Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, April 19, 2007

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, April 19, 2007
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State of Nevada
April 19, 2007

For release: April 19, 2007

Contacts:

Bob Loux
Agency for Nuclear Projects
(775) 687-3744

George McCabe
Brown & Partners
(702) 325-7358

Nevada official calls for NRC to address "critical safety issue" related to nuclear waste dump proposed for Yucca Mountain

CARSON CITY - Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, urged the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today to reject the U.S. Department of Energy's plan to claim safety credit for "drip shields" expected to protect metal nuclear waste containers from water dripping into the proposed underground waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Installation of the drip shields would not take place for 100 to 300 years after the dump becomes operational, according to DOE's plans.

Loux sent a strongly worded letter today to Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, the organization that will consider DOE's application to obtain a license to move forward with the Yucca Mountain Project.

"I write to draw the commission's attention to a critical safety and legal issue that has been disregarded by the NRC staff in its pre-licensing interactions with DOE on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain," Loux wrote. "The issue is whether any safety credit should be given to so-called 'drip shields' in the post-closure repository performance assessment when, as explained below, it is doubtful that the drip shields would ever be installed."

Nevada opposes DOE's plans to build a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, some 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

In today's letter, Loux said DOE's attempts to comply with federal radiation standards have relied heavily on titanium drip shields to protect the nuclear waste packages from water that is expected to drip through the mountain over thousands of years. Loux described the shields as "kind of a series of titanium tents covering the entire length of waste package emplacements in the repository tunnels."

ada points out flaws with "drip shields" planned for Yucca Mountain - page 2

Loux explained that the idea of using drip shields as a part of the Engineered Barrier System for the repository arose in the mid-1990s after DOE discovered that, contrary to previous expectations, Yucca Mountain's rock was highly fractured and allowed water to infiltrate the repository. This water could accelerate corrosion of the thousands of radioactive waste packages, he said. Since then, he said DOE has made these drip shields a key part of how it plans to protect Nevadans from radiation releases from the dump.

"Counting the drip shields (leaving aside considerations of whether they will perform as proposed) might make sense if DOE actually planned to install the drip shields when it emplaced waste packages," Loux added. "Instead, it plans to install them just prior to repository closure, which could be 100 to 300 years after the repository becomes operational."

Loux went on to say that "it is understandable that DOE would want to put off installation indefinitely because of the huge expense and complications involved. But the flip side is that NRC should accordingly not allow DOE to include the drip shields (to support its application for a license to build the project)… The scope and scale of the project for manufacturing and installing the proposed drip shields would be enormous. The drip shields would be made of Titanium 7, would weigh about four tons each, and the repository would need at least 12,500 of them. DOE would have to buy an amount of very expensive titanium metal equal to three and a half years of the entire U.S. domestic production at a cost of at least $5 billion."

A more fundamental problem, he added, is that radiation, dust, rock slides, corrosion and "as-yet-nonexistent robotics" make it impossible to install such shields inside the repository after it has been operating for decades. Loux wrote that DOE's own documents concede that "human beings probably cannot reliably make a drip shield."

Given all the uncertainties over whether the drip shields would ever be installed, he said "it would make a mockery" of the NRC licensing process to allow their inclusion in the safety determination. He added that "NRC should not allow DOE to rely on pie in the sky."

"Because of all the above, Nevada respectfully requests NRC to advise DOE that, absent a drastic change in DOE's drip shield installation plans, DOE should not give, and

NRC cannot legally allow, any safety credit for drip shields in DOE's TSPA (Total System Performance Assessment) for the upcoming Yucca Mountain License Application."

For a copy of the letter and the attachments, visit www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm

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Reno Gazette-Journal
April 19, 2007

Tribe derails Yucca plans

Susan Voyles

A federal proposal to ship up to 4,500 casks of nuclear waste by train through Reno and Sparks to Yucca Mountain on the so-called Mina Route has been dealt a severe blow by the Walker River Paiute Tribe, who withdrew permission for a new railroad line to cross its reservation about 50 miles southeast of Reno.

The tribal council adopted a resolution Tuesday that dropped its participation in a federal environmental impact study for the route, said to be cheaper and shorter than the Caliente route in Eastern Nevada studied for the past decade.

"After considering the information we had gathered to date and discussions with our membership, the tribal council made the decision not to continue with the Department of Energy's process," tribal Chairwoman Genia Williams said in a news release.

"The tribe will not allow nuclear waste to be transported on rail through our reservation," Williams said.

The tribal council had faced pressure from tribal members, who had second thoughts about the tribal decision to become involved in the study last June, Williams said.

