agency held public meetings recently, one in northern Nevada, one in the south, to discuss the transportation fiasco being offered by DOE.  Two papers were released at the meetings.  Among the things discussed is the closeness to major tourist attractions in Reno and Las Vegas these railroad trains will be.  We strongly recommend a look at these in-depth papers.  Click here for report from northern Nevada in PDF format. Click here for report from southern Nevada in PDF format.  

One rail plan offered by DOE is called the Mina route and all official commentary on the plan begins in Mina and ends at Yucca Mountain.  What isn't discussed is the fact the Mina route must connect to the Intercontinental Union Pacific Railroad Line that snakes its way through virtually every town, city, and village in northern Nevada, from the California border in the west to Utah in the east.

The route through downtown Reno includes a 2.5-mile ride in the Reno Train Trench, literally a trench through the middle of the city, within mere yards of casino hotel operations.  In the northern report is a recent photo of that trench in downtown Reno.

Notice there are two sets of tracks, but what DOE has not mentioned in a single document is that the trench is narrower than the rail cars are long.  A typical derailment usually forces the rail cars to zigzag back and forth, but in the Reno trench if a terrorist attacked a train, the cars would have nowhere to go but up, flopping about on the porches and doorways of Reno's major casinos.

In a recent hearing on the Yucca project, Bob Halstead of the Nevada Nuclear Projects agency said the rail shipments through Reno and Sparks alone could affect property values to the tune of more than $1 billion.  If a cask should rupture during an attack, there is a zone about 800 meters deep on each side of the wreck that is considered the most dangerous as far as radiation is concerned.  The National Science Academy feels a ruptured cask could contaminate as much as 40-square miles, depending on wind at the time.

During the first full week of March the Energy Department went before congress to ask for increased funding in order to complete the Yucca Mountain project.  The congressional request also included provisions for increasing the size of the project, and also its capacity.  Currently Yucca Mountain is designed to hold about 77,000 tons of high level nuclear waste.  Because of inept management (the current director's words) and questionable science (Nevada Congressman Jon Porter's words), Yucca Mountain cannot be open and be operating in the foreseeable future without massive infusions of money and changes in the way the waste is handled.

This country's nuclear energy facilities along with our reduction of nuclear weapons, has created more nuclear waste on the ground than Yucca Mountain can store.  There is a push from the Bush administration and from the nuclear power industry to license many more nuclear energy plants.  There is no off-site storage available.  Regarding the proposed changes and increase in budget that DOE is asking for, Nevada U.S. Senator Harry Reid said, "The proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is dying and the Energy Department knows it.  This is just the Department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail."

Reid is the Senate Majority Leader and he continued, "I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built."  In the strongest words possible, Reid continued, "The Energy Department cites a 'moral obligation' to build the dump, but it is highly immoral to put millions of people at risk by hauling more than 70,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man past America's schools, hospitals, and businesses."

During the recent Nevada Nuclear Projects hearings on transportation of the waste, the chairman, former Nevada Governor and U.S. Senator Richard Bryan said, "This is no time to sit back and assume everything will unfold in our favor."  He called the transportation of the waste one of the most dangerous things the U.S. government has ever suggested.  One question that was raised time and again at the hearings was the question of transparency from DOE.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects agency said it appears that DOE does not want those living in northern Nevada, particularly those that live in the cities through which the rail lines will carry the waste to have a voice is the process.  Union Pacific rail lines all but parallel Interstate 80 from Utah to California.  Most people in Salt Lake City, Utah and Sacramento, California are not aware that trainloads of high level nuclear waste will be coming through their cities.

The environmental impact statements that DOE must provide in order to build the rail line from Mina to Yucca Mountain will not include the UPRR line nor will it encompass any of the communities along that line.  DOE held what they called scoping sessions recently and would not discuss safety concerns of nuclear waste traveling on the UPRR through northern Nevada communities.  It was more than obvious to this reporter that only the Mina to Yucca part of the line was going to be discussed.

