Nuclear Waste on the Highways

[Paul lavely <lavelyp@UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU>]

I found this on another listserver.

Paul lavely <lavelyp@uclink4.berkeley.edu>



Nuclear Waste on the Highways



April 21, 2002



The volatile issue of whether it is safe to transport

highly radioactive nuclear materials around the country has

been pushed before the public by the state of Nevada in

recent weeks. In a desperate effort to avoid becoming the

nation's burial spot for spent fuel rods from nuclear

plants, Nevada has begun to run advertising that warns the

residents of 42 other states that they will be "IN GRAVE

DANGER" from truck and train shipments of the waste unless

they persuade Congress to block the burial plan.



That may be Nevada's best shot politically, but it ignores

two salient facts. Spent fuel rods have been shipped in

small quantities for decades now with no obvious harm to

the public, and whatever new risks may emerge with more

numerous shipments in an age of terrorism will have to be

addressed in detail by federal regulators before they

approve the burial plan. Nevada's hyperbole provides no

reason for Congress to abort a promising plan before the

issues can be closely analyzed.



The transportation issue has come to the fore in the wake

of the Bush administration's formal proposal to build an

underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada to

accept spent fuel rods that are now stored at the sites of

nuclear power plants. Nevada has vetoed the plan, and

Congress has until July 26 to override that veto and push

ahead. Nevada contends that the Yucca Mountain site is

unsuitable and cannot safely contain the waste for the

10,000 years required. But that is an issue that has little

resonance elsewhere, so the state has buttressed its

argument with alarming statements about transportation

risks that, according to its governor, endanger some 123

million Americans in states along the way.



Nevada cites estimates that some 96,000 truck shipments -

or about 19,000 rail shipments - would be needed to

transport the waste over three to four decades, and the

state says that would expose communities along the way to

the risk of radiation exposure from accidents or terrorist

acts. The state estimates that there might be 130 truck

accidents or 440 train accidents over that period. It

contends that a credible worst-case accident could release

enough radioactive material to cause hundreds of cancer

deaths and cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up.



These are merely speculative estimates that have yet to be

subjected to the kind of rigorous scrutiny needed to form

national policy. By contrast, the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission, the agency designated to protect the public

from such disasters, has conducted its own analyses over

the years and found very little likelihood of an accident

that would release enough radioactivity to harm the public.

The massive casks that are used to transport the spent fuel

rods are designed to survive punishing tests in which they

are dropped onto hard surfaces, subjected to a puncture

test, engulfed in fire and submerged in water. So far, in

some 2,600 shipments of spent fuel rods since the mid-60's,

there have been only four truck accidents and four rail

accidents, with no release of radioactive material.



There is no question that the transportation issues will

need to be explored in great depth - to make sure that the

tests conducted on the casks are strenuous enough, that the

probabilities of serious accidents have been reasonably and

conservatively calculated and that the new threat of

terrorism can be countered. But the appropriate place for

those issues to be addressed is in painstaking regulatory

proceedings before the N.R.C., not in rushed Congressional

debate now.



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/opinion/21SUN2.html?ex=1020652479&ei=1&en=

7d49387a14117377



Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

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