Bob Loux, head of the Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects, said he had heard from several dozen Schurz residents in the last few months.

"The growing and continued concern among tribal members in general is what pushed them over," he said. "We heard from some tribal members who were not comfortable with the information they were getting."

Reno and Sparks officials were becoming increasingly worried about nuclear waste traveling through Northern Nevada and the possibility of an accident, sabotage or terrorist act. Yucca Mountain would store up to 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from the nation's power plants and from other sources.

"I'm a happy camper," Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said of the tribe's reversal. "We are very appreciative of what they did and we will let them know."

At same time, Martini said he remains cautiously optimistic.

"As many times as this thing has died, hopefully this is the end of it. But you never know," he said.

With the loss of the Mina route, Loux said only a few rail shipments may go through Reno and Sparks, saying most shipments from the Pacific Northwest probably would continue south through the Central Valley, over to Las Vegas and onto Yucca Mountain.

Reno Mayor Bob Cashell said he also is pleased with the tribal decision. "That had put Reno and Sparks in a real tight box," he said.

Cashell said he remains opposed to Yucca Mountain until the cities are guaranteed continual funding for training and equipment for first responders to deal with a nuclear incident as well as money to keep the railroad tracks through the cities in top shape.

Using a "suite of routes" ending with the Mina corridor in Western Nevada, Loux and state consultants predicted up to half of the trains carrying nuclear waste would use a southern route to cross the country. These trains would use the southern route and then head north up the Central Valley in California, go over Donner Pass, through Reno and Sparks and then connect with the Mina route at Hazen.

A southern route and central Union Pacific route would provide more security against a terrorist attack and serve as a backup route during stormy weather and maintenance, Loux and state consultants said.

Once Yucca Mountain was to open, the shipments would occur over 24 years. It's not expected to open for another 10 to 15 years if it opens at all.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch opponent of the federal plan to entomb the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada, hailed the tribe's decision as another blow to the Yucca Mountain project, which he said was "on its last legs."

"We will keep fighting any route that keeps putting nuclear waste through Reno and Sparks," Martini said. "We aren't going to lose sight of the main point and that is to fight Yucca Mountain."

A bill that died last week in the Assembly would have required railroad yards to submit security plans to the state, partly in response to the nuclear shipments. Martini and a railroad official, driving a borrowed car, recently toured the entire Sparks railroad yard without being stopped. Martini called the experience scary and an eye opener.

But those accounts had nothing to do with the tribe's decision, Williams said.

"As a sovereign nation, we make a lot of decisions that are in the best interests of our tribe," Williams said.

About 900 people live in Schurz, the center of the 325,000-acre reservation. Loux said the only benefit the tribe would have received is a new railroad line on tribal lands north of Walker Lake, relocating a line that runs through the town.

Allen Benson, an Energy Department and Yucca Mountain spokesman in Las Vegas, said the tribe's decision means the Mina corridor will be dropped from the department's choices of potential rail lines to Yucca Mountain. But Benson said the Energy Department still would include the Mina route in an impact statement expected to be released in October.

Elimination of the Mina corridor "certainly simplifies DOE's options," said David Blee, executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, a coalition of nuclear waste shippers.

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KRNV-TV
April 19, 2007

Nevada Nuke Czar Comes Out Against Energy Department Plan

Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, urged the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today to reject the U.S. Department of Energy's plan to claim safety credit for "drip shields" expected to protect metal nuclear waste containers from water dripping into the proposed underground waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Installation of the drip shields would not take place for 100 to 300 years after the dump becomes operational, according to DOE's plans.

Loux sent a strongly worded letter today to Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, the organization that will consider DOE's application to obtain a license to move forward with the Yucca Mountain Project.

"I write to draw the commission's attention to a critical safety and legal issue that has been disregarded by the NRC staff in its pre-licensing interactions with DOE on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain," Loux wrote. "The issue is whether any safety credit should be given to so-called ‘drip shields' in the post-closure repository performance assessment when, as explained below, it is doubtful that the drip shields would ever be installed."

The How and Why of Drip Shields

Loux went on to say that "it is understandable that DOE would want to put off installation indefinitely because of the huge expense and complications involved. But the flip side is that NRC should accordingly not allow DOE to include the drip shields (to support its application for a license to build the project)... The scope and scale of the project for manufacturing and installing the proposed drip shields would be enormous. The drip shields would be made of Titanium 7, would weigh about four tons each, and the repository would need at least 12,500 of them. DOE would have to buy an amount of very expensive titanium metal equal to three and a half years of the entire U.S. domestic production at a cost of at least $5 billion."

