Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, December 28, 2003
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Reuters
December 28, 2003
Countries Undecided on How to Store Nuclear Waste
By Anna Peltola
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Since the start of the nuclear era, highly radioactive waste has been crossing continents and oceans in search of a secure and final resting place.
Nearly all countries produce nuclear waste, some types of which can remain radioactive for thousands of years, but they cannot agree on the best way to store it.
At present highly radioactive waste is put into interim storage where it has to sit for 30-40 years for its radioactivity and heat production to decline. It is still hazardous and should be stored somewhere permanently.
In many countries it is unclear who will pay for the cost divided over hundreds, even hundreds of thousands of years. Utilities could end up with a bigger bill than expected.
Most high-level waste, the most dangerous kind, is spent fuel from the over 400 nuclear power reactors in more than 30 countries. The dismantling of nuclear weapons adds to the pile.
Even nuclear-free states produce waste from industry, hospitals providing radiation therapy, and research centers.
Experts say technology exists for secure underground deposits which could last millions of years. Most countries plan to seal the highly hazardous waste in containers and store it 1,640-3,280 feet underground.
Skeptics say it could be safe for decades or even centuries, but at some point it would be bound to leak or be attacked by terrorists.
"If there isn't a responsible solution to deal with nuclear waste, it may be better to keep it above ground for a while longer when we are looking for technology that is safer," said Martina Krueger, who works for the environmental organization Greenpeace in Sweden.
TO OPEN OR NOT?
Some politicians have demanded that the repositories are built so that future generations can open them and eliminate the waste with the help of new technology.
Others say that would also leave the deposits vulnerable to potential social chaos thousands of years down the line.
If waste is safe in interim storage, why not keep it there?
"Sure it's safe...but what we have to communicate are the trade-offs," said Thomas Sanders from Sandia National Laboratories, owned by the U.S. government.
Some nuclear plants are already running into the limits of their storage capacity. And since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States attention has turned to individual plants and whether these can be protected from terrorist attacks.
European Union countries plan to build repositories by around 2020, but some have not even started considering sites. In 2001 Finland became the first and so far only EU state to decide on a site for a final storage.
The United States plans to deposit waste from its 103 nuclear plants beneath the Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The site should open in 2010, but faces local protests and legal hurdles.
Critics say big central repositories would again increase the risk of accidents or theft because the nuclear waste has to be transported to them from each plant.
WHO PAYS?
In many cases it is unclear for how long nuclear waste is the liability of the firm causing it, and when the state takes over.
This makes it tough for utilities to calculate the cost, especially if the repositories are built in such a way that they have to be guarded for security reasons.
"It is difficult to give precise costs because France hasn't decided on a strategy on long-term waste management," said Yves le Bars, chairman of ANDRA, the national radioactive waste management agency in France, the EU's biggest nuclear power.
"We say it will take between 15 to 25 billion euros to build a repository, operate it and close it for the existing facilities," he said. This would cover high-level waste from France's 58 nuclear plants, assuming fuel would be reprocessed.
Finding a location for a dump is one of the biggest hurdles.
In South Korea, the state tried for years to find a county willing to host a repository for low and intermediate level waste. Finally this year, Buan county applied for the deposit and suggested Wi-do island as a host.
The island has 1,000 inhabitants, most of them fishermen.
"They decided to accept the repository because the government is paying a tremendous financial package," said Myung Jae Song, general manager at the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company, the world's fifth largest producer of nuclear power.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggested in early December that countries should consider shared storage, even though no state should be forced to deal with another's atomic waste.
At Eurajoki, site of Finland's final repository, people were upset by the idea that their town could one day start importing foreign waste, said local politician Altti Lucander.
"It causes confusion and may lead to there being no acceptance for national deposits," Lucander said.
(Additional reporting by Mark John in Paris)
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Las Vegas SUN
December 26, 2003
Editorial: Show us the whole nuke plan
LAS VEGAS SUN
Ayear and a half after Congress approved Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the nation's burial site for high-level nuclear waste, the Energy Department is finally getting around to talking about a transportation plan. Logically, the transportation plan would have been the first order of business as it will affect most of the country. But then again, that would have meant hearings in dozens of villages, towns, and cities. Millions of people would have realized how close they live to routes proposed for carrying the world's deadliest material. They would have realized that because the hauling job extends infinitely into the future, accidents are inevitable. This awakening would have jeopardized the whole project, so it was important for the Yucca hawks to move forward while most of the country's population was still ignorant of the total impact.
Actually, the Energy Department is still not really talking about a transportation plan. It's just talking about one tiny sliver of it, the portion that would carry the waste over the final 300 miles. Margaret Chu, who directs the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, tried to put a positive spin on the plan in a letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn. She pointed out that the plan for the final leg of the journey to Yucca Mountain does not utilize any rail lines going through the Las Vegas Valley.
No one in Nevada, however, is buying into the notion that there's anything positive about the plan, which was announced Tuesday. The plan has two options. The first would be to build a rail line outside of Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The line would wind north of the Nevada Test Site and west of Nellis Air Force Base and go through four mountain ranges on its way to Yucca Mountain. The second would be to build a rail line along Interstate 80 in Northern Nevada through Carlin, and then south to Yucca Mountain.
Our main objection to the plan is that it's entirely without any context. How would the waste get to the rail line? Would it would be trucked through Clark County? Nevadans should not be deceived by the spin that the plan would take waste only through remote areas. For the Energy Department, delivering a plan in piecemeal is probably the best way to let Americans in on the news that nuclear waste will be rumbling all across the country from all directions, in many cases just a few miles from their children's bedrooms. The plan could be contained that way, informing one area at a time, gradually and with lots of spin. For the public, however, what's best would be a whole transportation plan, delivered at once. That way, a much truer picture of danger would emerge. In our view, this tiny little piece of the big picture is a farce.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 26, 2003
Editorial: Yucca route
The U.S. Department of Energy has offered a preliminary plan for transporting high-level nuclear waste by rail from plants in 39 states to the Yucca Mountain dump -- if, of course, the depository ever opens.
