YUCCA MOUNTAIN DOE defends hauling nuclear waste by rail

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: DOE defends hauling nuclear waste by rail

Apr 12 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

The Energy Department on Thursday defended its choice to ship most nuclear waste by railroad to a Yucca Mountain repository, stating in a formal notice that rail would be safer and less disruptive than shipments of radioactive material by truck.

The department said it was moving forward with a blueprint calling for 3,000 to 3,300 railroad shipments over 24 years from government weapons plants and commercial nuclear utilities in 39 states to a proposed burial site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Another 1,000 shipments still would travel on truck trailers from sites that don't have the capability to load oversized 150-ton rail- shipping casks, DOE officials said.

The notice in the Federal Register also left open the prospect that some radioactive spent fuel could be transported over water.

For utilities that don't have access to a railroad, nuclear waste could be loaded into casks and moved by barge to a rail depot, according to the DOE. As an alternative, that material could be loaded onto trucks and driven to railheads.

A previous DOE study identified nuclear plants in 14 states where barges "could be a feasible way to move spent nuclear fuel to the closest railhead."

That study detailed a potential 1,575 nuclear waste shipments over waterways that included Chesapeake Bay, Lake Michigan, the Hudson River, the Mississippi River and the Missouri River.

While shipping firms insist nuclear waste can be moved safely over water, environmental organizations and political leaders in states such as Michigan have predicted intense opposition.

Allen Benson, spokesman for the department's Office of Repository Development, said barge shipping "is an option and certainly in very limited instances it may be considered."

Specific routes for railroad and truck shipments remain to be determined, although the DOE identified potential corridors in an environmental study issued in 2002.

The Energy Department formalized its nuclear waste transportation strategy in an eight-page record of decision published in the Federal Register, a legal requirement for the Yucca Mountain Project to move forward.

In a separate notice published Thursday, the department committed to move ahead with environmental studies of a railroad to carry nuclear waste from Caliente to Yucca Mountain.

Nevada officials were studying the documents and planned to meet to discuss possible legal action against the transportation plan, according to attorney Joe Egan.

State officials have argued DOE is skirting parts of the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires thorough study in advance of most major government decisions.

In particular, the state is examining a DOE backup plan that envisions moving nuclear waste by truck through Nevada if a cross- state railroad isn't built by the government's 2010 target to open a repository.

A DOE "supplement analysis" completed last month concluded the backup plan had already been examined enough to move ahead without further study.

"The supplement analysis is an entirely new, unprecedented category of NEPA document that they created," Egan said. "Basically it was an analysis that said they didn't need to do any analysis. I think they are dead wrong."

In its record of decision, the Energy Department said shipping nuclear waste to Nevada mostly by rail "tends to minimize the potential environmental impacts that could occur."

The department indicated it is developing security plans that could include the use of armed federal agents as escorts for all shipments and designs for "security cars" for rail transport.

DOE also is forming an anti-terrorist "design basis threat" that identifies likely scenarios for attacks on waste shipments and requirements to repel such attacks.

Calculating health impacts over a projected 24-year railroad shipping campaign, DOE estimated routine radiation exposures to workers and the public could contribute to four cancer fatalities.