Loux concluded by saying "Because of all the above, Nevada respectfully requests NRC to advise DOE that, absent a drastic change in DOE's drip shield installation plans, DOE should not give, and NRC cannot legally allow, any safety credit for drip shields in DOE's TSPA (Total System Performance Assessment) for the upcoming Yucca Mountain License Application."

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Senator Harry Reid
April 17, 2007

Press Release of Senator Reid

Reid Statement on Walker River Paiute Tribe Decision to Prohibit the Transportation of Nuclear Waste Through its Reservation

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada issued the following statement in response to the Walker River Paiute Tribe's decision to prohibit the transportation of nuclear waste through its Reservation:

"I am so pleased that the Walker River Paiute Tribe has made the decision not to allow nuclear waste to be transported through their Reservation. With this decision the Tribe has made the determination that the risks associated with transporting thousands of tons of nuclear waste through Nevada communities far outweigh any potential benefits being touted by those looking to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear dumping ground. There are better ways to strengthen the economy in Nevada's rural and tribal communities, like investing in renewable energy sources, which alone could create more than 3,300 Nevada jobs.

"Further, what is true for Nevada is true for the nation. It is not safe to haul 77,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man through this nation's cities and towns so it can be buried 90 miles outside of Las Vegas. The Tribe's decision is yet another blow to this project, which is on its last legs. It is time for the federal government to come to the realization that on-site storage is the answer to America's nuclear waste challenges."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 18, 2007

Yucca passage dealt setback

Paiute tribe blocks one railroad route

By Steve Tetreault and Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

WASHINGTON -- Energy Department hopes to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain down a western Nevada corridor were dealt a possibly fatal blow on Tuesday when the Walker River Paiute Tribe withdrew its cooperation on a railroad route through its reservation.

The tribal council passed a resolution removing the tribe from a federal environmental impact study that included a rail segment for shipments of spent nuclear fuel along the outskirts of its sovereign lands north of Walker Lake.

The Walker River Paiutes faced growing pressures from their membership and from neighboring communities that were becoming increasingly vocal against the possibility of nuclear waste traveling through Northern Nevada.

"The tribe will not allow nuclear waste to be transported on rail through our reservation," Williams said.

Energy Department officials have considered a Northern Nevada route, known as the Mina corridor, as a promising path to the nuclear waste repository they want to build at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Allen Benson, a Department of Energy spokesman for the Office of Repository Development in Las Vegas, said the tribe's decision means the Mina corridor will be nixed from the department's choices of potential rail lines to Yucca Mountain.

"Selecting Mina would appear to be academic at this time," Benson said late Tuesday. He said DOE will continue to include the Mina route in the impact statement expected to be released in October.

Elimination of the Mina corridor "certainly simplifies DOE's options," said David Blee, executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, a coalition of nuclear waste shippers.

It appeared that DOE's attention will be refocused on a 319-mile rail corridor to Yucca that originates at Caliente in Eastern Nevada.

To many analysts, the east-west Caliente corridor figures to be more expensive and more challenging from an engineering and construction standpoint than the 209-mile north-south Mina route that would run along old mining town rail beds at spots.

Under the Mina proposal, a base route would cross Northern Nevada on a Union Pacific rail, turn south at Winnemucca, pass east of Fernley, through the growing communities of Silver Springs and Wabuska, through the Walker River reservation and to Hawthorne.

Rail improvements and construction would proceed to Mina and near or through Tonopah and Goldfield, and south to the repository site near Amargosa Valley.

But Nevada officials who have fought against the Yucca repository stressed that nuclear waste from California likely would travel through Reno and Sparks, which sparked growing opposition locally.

Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency and a chief critic of the planned repository, said he was "actually pretty pleased" with the tribe's announcement.

"I know the Northern Nevada communities are relieved with the decision as well," Loux said in a telephone interview.

"This essentially would cut off use of the whole Mina corridor. I guess they're back to Caliente," Loux said.

Despite nuclear industry groups trying to persuade the tribe to participate in federal studies of the Mina corridor, Loux said the tribe probably "came to the conclusion there is no mileage with DOE, and nuclear waste transportation isn't as safe as everybody thinks."

Loux estimated the Energy Department spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in its effort to consider the Mina corridor as an option, including money spent on meetings, surveying and soil sampling.

The Walker River Paiutes for years had refused to allow the Energy Department to study a rail route through their reservation.

But the tribe reconsidered its position a year ago. It began cooperating in DOE environmental studies that included relocating a portion of rail track away from the tribal community of Schurz.

Moving the rail line was a Paiute goal as a way to redirect U.S. Army shipments of high explosives headed to the Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot.