The "preferred" route would have trains entering Nevada through Caliente, turning north and west (on a new set of tracks) around the Nellis Air Force Range, turning south between Tonopah and Goldfield toward the Yucca Mountain site. The second choice would be to use a route originating near Carlin, far from any populated area.
Nevada's congressional delegation and other elected officials and community leaders criticized the selection of the route, as was proper. Every path to Yucca would subject Nevadans to unacceptable levels of risk.
But the designation of the two preferred routes also reveals that some of the more-vocal foes of the Yucca dump have been suffering from the vapors. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman famously asserted that the path would travel right through the city, and that he'd lie on the train tracks to block shipments. In a front-page story a couple of years back, Southern Nevada's smallest and least-read daily newspaper pitched the silly notion that the waste cannisters might be loaded on semis and driven across the narrow, twisting highway that traverses Hoover Dam.
Make no mistake: An unbiased federal court could never find the Yucca proposal consistent with the constitutional rights of Nevadans. But ridiculous hyperbole does not help our case.
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Pahrump Valley Times
December 26, 2003
DOE reveals 'preferred' route
STATE LEADERS DENOUNCE DECISION, SOME QUESTION ENERGY DEPARTMENT'S TIMING OF NOTICE
By Mark Waite and Steve Tetreault
PVT
PVT WASHINGTON BUREAU
The Department of Energy has identified the Caliente route as the preferred rail method for shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.
The announcement was listed in the Federal Register this week. It was also announced to the media Tuesday through press releases.
The Department of Energy identified Carlin as the secondary preferred corridor.
Five rail routes were suggested in the final environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain. Two rail routes would've connected the Interstate 15 corridor with the repository, which is being designed to store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The Valley Modified Route, through Las Vegas Valley, and the Jean Route, through Pahrump Valley, was also considered.
The Caliente-Chalk Mountain Corridor was drawn as a shortcut from the Caliente Route; it would have traveled through the Nellis Air Force Training Range. However, the Air Force has objected to that route. Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, recently described it as a "non-preferred route."
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has expressed strong opposition to the Valley Modified Route, which would have skirted northernmost Las Vegas Valley, and then continue through Indian Springs and Mercury to Yucca Mountain.
The Caliente corridor measures 318 miles. It would travel from the Union Pacific rail lines at Caliente and skirt around Nellis Air Force Range to the north and west. The rail line would roughly parallel U.S. Highway 95 from just south of Tonopah to the turnoff at Lathrop Wells.
The Carlin route would connect with the Union Pacific rail line along the Interstate 80 corridor, almost 400 miles north of the site. The Carlin route would travel south through Crescent Valley, continue just east of Austin, through Big Smoky Valley, and then parallel U.S. Highway 95, from near Tonopah, to the site.
The DOE news release states: "The attributes of the Caliente and Carlin corridors, including their remote location and the reduced likelihood of land use conflicts, appear to best assure the safe, secure and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain."
DOE spokesman Allen Benson wouldn't get into details about the land use conflicts involving the other routes.
"It's not a final decision, this is announcing our preference," Benson said Tuesday. "If we select rail as the preferred mode then this would be the preference for our rail corridor."
"These are the routes we studied in the final environmental impact statement and based on 12,000 comments this is our preference. This is not our final decision," he said.
The DOE hasn't announced yet whether it would even ship nuclear waste by rail or heavy-duty truck. If the department chooses rail as the preferred mode of transportation and selects a corridor, an environmental impact statement would be developed and public hearings held.
The DOE states, "No actual construction of a rail line within the selected corridor can take place until completion of this process, which is expected to take several years."
A member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board questioned a DOE representative during a meeting at the Longstreet Inn and Casino in September on whether the rail line and accompanying infrastructure could be completed in time for the proposed start of shipments to the repository in 2010. That could mean some shipments by truck until the rail line is completed.
The cost of constructing and maintaining a railroad line along the Caliente corridor was estimated at $880 million, in an Energy Department environmental study of the Yucca Mountain program released last year. The DOE estimates it will take 46 months to construct.
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said DOE is underestimating the cost of carving through Central Nevada's rugged terrain, adding Nevada transportation consultants estimate costs could climb past $1 billion.
The Nye County Community Protection Plan, considered the county's definitive statement on the Yucca Mountain Project, expresses a preference for rail shipments.
The state has a lawsuit scheduled in federal court, contending the DOE has taken shortcuts in developing its nuclear waste transportation strategy.
U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he received the go-ahead from leaders of the House Transportation Committee to hold a hearing in Las Vegas, possibly next month, on how the DOE selected the corridor and its possible impacts. Porter, vice-chairman of the House railroad subcommittee, said DOE should've waited until a federal court ruling on the state's lawsuit.
"No transportation route will ever be acceptable," U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., described the DOE announcement as "a lump of coal in Nevada's stocking."
"The Department of Energy does not have a license to open a nuclear waste dump and releasing a preferred route puts them nowhere closer to that ability," U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., charged DOE took "the path of least resistance" in picking a "politically expedient" Caliente corridor before detailed environmental review.
Gov. Kenny Guinn, through a spokesman, said the DOE move would add fuel to Nevada's lawsuits against the project. He also denounced the announcement two days before Christmas.
Others were happy to hear the announcement.
"I think for a long time it's made the most sense from a whole host of standpoints," Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips said. He said DOE officials have spoken favorably of allowing other users to access a Yucca Mountain rail line. Phillips said Lincoln County farmers could benefit, who now truck hay to ports in Los Angeles.
The announcement of the preferred route was good news to Nye County Commissioner Candice Trummell, one of two commission liaisons on nuclear waste. Trummell recently pushed county commissioners to take a stance opposing a rail route through Pahrump Valley.
Trummell said she's been urging DOE officials to identify a transportation route to Yucca Mountain as soon as possible so Nye County officials could begin planning for the impacts, including emergency response planning. Nye County is currently performing a transportation assessment on the five routes identified in the impact statement, using a $100,000 Department of Energy grant.
