WIPP Truck Accident

["Estabrooks, Bates (IHK) " <IHK@Y12.doe.gov>]

The following is from the Roswell (NM) Daily Record (Aug. 27).  It appears

that our nuc. waste shipping process does pretty well.



Bates



		Pickup hits nuclear waste truck 

		CARLSBAD (AP) - A truck carrying nuclear waste from Idaho to

the federal government's waste dump near Carlsbad was hit by a pickup truck

that caught on fire.

		Officials said no one was seriously injured and there was no

leak of radioactivity.

		''There was absolutely nothing wrong with the transport

containers at all,'' said Kerry Watson, assistant manager for the waste

program at the Department of Energy's Carlsbad field office.

		The truck was bound for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near

Carlsbad with two shipping containers from the Idaho National Engineering

and Environmental Laboratory, he said Monday. It was about 42 miles from

WIPP when the crash occurred at 1:50 a.m. Sunday on U.S. 62-180 on the north

side of Carlsbad.

		State police said the driver of the pickup, 19-year-old

Israel Alvidrez of Seminole, Texas, was charged with drunken driving and

driving without a license. He was being held at the Eddy County jail on a

$1,750 bond.

		The WIPP transport driver, who works for Colorado-based CAST

Transportation, was in the right lane when he noticed a vehicle coming up

behind the WIPP truck ''fairly quickly,'' Watson said. The driver tried to

move to the shoulder to get out of the way, but the pickup struck the

transport truck's left rear, he said.

		The crash bent the corner of the trailer's heavy,

square-tubing bumper, cut the outside left rear tire and damaged the fender,

Watson said.

		The pickup caught on fire in the median of the road, but

Watson said the WIPP truck had pulled over about 100 yards away and the

flames never came near it.

		The WIPP drivers - Jerry Hanway and his wife and co-driver,

Rita Hanway - were not injured, Watson said.

		Alvidrez was transported to Carlsbad Medical Center, where

he was treated for minor injuries and released, police said.

		The Hanways called 911 and WIPP's central monitoring room

after the crash and authorities arrived within minutes.

		State police did a comprehensive safety and mechanical check

of the WIPP truck and surveyed it for radioactivity. They determined the

only problem was the flat tire, and after it was repaired, state police

cleared the truck to go on to WIPP, Watson said.

		''State police escorted the vehicle, and I think that was as

much out of courtesy as anything else,'' he said.

		Watson said the accident, three miles outside Carlsbad, was

the first in 1,144 shipments to WIPP.

		''It's ironic when you think about it - the first time we

have an accident it's here,'' he said. 





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