According to Nuclear Project's Halstead, "Over a 24 year period, if the Mina route is approved, and if Yucca Mountain is opened, Nevada could expect to receive 10,725 cask shipments of high level waste."  He said that would amount to eight rail casks in two or three trains per week, and one truck cask per week at a minimum.  There are no major highways leading to Yucca Mountain.  All roads leading to Yucca inside Nevada are two lane rural roads.

There would also be about 2,000 barges and heavy trucks, that is overweight vehicles, moving waste from 24 reactors to rail lines for shipment to Nevada.  Halstead said his information is from a DOE environmental impact statement (EIS).  The draft EIS has not been released to the general public, but according to a DOE timetable, it is expected to be issued as a draft in the early fall of this year.  DOE believes the EIS will be final by 2008, that final rail design will be completed during 2008, and that the line from Mina to Yucca Mountain will be operational by 2014.  That is the same year DOE plans to open Yucca Mountain.

The National Academy of Science (NAS) has questioned the science of the Energy Department often, and has said recently that serious consideration should be given to taking the transportation program out of the DOE repository program, and perhaps out of DOE altogether.  The department actually has two rail lines under discussion at this time, neither of which currently exist.  A line from Caliente to Yucca Mountain has been proposed as well.  That line could cost several billion dollars while the Mina line would come in at about $1.5 billion.  The Caliente line would connect to the Intercontinental rail service at Caliente, drive north from Lincoln County through Nye County, south through Esmeralda County, back into Nye County and 300 some odd miles later arrive at Yucca Mountain.

Simple basic problems have plagued the repository from the beginning.  Questionable site location as far as tectonic stability, questionable location due to water mitigation, and a total lack of transportation facilities are just the tip of a massive problem that DOE will not accept.  Their own scientists have lied to management and the public over water problems, although DOE promises to reevaluate all the science that led to the falsification of reports.

One study that was released in 2006 called "Uncertainty Underground, Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste" goes into deep scientific analysis of the waste project.  Edited by Allison M. Macfarlane and Rodney C. Ewing and published by MIT Press it is a compilation of many works by outstanding scientists around the world.  They question the geologic stability of the area on the one hand, and how the nuclear waste will behave over a long period of time on another.  Water mitigation is a large part of the anthology as well.

Most scientists agree that the waste won't even reach its maximum potential for strength (Danger) until about 200,000 years from now.  Our own recorded history doesn't go back that far, how can someone today predict what will be 200,000 years from now?  DOE seems to be saying, that will be their problem, eh?  A more studied answer is being debated in congress at this time.

Nevada's two U.S. Senators, Harry Reid and John Ensign have introduced bipartisan legislation that would require nuclear waste to be stored at the facilities where it is produced.  The Federal Accountability for Nuclear Waste Storage Act of 2007 would eliminate the need for the proposed Yucca Mountain Project.  Many in the scientific world have made this recommendation, particularly since the concept of reconstituting nuclear waste into a useable nuclear energy source.  It would then be at the nuclear energy plants, available for reuse.

Ensign said, "This bill provides a safe, responsible, common sense way to dispose of nuclear waste.  We must look for long-term innovative solutions, we should not transport dangerous waste through cities and rural areas across our nation to Yucca Mountain."  The bill calls for increased safety at all nuclear power plants to guard against accidents or terrorist attack.

One element of the DOE transportation plan that has not been recognized outside Nevada is how the trains filled with nuclear waste will arrive.  From east coast nuclear plants, all the trains will travel through Utah, including Salt Lake City, and other major cities on the Intercontinental line and from the west coast, all trains will travel through the Golden State's capital, Sacramento.  None of the states through which the trains and trucks will travel will be included in safety hearings or environmental hearings.  The Energy Department alone will handle all safety and environmental plans, something scientific organizations have said the department is not equipped to do.

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