"We will obviously be able to study those two corridors much more in depth," Trummell said, "and prepare for the emergency response and a lot of other issues that go into getting Nye County citizens ready to mitigate any impacts and avoid any potential problems."
Later, Trummell added, "I'm very excited they have decided on routes that will not take the waste through Pahrump Valley, and that they have selected routes that will enable us to proceed with our planning process. This is great news."
While the rail line would avoid Pahrump, Trummell said it "potentially" could have more of an impact on Goldfield and Beatty.
"No one in Nye County asked for the nuclear waste repository but we're still going to get it so we have to deal with it. Whether it's the people in Pahrump or the people in Beatty the citizens of Nye County are all going to feel impacts," Trummell said. "The less the population it impacts the better."
A statement from the anti-nuclear group Citizen Alert questioned the timing of the announcement, just before the holidays.
"We do question why Caliente was chosen over the others. Is it to give the people in Clark County the impression that we have nothing to fear because the southern routes were not named? We believe this decision does not give Clark County any guarantees. Clark County could still see thousands of truckloads on their roads."
Louis Benezet, of Lincoln County, a Citizen Alert board member, said, "The State of Nevada has been asking DOE for years to address the transportation issue and we find it surprising, but quite in character, for the department to name a route that is the most costly, the most difficult and the most circuitous of all possible choices."
Citizens Alert also reiterated that the preferred route should've been identified in the final EIS.
The DOE states the shipment of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste has been safe. Over 30 years, the DOE has handled approximately 3,000 such shipments without a harmful release of radiation, according to a department spokesman.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 26, 2003
Nevada's taxing year ends with effects expected for years to come
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A decade from now, Nevada residents might recall 2003 as a taxing year, with unprecedented political upheaval, the biggest tax increases in state history and the realization that gambling and tourism alone won't bear the economic load.
For now, 2003 might be marked more for three Nevada soldiers killed in the war in Iraq, for a tiger mauling that ended Siegfried & Roy's long run on the Las Vegas Strip, or for ongoing friction with the federal government over a road along a river north of Elko and a nuclear waste dump in Nye County.
A year that saw a fruitless search of the desert for space shuttle Columbia debris also featured a sensational slow-speed media chase of Michael Jackson. Gold prices topped $400 an ounce, Lake Tahoe was declared the clearest in 10 years and Mormon crickets were declared the worst in a decade. A man named Moneymaker won the 34th annual World Series of Poker.
"At the top of the list is the most contentious legislative session, probably, in Nevada history," said Guy Rocha, Nevada state archivist. "Two special sessions, the governor suing the Legislature in the state Supreme Court, and calls for recalling the governor and Supreme Court justices."
The Nevada Legislature finally passed a tax package totaling $836 million - or an average of $380 for each of the state's 2.2 million residents.
Rocha compared the current era to 1907-08, when President Theodore Roosevelt sent federal troops to break up a mining strike in Goldfield and polarized state politics for years.
Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said state residents will remember 2003 as a tough year.
"But they would remember more if we don't open new schools than if we do open new schools," he said.
"They expect their elected officials to get it done."
Guinn said he tried to focus during bitter budget battles on funding the future in a state that's growing an average of 4,500 new residents a month.
Twelve of the 13 new schools opened statewide in 2003 were around Las Vegas, where development continued to boom, home prices soared and the Clark County School District added 12,500 students.
Federal land auctions in June and November sold 1,735 acres in and around the city, fetching an average of about $205,000 an acre.
Guinn said the state must begin attracting manufacturing, industry and technology, but in 2003 Nevada still relied on gambling and tourism - boosted by a "What Happens Here, Stays Here" ad campaign and a rebound from a post-Sept. 11, 2001, slump.
Guests said "oui" to the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino, despite calls to snub things French over disagreements about the Iraq war.
Up the Strip, an advertising-splashed monorail made test runs before it begins service in March 2004. A $2.4 billion Steve Wynn hotel-casino took shape across from Treasure Island, which remade itself as "TI" and replaced its popular pirate show with a racy spectacle.
Caesars Palace built a $95 million theater and debuted Celine Dion to sellout crowds paying up to $200 per ticket. Elton John announced he'll play when she's vacationing.
Some $1.5 billion worth of projects along the Strip included a new convention hall and tower at Mandalay Bay, and new hotel towers at The Bellagio, The Venetian and Caesars.
Away from the glitz, drought dropped the vast Lake Mead reservoir to its lowest level since 1968 - exposing a wide white "bathtub" ring around its rocky shore.
The state's dominant electric utility, Sierra Pacific Resources, struggled to escape stranglehold contracts with bankrupt Houston energy trader Enron Corp., while Nevada watched a California water squabble cost it deliveries of "surplus" Colorado River water. A landmark agreement ended the water war in October.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority ordered water restrictions for homes and businesses, but granted exemptions to casino water fountains.
When rain did come to Las Vegas, it came all at once. Three inches fell Aug. 19, triggering the worst flooding in four years. No one died, but 183 homes and 80 businesses were damaged.
Reno welcomed whitewater, hoping to attract visitors with a new downtown rafting and kayaking park on the Truckee River.
No one cared about the weather at the Burning Man festival, which drew a record 30,586 counterculturists on Labor Day weekend.
Near the Idaho border northeast of Elko, environmentalists, outdoors enthusiasts and government officers spent an eighth year fighting for control of a dirt road along the Jarbidge River.
In February, the BLM rounded up more than 500 horses belonging to two American Indian sisters in Crescent Valley. In July, authorities found 47 horses dead, and began investigating if they were part of that same herd.
In Carson City, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., lawyers for the federal and state governments honed arguments over burying the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They square off in federal court Jan. 14.
More studies but no answers emerged about the cause of a Fallon cancer cluster that has sickened 16 children and killed three since 1997.
The juiciest Nevada political corruption scandal in two decades broke in Las Vegas, with the owner of striptease clubs in Las Vegas and San Diego pleading guilty to buying votes from current and former Clark County commissioners. One former commissioner also pleaded guilty. The other three say they're not guilty.
