Vol. 4, No. 13
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May 1, 2007
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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Top News Story:
One Way Blocked, One
More Exists For DOE
Northern Route To Yucca
Off The Menu, Not Caliente
by Johnny Gunn
The relief was palpable in northern Nevada when the Walker River Paiute Tribal Chairwoman announced that the tribe would not allow nuclear waste to travel through tribal land. The rail line through the reservation was part of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Mina Route, one of two railroad routes the agency has been discussing. According to tribal officials, the rail line through the scenic reservation along the banks of Walker Lake is owned by the tribe and they have withdrawn from a federal environmental impact study and will not allow nuclear waste on the reservation.
If the Mina Route had been approved, high level nuclear waste would have traveled through almost every major population area of northern Nevada in order to reach its destination at the Yucca Mountain repository. Mayors, County Commission Chairs, residents, and tourists all took a long breath of relief at the news from tribal Chairwoman Genia Williams. In a prepared statement she simply said, "The tribe will not allow nuclear waste to be transported through our reservation."
This leaves the Caliente Route still open, a longer and more expensive rail line that would connect with a main line in Caliente, swing north, then west, then south, skirting the Nellis test range and other federal lands to arrive at Yucca Mountain. In answer to the obvious question, why not just straight across the desert from Caliente to Yucca? The federal agencies won't allow the transport of nuclear waste across their lands, which might be viewed as a wake up call.
The Caliente Route is well over 300 miles and will not follow an old or previous rail line. It will have to be built from scratch at a cost some estimate in the billions of dollars. Yucca Mountain's highway access is by way of U.S. Highway 95, which is not up to federal standards for handling nuclear waste. In some minds, all of this constitutes planning.
In a prepared statement from Washington, Nevada Senator Harry Reid said, "I am so pleased that the Walker River Paiute Tribe has made the decision not to allow nuclear waste to be transported through their Reservation. With this decision the Tribe has made the determination that the risks associated with transporting thousands of tons of nuclear waste through Nevada communities far outweigh any potential benefits being touted by those looking to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear dumping ground."
Some in the Department of Energy were touting the economic benefits of having trainloads of the most dangerous material on earth pass through northern Nevada communities. Senator Reid was not impressed by the logic and said, "There are better ways to strengthen the economy in Nevada's rural and tribal communities, like investing in renewable energy sources, which alone could create more than 3,300 Nevada jobs." Reid went on to say, "The Tribe's decision is yet another blow to this project, which is on its last legs. It is time for the federal government to come to the realization that on-site storage is the answer to America's nuclear waste challenges."
Prior to the Walker River Paiute decision, Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Nuclear Projects office spoke to the Sparks City Council about the rail project. Officials across northern Nevada have been vocal in their opposition to the plan to ship the waste through their cities. Following Loux's message to the Rail City leaders, the Sparks mayor said, “The potential of nearly 77,000 tons of nuclear waste traveling by rail through the heart of Sparks is a dangerous and bad idea,” said Mayor Geno Martini. “The fight to stop Yucca Mountain is not just a Southern Nevada concern, it is a statewide priority."
Loux has led the state’s battle against a proposed nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain for more than 25 years. While he believes the project will never be built, he said Nevadans should remain vigilant in monitoring and opposing the U.S. Department of Energy’s continued efforts to push the “fatally flawed” nuclear waste repository on a state where the vast majority of residents object to it.
Before the Caliente Route can progress environmental impact statements will have to be in hand, land acquisition will need to take place, and the DOE must have a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to be able to store nuclear waste underground at Yucca Mountain. According to Nevada officials there are many problems DOE has created for itself before a license could ever be given.
Foremost among the problems at Yucca Mountain is water seepage that could eat away the casks in which the high level waste is stored. Water emigration has plagued the project from the start, even leading to alleged fraudulent quality control reports from hydrologists. DOE's current plans regarding water mitigation are called drip shields, which will be placed over the casks and protect them for up to 300 years. DOE also says the drip shields are a safety credit for their license application.
Loux sent a strongly worded letter to Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, the organization that will consider DOE’s application to obtain a license to move forward with the Yucca Mountain Project.
“I write to draw the commission’s attention to a critical safety and legal issue that has been disregarded by the NRC staff in its pre-licensing interactions with DOE on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain,” Loux wrote. “The issue is whether any safety credit should be given to so-called ‘drip shields’ in the post-closure repository performance assessment when, as explained below, it is doubtful that the drip shields would ever be installed.” He pointed out again that the shields wouldn't be installed until all the casks were in place. Loux described the shields as “kind of a series of titanium tents covering the entire length of waste package emplacements in the repository tunnels.”
Loux has pointed out many times, in testimony before congress, in letters to DOE officials, even in testimony before the NRC that DOE does not always tell the truth, nor do they believe in moral ethics. For instance, he said this in his recent letter to the NRC, “Counting the drip shields (leaving aside considerations of whether they will perform as proposed) might make sense if DOE actually planned to install the drip shields when it emplaced waste packages,” Loux added. “Instead, it plans to install them just prior to repository closure, which could be 100 to 300 years after the repository becomes operational.”
The shields as planned are made of titanium, a hugely expensive metal that could cost DOE hundreds of millions more. Not planning for their use for 300 years would cut down the existing budget, Loux said. This is how he explained the problem to the NRC, "The drip shields would be made of Titanium 7, would weigh about four tons each, and the repository would need at least 12,500 of them. DOE would have to buy an amount of very expensive titanium metal equal to three and a half years of the entire U.S. domestic production at a cost of at least $5 billion.”
As Reid said, it would be so much safer and far less costly to simply store the waste at the production facilities. That is where the waste is currently.
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