Las Vegas SUN: Nevada senators want details about nuclear shipments by rail

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August 19, 2005
Nevada senators want details about nuclear shipments by rail
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's senators are demanding the Energy Department more fully explain its plan to use dedicated freight trains to haul spent nuclear fuel to a national radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
In a letter this week to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., complain of "gaps and inconsistencies" in a recently announced plan to have trains haul just one kind of cargo: highly radioactive waste.
"Like all things Yucca, the conclusions in this policy statement are seemingly pulled from thin air," the senators said in a joint statement released Thursday. Reid and Ensign oppose the Yucca Mountain project.
The Energy Department had not received the letter, and spokesman Craig Stevens declined to answer questions it raised.
"We remain committed to opening Yucca Mountain using the best science and technology available to ensure the safety and health of all citizens," he said.
The Energy Department has said it would rely more on trains than trucks to haul 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from sites in 39 states to a proposed underground nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The department announced July 18 it would use dedicated trains instead of linking cars carrying nuclear waste with cars containing other freight.
Nevada officials have long advocated dedicated trains. But Reid and Ensign said the plan was incomplete.
Among other questions, they asked how the department plans to move waste from 24 reactor sites that have no train tracks; how long waste would sit in rail yards and whether rail employees would be exposed to radiation; how the public risk of radiation was evaluated; and when the department would release a comprehensive shipping plan and cost assessment.
They sought answers by Sept. 1.
In another development, the nuclear power industry's chief lobbyist said in Washington, D.C., that reprocessing technology could make retrieval of spent fuel from the Yucca Mountain project more likely.
"A lot of people have the image that the idea is to put this stuff in, close the door, walk away, and that's the end of it," said Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "Not true. That would be irresponsible, and it never has been the plan."
The Energy Department requires the DOE to be able to retrieve highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from Yucca Mountain for at least 100 years and possibly for as long as 300 years, Bowman said.
Bowman acknowledged that the United States has not reprocessed spent nuclear fuel since 1977.
Bob Loux, chief of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, called it unlikely that radioactive material could safely be retrieved from tunnels where internal temperatures will be above the boiling point of water.
The Energy Department plans to submit a license application for the Yucca repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year. Recent setbacks have pushed back the target date for receiving waste from 2010 to 2012 or later."