MGM Mirage paid a record $5 million fine after The Mirage failed to file thousands of federal anti-money laundering reports.
Videotapes and criminal charges emerged for an affluent gang of Las Vegas teens dubbed the "311 Boyz." A videographer's concocted story about paintball safaris of naked women drew so many Internet hits that a TV station Web site was overwhelmed.
The Nevada Supreme Court granted new trials to Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish in the 1998 slaying of Las Vegas casino executive Ted Binion, and to Jessica Williams in a March 2000 crash that killed six teens on Interstate 15.
A brother and sister from Utah were charged in a butcher knife attack that killed one little girl and left another paralyzed outside a Mesquite casino.
Notable deaths included International Game Technology founder William "Si" Redd; Nye County rancher and anti-federalist Dick Carver; legendary choreographer Cholly Atkins; 109-year-old World War I veteran William Brown; McCarran International Airport shaper Robert N. Broadbent; and southern Nevada historian and documentarian Frank Wright.
Illusionist Roy Horn of "Siegfried & Roy" returned home to Las Vegas for Christmas to begin rehabilitating after his Oct. 3 attack at The Mirage.
Shaun Griffin, a Virginia City poet and author, expressed mixed emotions about the year - for Nevada and the world.
"I think it's going to be one of the years that we look back upon with great personal conflict," he said. "We had to look at diversifying our economy and a tax increase that nobody really wanted. We had to deal with the raw migration to Nevada. ... a place of extremes and extreme contradictions.
"I hope forgiveness can guide both our decisions and the consequences we've provoked by our actions."
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Elko Daily Free Press
December 25, 2003
Carlin No. 2 route to Yucca
By Adella Harding, Staff Writer
ELKO - U.S. Department of Energy said Tuesday it has chosen the proposed Caliente Corridor as its top choice for transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, and the Carlin Corridor as second choice.
The decision immediately drew criticism from the state and Nevada's lawmakers.
"It was done without any involvement of the State of Nevada, which I guess is consistent behavior and why the Attorney General's Office is in court against DOE," said Gov. Kenny Guinn's spokesman, Greg Bortolin.
"Despite today's attempt by the Department of Energy to place a lump of coal in Nevada's stocking, I remain opposed to the transportation or storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada, regardless of the route," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Tuesday.
"I remain confident that our legal case is strong, and I am confident we can defeat this misguided effort," he said.
"No transportation route carrying nuclear waste will ever be acceptable, and the DOE's efforts to ram it down our throats are once again premature and unsupported," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.
"Until they have dealt with the multitude of unanswered legal, technical and safety issues surrounding Yucca Mountain, their rail line will lead to nowhere but a dead end," he said.
"The Department of Energy does not have a license to open a nuclear waste dump in our state, and releasing a preferred route puts them nowhere closer to having that ability," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
DOE said in its announcement that "the attributes of the Caliente and Carlin corridors, including their more remote locations and the reduced likelihood of land-use conflicts, appear to best assure the safe, secure and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain."
Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob Loux said Tuesday, however, that he thought the Caliente route was the most challenging route "from an engineering and environmental perspective."
The route calls for 319 miles of new railroad that would be laid west to Rachel, up to Tonopah and over to Goldfield and then down to Beatty, skirting the Nevada Test Site.
"There probably hasn't been 320 miles of rail built since before World War I," Loux said.
He also said Tuesday afternoon that the state's lawsuit against DOE over the Yucca Mountain EIS could strike down the rail routes as well.
Oral arguments are scheduled for Jan. 14 in the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals on five lawsuits filed by Nevada against DOE, ranging from accusing DOE of a flawed EIS to suits over water rights and constitutional issues.
A three-judge panel will be hearing the cases in tandem.
"One of the deficiencies in the EIS relates to DOE's inadequate analysis of transportation and its anticipated impacts on the state and local communities," said Tommy Sargent, public information officer for the Nevada Attorney General's Office.
"It follows that this latest proposal (designating a preferred and secondary rail corridor) may very well suffer from inadequacies as well," he said.
"After we have had an opportunity to review the specific proposal, we may have more detailed comments to make," Sargent said.
He also said the DOE's action on the rail corridors "is another example of something a federal agency has done without regard for the State of Nevada's involvement. It's very frustrating."
Loux said the Caliente and Carlin corridors and three others are analyzed in the environmental impact statement on Yucca that is the focus of the suit.
The Caliente route would bring the waste by railroad from Utah to Caliente, and from there be moved on new tracks to Yucca Mountain.
Loux said DOE called the three counties impacted by the Caliente route and talked with them, without the state's involvement. The counties are Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda.
"It's obvious from the decision they talked with those three counties in particular," Loux said.
The Carlin route would move the waste on tracks through Wells, Elko and Carlin to Beowawe, 40 miles west of Elko, and through Crescent Valley in Eureka County. From there, it would travel on a new rail line in a 322-mile journey south.
Carlin Mayor Linda Bingaman said Tuesday she wasn't happy that the Carlin route was even in the running.
"I don't want it here, personally," she said.
Eureka County's nuclear waste consultant, Abby Johnson, said this morning she was surprised DOE chose a back-up route.
"So the fact that Carlin is still in the running is significant. There are a lot of engineering challenges with the Caliente Corridor. One of our concerns is it will be studied a great deal and then found impossible," Johnson said.
Carlin would then be the "default option," but it might not be as thoroughly studied, she said.
The other three routes studied include Caliente-Chalk Mountain, Jean and Valley-Modifield in southern Nevada. Jean and Valley-Modifield would run through the more populated Las Vegas Valley.
AP said the Air Force warned Congress in September that shipping radioactive waste across the Nevada Test Site might ground crucial training flights at Nellis Air Force Base, one of the country's top pilot training bases.
DOE said now that it has picked the Caliente route as its preference, it intends to proceed with selection of a mode of transportation for the waste. Other modes includes trucking.
