Re: "positive" news reporting on Yucca Mountain & transportation accidents

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 7/10/02 2:12:16 PM Mountain Daylight Time, sandyfl@earthlink.net writes:



> Did it really change 
>
> anything by not being totally accurate? probably not. I personally 
>
> don't know whether or not the number of shipments you quoted are 
>
> absolutely correct or not. What I do know is that there were a lot of 
>
> shipments. I doubt that the media would have your statistics, unless 
>
> there is one entity who is assigned the accountability of tracking 
>
> all of these shipments. Suppose you wanted to add in radioactive 
>
> waste shipments from medical facilities. Do you think there will be 
>
> an accurate accounting of that?


Actually, the number of accidents (90 Type B accidents, no releases) I have is from a database that DOE sponsored that I was the task leader for until last year.  The database is called Radioactive Materials Incident Reports (RMIR) and the source of data on it are from the DOT hazmat accident and incident report database.  I have given this number to untold numbers of people, including media people, both verbally and in writing.


The 2700 shipments is, I believe, from NRC and is the number that DOE has cited repeatedly.  The most recent citation of these numbers was during the Yucca Mountain debate in the Senate, by Sens. Murkowski and Lott, among others.


I was just expressing minor irritation.  when one gets asked a question repeatedly, and answers it repeatedly, it gets a bit disturbing to see the answer transmogrified.


And yes, I think accuracy is important.  

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com