If the "mostly rail" route is chosen, DOE plans to develop an EIS that deals with the specific railway alignment.
"No actual construction of a rail line within the selected corridor can take place until completion of this process, which is expected to take several years," DOE states in its announcement.
The new Caliente rail line could cost $881 million, Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson told The Associated Press, citing a 2002 DOE study.
DOE also states that no waste will be transported to the repository at Yucca Mountain until 2010, when the department expects to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open the repository.
Plans call for storing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management also said Tuesday that DOE and industry have safely completed roughly 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste over the past 30 years.
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KLAS
December 25, 2003
2 Possible Rail Routes for Nuke Waste
The threat of terrorism has the federal government putting a rush on shipments of nuclear waste to Nevada. The Department of Energy has identified two possible rail routes for shipments to Yucca Mountain.
The first route, called the "Caliente Corridor", uses an existing rail line between Caliente and Panaca in Lincoln County. The route would loop around the Nevada Test Site, past Goldfield and Beatty, and on to Yucca Mountain and the repository. The second route, known as the "Carlin Corridor", would cut north to south through the Nellis Air Force Test Range.
Neither route goes through Las Vegas, but state officials say they aren't happy. They call both routes "unrealistic and expensive."
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Nevada Appeal
December 24, 2003
Caliente rail corridor named by Yucca supporters
Geoff dornan
The Department of Energy has selected the Caliente rail corridor as its preferred route to bring nuclear waste into Nevada and to Yucca Mountain.
The route was one of five possible corridors to transport the waste and approaches the Yucca Mountain site from the north of Nellis Air Force Base Range.
Two southern corridors -- the Jean and the "Valley Modified" routes -- were eliminated because they run through the Las Vegas Valley.
The other corridors approach from the north including Department of Energy's second choice - the Caliente route.
Bob Loux, head of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, said it was an obvious decision to avoid the heavily populated Las Vegas Valley, but he won't know until reviewing the record whether the process used was legal. Much, he said, depends on whether the state wins it's courtroom challenges of the Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement process.
"If we're right that that document is defective, then these decisions would be illegal as well," Loux said.
A Department of Energy spokesman said now that the preferred corridor has been selected, the agency intends to proceed with selecting a "mode of transportation." That is expected to be to transport the waste "mostly by rail."
That portion of the process should be completed within 30 days.
Then the federal energy department must develop an Environmental Impact Statement on the specific rail corridor. A spokesman said no actual construction of a rail line can take place until the environmental process is completed - which will take several years.
If they get that far. Loux said they face additional challenges.
"This route they've chosen is the most difficult and challenging from an engineering and environmental perspective," he said.
The Department of Energy anticipates completing the rail route and the rest of the necessary steps to open the dump by 2010 - "when the department anticipates it will have received a license form the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open the repository."
The federal government and nuclear energy industry hope to dump more than 78,000 tons of high level nuclear waste generated by power plants around the nation at the Yucca Mountain site. Nevada is still fighting that effort in court.
The major state lawsuits, including the challenge of the environmental impact statement, are set for oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
"The Department of Energy does not have a license to open a nuclear waste dump in our state, and releasing a preferred route puts them nowhere closer to that ability," Sen. Harry Reid said Tuesday. "In just a few weeks Nevada's attorneys will take our case to court as we continue working to stop this proposed dump."
In addition to challenging the process used to designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's dump site, the state is challenging on grounds the decision by Congress violated the U.S. Constitution.
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Reno Gazette Journal
December 24, 2003
Planned rail line chosen to ship nuke waste to Yucca Mountain
Susan Voyles
A new railroad line has been selected as the preferred way to ship nuclear waste across Southern Nevada to Yucca Mountain, but Reno still faces the prospect that waste from Northern California and Oregon could be trucked through Reno, officials said Tuesday.
The proposed railroad line, would cross 319 miles of remote country north of Las Vegas, to assure “the safe, secure and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain,’ the U.S. Department of Energy said in a statement.
The selection of the so-called Caliente Corridor has little impact on Reno and the rest of northwestern Nevada as most of the waste from nuclear power plants would be coming from east of Nevada.
The announcement Tuesday comes as Nevada officials continue to fight the federal government´s decision to build the nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles north of Las Vegas.
The legal battle is taking place in federal appellate court in three combined cases. Hearings resume in January.
As for the next step, within 30 days, the DOE said in its statement it expects to decide whether it will use mostly rail transportation through Nevada, as well as confirm its corridor preference.
Bob Loux, executive director for Nevada´s Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the decision to choose the Caliente route addresses one main objection: Nuclear waste should not be shipped near Las Vegas.
“It´s clearly good news for the people living in Las Vegas Valley, one of the options being considered,’ said Loux, whose agency reports directly to the governor and has been fighting the nuclear waste storage project since 1985.
Among five routes considered in Southern Nevada, one from Carlin, near Elko and running south to Yucca Mountain, is the DOE´s backup choice to the Caliente route. In all, 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste stored at 131 sites in 39 states would be sent to Yucca Mountain. The DOE plans to open the site for nuclear waste in 2010.
Northern Nevada´s fate unclear
The Department of Energy has not announced any routes -- either rail or highway -- for shipping nuclear waste from Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.
Loux said the waste probably would be trucked because the plants are far from railroad spurs.
If so, he said, the waste likely would be trucked through Reno on Interstate 80 and then head south on U.S. 95 to Yucca Mountain. Another option, he said, would put these trucks on Interstate 5 through central California to Yucca Mountain.
The waste would come from the Rancho Seco power plant south of Sacramento, the Humboldt Bay power plant in Eureka, Calif., and the Trojan plant near Portland, Ore.
At the Trojan plant, 34 canisters containing fuel rods are ready for shipment to Yucca Mountain, said Lanny Dusek, a site supervisor. That could mean 34 trucks with nuclear waste going through Reno.
At the Rancho Seco plant, 493 spent fuel rods are in storage, and 390 are being stored at the Humboldt Bay plant. Each spent fuel rod contains about a half-ton of high-level nuclear material.
That doesn´t necessarily mean 883 trucks. Loux said the DOE is studying whether four-to-eight spent fuel rods could be loaded onto a truck.
Loux also expects nuclear waste from plants near Hanford, Wash., and from the National Engineering Laboratory in Idaho to bypass Reno. He said it could be shipped by rail to Salt Lake City and then south to the Caliente line.
Legal fight might include routing
Not enough information has been released to say whether Nevada would fight the route selection in court, Loux said. But the state is in federal appeals court fighting the environmental impact statement that names Yucca Mountain as the site.
“To the extent that is defective, this decision may be illegal as well,’ he said.
Congress approved the site last year, despite Gov. Kenny Guinn´s veto. President Bush long has favored the site.
U.S. Sen. John Ensign and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, Nevada Republicans, issued statements against the selection of a rail corridor, which was estimated at $880 million.
“No transportation route carrying nuclear waste will ever be acceptable, and the DOE´s efforts to ram it down our throats are once again premature and unsupported,’ Ensign said. “Until they have dealt with the multitude of unanswered legal, technical,and safety issues surrounding Yucca Mountain, their rail line will lead to nowhere but a dead end.’
Gibbons said he remains opposed to the transportation or storage or high-level nuclear waste in Nevada, regardless of the route. “I remain confident that our legal case is strong, and I am confident we can defeat this misguided effort,’ he said.
The DOE maintains that the shipment of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste is safe, citing no accidents among 3,000 shipments during the last 30 years.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 23, 2003
DOE identifies rail route for Nevada nuke waste shipments
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The Energy Department picked a route Tuesday to haul radioactive waste to a planned nuclear waste dump in Nevada, and said a 319-mile rail line should be built to loop around the Nevada Test Site to Yucca Mountain.
Nevada officials and activists immediately derided the route, called the Caliente Corridor, as unrealistically expensive, circuitous and dangerous. They promised a legal challenge if they can find flaws in environmental studies.
"Obviously, the state of Nevada has not been consulted on this," said Bob Loux, director of the state Nuclear Waste Projects Office and the governor's top anti-Yucca official. "They couldn't have picked a more difficult route."
A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jon Porter said Porter would seek congressional hearings before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Railroads, which Porter vice-chairs.
U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., insisted that transporting radioactive waste is not safe.
"They could walk it, fly it, waltz it, truck it or send it here by rail," Berkley said. "It doesn't make it any safer. This is an open invitation to terrorists around the world."
"Even the timing is preposterous," Berkley added, "given the fact that we are one day from an orange alert."
Federal Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge on Sunday raised the nation's terror alert level from "elevated" to "high," or orange.
Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson declined to discuss the timing of Tuesday's announcement.
The new rail line could cost $881 million, Benson said, citing a 2002 Energy Department study.
But Loux insisted that laying enough rail to link Philadelphia and Boston across what he called treacherous mountain and desert would cost well more than $1 billion.
Cross-country nuclear waste rail corridors to Nevada won't be picked until a final route is chosen within Nevada, Benson said. The Energy Department also is considering truck routes. No firm dates have been set for those decisions.
An Energy Department statement cited 21 public hearings over six months on alternate rail routes for shipping waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"The shipment of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste is safe," the statement declares, citing 3,000 shipments during the last 30 years with no harmful release of radiation.
The department picked a backup route, referred to as the Carlin Corridor, that would cut 323 miles north-to-south from between Carlin and Battle Mountain in northern Nevada, past Crescent Valley, Round Mountain and Tonopah to end at Yucca Mountain.
The primary and secondary corridors avoid two routes skirting Las Vegas - home to 1.6 million of Nevada's 2.2 million residents - and one north-south route through the vast Nellis Air Force Base bombing range and the Nevada Test Site, home to decades of nuclear tests.
The Air Force warned Congress in September that shipping radioactive waste across the bombing range might ground crucial training flights at Nellis, one of the nation's top pilot training bases.
Benson declined to expand on the reasons for picking the Caliente and Carlin corridors, pointing to the statement that said: "Their more remote location and the reduced likelihood of land use conflicts, appear to best assure the safe, secure, and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain."
Peggy Maze Johnson of the anti-Yucca group Citizen Alert in Las Vegas, said she was outraged.
"None of it is acceptable, but this one is the most costly, difficult and circuitous of all the choices," she said. "And we expect thousands of truck shipments to go through Clark County."
Congress in 2002 picked Yucca Mountain to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants and the military around the nation. The Energy Department wants to open the repository in 2010.
Nevada Sen. John Ensign accused the Energy Department of attempting to ram the transportation route through despite unanswered legal, technical, and safety issues.
"Their rail line will lead to nowhere but a dead end," he said.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 24, 2003
DOE designates rail route for Yucca
High-level nuke waste would bypass Las Vegas Valley
By Cy Ryan
<cy@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Capital Bureau
CARSON CITY -- The Energy Department on Tuesday announced it plans to transport spent nuclear fuel by rail through rural Nevada to Yucca Mountain, if a repository opens there as proposed.
The DOE, which plans to open the high-level waste dump by 2010, chose as its first preference a yet-to-be-constructed rail line that would begin outside Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, and wind north of the Nevada Test Site and west of the Nellis Air Force Range to its destination. The route is 319 miles long.
The agency's second choice would bring waste along Interstate 80 in Northern Nevada through Carlin, 50 miles east of Battle Mountain, and south to Yucca Mountain along a rail line that would need to be built.
Although the routes avoid Clark County, local officials did not welcome the news.
"It's bad. We don't want it in this state," Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said Tuesday.
The news came in a letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn from Margaret Chu, director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
In the letter, Chu said the DOE rejected two potential corridors that would go through the Las Vegas Valley in favor of a "more remote location and the reduced likelihood of land-use conflicts."
Reaction by state officials was swift and unfavorable. The Energy Department is jumping the gun, they said, because the state is carrying its case to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals next month in Washington and, if it loses, to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the nuclear dump from being built.
"Any designation is premature," Guinn said, adding that the state was not consulted on the selection of the potential route.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, said the legal fight is still on and if the state wins, the decisions on the transportation routes would be illegal.
He added that the DOE chose the "most challenging route" to build. The route would go through the Chief, North Pahroc, Golden Gate and Kawich mountain ranges.
The cost of construction would be $880 million as estimated in 2001 dollars and take 46 months to build, according to the final environmental study done on the proposed route. An estimated 842 workers would be hired. Six construction camps would be built for temporary quarters for the workers.
Only 4.6 percent of the land along the route is in private ownership. The Bureau of Land Management owns 92 percent, the Air Force 5.3 percent and the Energy Department, 2.3 percent, the environmental study said.
Fred Dilger, a Clark County planner who works on Yucca Mountain issues, said that because of the construction difficulties, the waste likely would end up coming through Clark County.
"Because it is going to take so much time and money to build, the Department of Energy will begin the process of construction, but they will build and finance truck transportation. At some point the railroad route will fail, and the DOE will say, 'Well, we have this existing truck transportation.' "
An over-the-road option could bring trucks loaded with high-level radioactive waste through Las Vegas. The default transportation route for the department, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, is the U.S. highway system.
If the DOE makes its final decision on using trains and the Caliente route, there would only be a minimal amount of trucks hauling nuclear waste in Nevada, Allen Benson, Energy Department spokesman, said.
He said the governor would then designate a preferred route for the trucks to follow.
Benson said the out-of-state shippers would determine which route they would send the waste by rail across the United States.
The final environmental study measured "incident-free radiological impacts" along both the rail transportation route and for truck shipments. It estimates less than one death of a worker from latent cancer over the 24 years of operation. And there would be less than one death in the general public from cancer caused radiation during this period, the DOE study estimated.
The DOE, in a press release, said it and industry have safely completed about 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste without the harmful release of radiation. Worldwide there have been more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel shipped safely in the past 25 years, the agency said.
The new route had Nevada's congressional delegation questioning the timing.
"The fact that the DOE has said to Nevada, in Nevada, that they would postpone the decision (to pick a transportation route) until 2006 -- it's disingenuous," Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said. "We are on the eve of our legal hearing. My question to them is why now?"
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the department doesn't even have the final say about what the route to Yucca will be.
"The Department of Energy does not have a license to open a nuclear waste dump in our state, and releasing a preferred route puts them nowhere closer to having that ability," Reid said in a statement.
Even though the rail line would reduce the number of shipments to Yucca Mountain by five times, according to DOE officials, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. said the risk is still there.
"This is pure unadulterated nonsense on the part of the Department of Energy," Berkley said. "There is no safe way to transport 70,000 tons of nuclear waste. I don't care if they ship it by truck. I don't care if they fly it. I don't care if they put it on a railroad. It won't work."
Berkley also noted that the announcement came days after the nation was put on orange alert, an observation shared by Mayor Oscar Goodman.
The mayor, through a spokeswoman, said, "At this time, while our nation is at orange alert, to be told that radioactive waste is safe is ludicrous. The people of Nevada were fooled once with Washington's propaganda about the atom bomb testing. Shame on us if they fool us twice."
Williams noted the eve-of-Christmas Eve timing of the decision.
"That's quite a gift," she said. "The timing I think is very political. On Jan. 14 the federal courts are going to hear this.
The DOE said now it will have to develop an environmental impact statement on the specific railway alignment within the corridor. It said that will take several years before construction can begin.
"No waste will be transported to the repository until 2010, when the department anticipates that it will have received a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open the repository," the DOE said. A citizen watchdog group wondered about the choice of the rural route.
"We question why Caliente was chosen over others." Citizen Alert Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson said. "Is it to give the people in Clark County the impression that we have nothing to fear because the southern routes were not named?"
The mayors from North Las Vegas and Boulder City said that if the nuclear waste must come into Nevada it is better that the waste be transported through the less populated areas north of Clark County.
"If there has to be a preferred route I would go with that one," Boulder City Mayor Bob Ferraro said about the more northern route. "It gets it away from the more populated areas."
North Las Vegas mayor Michael Montandon said that while "none of us are thrilled by the transportation of nuclear waste," the route that would bring it through less populated areas is preferred.
Montandon and Ferraro also said they think that Caliente officials want the waste to travel through their city, with the hopes that it would bring economic development to the area.
"So why not go where they want you?" Montandon asked.
Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said that while traveling through less populated areas is obviously better than bringing the waste through heavily populated areas, "this whole issue of transportation is not just a Nevada issue."
Gibson said he's spoken with mayors from around the country and they are all worried about what path the waste would travel. Gibson said he would have to see the entire proposed route to judge whether one of better than another.
However, Gibson added that bringing the waste by rail through Caliente "is at least better than bringing it across the dam in trucks."
Sun reporters Jennifer Knight, Launce Rake, Dan Kulin and Sito Negron <negron@lasvegassun.com> contributed to this story.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 24, 2003
Yucca Mountain: DOE maps rail route for waste
Nevada lawmakers criticize plan to develop a 319-mile corridor
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Plans to transport highly radioactive nuclear waste within Nevada began to take shape Tuesday when the Energy Department proposed to develop a 319-mile railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain.
Trains carrying spent nuclear fuel canisters from power plants in 39 states would travel from a Union Pacific Railroad site near Caliente along new tracks west. The route would cross the high desert and at least four mountain ranges in what some say would be the most ambitious rail construction project since World War II.
The Energy Department envisions waste shipments skirting the Nellis Air Force Range, turning south and proceeding near Goldfield, Scotty's Junction and Beatty before reaching Yucca Mountain, the site of the planned nuclear waste repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
No part of the route is in Clark County.
The announcement was roundly criticized by state officials as a further step by the federal government to force nuclear waste upon Nevadans.
One of the state's lawsuits challenging the project, scheduled to be heard next month in federal court, contends the Energy Department has taken environmental shortcuts in developing its nuclear waste transportation strategy.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he received permission from leaders of the House Transportation Committee to hold a hearing in Las Vegas, possibly next month, on how the Energy Department selected the corridor and its possible impacts.
Porter, vice chairman of the House railroad subcommittee, said the Energy Department should have waited until a court ruling on Nevada's lawsuit. He also said the Surface Transportation Board, a railroad regulatory panel, should be involved in the selection of a rail line.
"No transportation route will ever be acceptable," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a statement. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., described the announcement as "a lump of coal in Nevada's stocking."
"The Department of Energy does not have a license to open a nuclear waste dump, and releasing a preferred route puts them nowhere closer to that ability," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., charged the Energy Department took "the path of least resistance" in picking a "politically expedient" Caliente corridor before a detailed environmental review.
The Caliente rail corridor was singled out from five potential options studied by the Energy Department. The department identified a 323-mile corridor originating near Carlin as its backup choice.
Energy Department officials said the corridors were chosen for their remoteness and because most of the land is managed by federal agencies, diminishing the likelihood of land use conflicts.
"The attributes of these corridors lead us to be of the view that they will best assure the safe, secure and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain," project director Margaret Chu said in a letter notifying Gov. Kenny Guinn of the department's choices.
Guinn said through spokesman Greg Bortolin the move will add fuel to Nevada's lawsuits against the project.
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said the corridor selection was preliminary. In about a month, the department is expected to formally declare its preference to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain by rail rather than by truck, allowing a rail corridor choice to be cemented shortly afterward.
The department then will file a notice to develop an environmental impact statement on the specific railway alignments within the corridor, a process Energy Department officials said could take several years.
Energy officials said no construction could take place until then. Building a railroad line along the Caliente corridor could take 46 months, with construction and operating costs reaching about $880 million, according to an Energy Department environmental study of the Yucca Mountain Project released last year.
Nevada officials argue the government is wildly underestimating both the cost and the time that would be required to carve through central Nevada's rugged terrain.
Nevada transportation consultants estimate costs would easily climb past $1 billion, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency For Nuclear Projects.
Two corridors that crossed parts of populous Clark County were rejected. By picking a preferred corridor that skirts the Nellis Range also helps the Energy Department avoid a confrontation with Pentagon officials, who have said the Yucca Mountain Project could hamper military testing and training, officials said.
Depending on the route's specifics, the rail line could affect future development in Beatty, Caliente, Goldfield, Warm Springs and Scotty's Junction, the Energy Department environmental study said.
"I think for a long time, it's made the most sense from a whole host of standpoints," said Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips. He said Energy Department officials in the past had spoken favorably of allowing a Yucca rail line to be accessed by other users, although it was not clear whether that is current thinking.
Among possible beneficiaries, Phillips said, are Lincoln County farmers, who now truck hay to port in Los Angeles for sale in Japan.
But Louis Benezet of Pioche, a member of the Citizen Alert organization that opposes the Yucca Mountain Project, said Phillips does not speak for all Lincoln County residents.
"I believe they are no more interested in having nuclear waste shipments coming through our county than any other county."
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OCRWM
December 23, 2003
News Media Contact:
Allen Benson (702) 794-1322
For Immediate Release
Yucca Mountain Project Office Identifies Caliente as Preferred Corridor For Construction of Rail Line to Serve Repository Las Vegas, December 23, 2003 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management announced today that the program has identified the Caliente rail corridor as its preference for construction of a rail line to serve the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. At this time, the Department also has identified Carlin as the secondary preferred corridor.
The Caliente rail corridor was one of five corridors studied by the Department of Energy in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Yucca Mountain Project. Three of the five potential corridors, Caliente, Caliente-Chalk Mountain, and Carlin, would approach Yucca Mountain from the north of the Nellis Air Force Range. Two southern corridors, Jean and Valley-Modified, would run through the Las Vegas Valley. The attributes of the Caliente and Carlin corridors, including their more remote location and the reduced likelihood of land use conflicts, appear to best assure the safe, secure, and timely transport of materials to Yucca Mountain.
The identification of five potential corridors in the Final EIS was preceded by publication of a Draft EIS and a comment process that lasted more than six months and included 21 public hearings. The Department received approximately 12,900 comments on a wide variety of issues, including the five potential rail corridors in Nevada. The Department carefully considered these comments in developing the rail corridor preference.
Having now identified its preferred corridor, the Department intends to proceed with selection of a mode of transportation and, if it selects "mostly rail" as the transportation mode in Nevada, with actual selection of a corridor no sooner than 30 days from publication of today's announcement in the Federal Register. These selections will also be published in the Federal Register in a Record of Decision. If the Department proceeds with mostly rail in Nevada and makes a corridor selection, the Department will publish a Notice of Intent to develop an Environmental Impact Statement on the specific railway alignment within the corridor. In connection with any such EIS, the Department will solicit public comment through an EIS scoping process. No actual construction of a rail line within the selected corridor can take place until completion of this process, which is expected to take several years. No waste will be transported to the repository until 2010, when the Department anticipates that it will have received a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open the repository. The shipment of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high level radioactive waste (HLW) is safe. Over the past 30 years, the Department and industry have safely completed approximately 3,000 shipments of SNF and HLW. These shipments have been completed without the harmful release of radiation. There is also extensive worldwide experience with SNF transportation: more than 70,000 metric tons of SNF have been safely shipped in the past 25 years. For more information on the shipment of spent nuclear fuel, review our Spent Nuclear Fuel transportation brochure at http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/sr/snf_trans.pdf
For a more detailed view of the corridors, see the attached map.
#YMR-03-1#
(includes graphics - url) http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/newsroom/documents/corridor_pr.pdf
NAS
December 24, 2003
Project Title: Physical Security Frameworks for Yucca Mountain
Date Posted: <Posted: 12/15/2003>
Project Identification Number: BRWM-U-03-03-A
Major Unit: Division on Earth and Life Studies
Sub Unit: Board on Radioactive Waste Management
---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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