Tribal chairman Williams said the Walker River Paiutes grew increasingly uncomfortable.

"The big factor was input from tribal members," she said. "There has been a lot of opposition and not a lot of education in the Northern Nevada area. It was an issue that none of our tribal members were comfortable with. That was the biggest factor."

At the same time, the tribe in a statement said it has been approached by unidentified "business entities" with possible economic development ideas as alternatives to nuclear waste transport.

Williams declined to offer details of any proposals. She said tribal leaders plan to work with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to investigate its options.

Reid applauded the tribe's decision.

"I am so pleased that the Walker River Paiute Tribe has made the decision not to allow nuclear waste to be transported through their Reservation," he said in a statement.

"There are better ways to strengthen the economy in Nevada's rural and tribal communities, like investing in renewable energy sources, which alone could create more than 3,300 Nevada jobs," he said.

"The Tribe's decision is yet another blow to this (Yucca) project, which is on its last legs."

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Las Vegas SUN
April 18, 2007

Walker River tribe pulls permission for Yucca Mountain rail line

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal proposal to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain along a western Nevada rail corridor has been dealt a blow, after the Walker River Paiute Tribe withdrew its permission to use a route through its reservation.

The tribal council passed a resolution Tuesday removing the tribe from a federal environmental impact study that included a rail segment for shipments of spent nuclear fuel along the outskirts of tribal lands north of Walker Lake.

"The tribe will not allow nuclear waste to be transported on rail through our reservation," Williams said.

The Walker River Paiutes had faced pressure from tribe members and from nearby communities worried about the possibility of nuclear waste traveling through northern Nevada.

Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said following a presentation Monday by the head of Nevada's anti-Yucca Nuclear Projects Agency that he would ask the tribe to rescind its invitation for the U.S. government to study the rail line.

Energy Department officials had considered the route, dubbed the Mina corridor, as a possibly cheaper and easier route to transport nuclear waste from around the nation to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Benson said the Energy Department would still include the Mina route in an impact statement expected to be released in October.

Elimination of the Mina corridor "certainly simplifies DOE's options," said David Blee, executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, a coalition of nuclear waste shippers.

The Energy Department has said it favored a 319-mile rail corridor to Yucca that originates at Caliente in eastern Nevada.

But some analysts have said the so-called Caliente corridor would be more expensive and more challenging to build than the 209-mile north-south Mina route, which could use old rail beds in some areas.

Nevada officials fighting the Yucca repository said nuclear waste from California likely would travel through Reno and Sparks, which sparked local opposition.

Bob Loux, Nuclear Projects Agency director, welcomed the tribe's announcement.

"This essentially would cut off use of the whole Mina corridor. I guess they're back to Caliente," Loux said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch opponent of the federal plan to entomb the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada,hailed the tribe's decision as another blow to the Yucca Mountain project, which he said was "on its last legs."

--Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com

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Las Vegas SUN
April 18, 2007

Jon Ralston on the water decision and the shrewdness of Pat Mulroy

In the end, Pat Mulroy won. Doesn't she always?

In the end, gamers and developers won. Don't they always?

In the end, growth won. Doesn't it always?

Other potential winners of the now-approved rural water importation project - the South milking the cow counties, top coyote Harvey Whittemore howling with delight - will be heard from, too. Some obvious losers, especially the voices of environmentalism and slower growth, must be content with "it could have been worse" mutterings.

Indeed, State Engineer Tracy Taylor could have granted the entire 91,000 acre-foot request from the Southern Nevada Water Authority instead of less than half that amount - with one-third more possible in 10 years, assuming no adverse effects occur. But Mulroy, the water czar who has pushed this since the late 1980s, is no wet-behind-the-ears negotiator. The woman who has forged pacts with other states and could probably cite the Colorado River Compact word for word surely thought of asking for more than she needed, so she could get what she wanted and still give the state engineer room to look Solomonic.

It doesn't matter if you think of Mulroy as the devil incarnate, selling the soul of the state to keep the Southern growth inferno burning, or a nonpareil leader, setting a course nearly 20 years ago to assure the valley's future and following it through. What's inarguable is that her grit and determination, her knowledge and savvy were instrumental in securing Monday's approval.

If there has been a more effective leader of a public agency in valley history, I'd like to know who it is. It's no wonder she has been solicited, like clockwork, to run for important offices every even-numbered year for at least the past decade.

"We would have preferred to have a little bit more, to be honest with you," Mulroy said Tuesday on "Face to Face," without a hint of a smile. Scot Rutledge, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said on the same program : "We still don't feel those acre-feet are there, that the water's there. I think the first 10 years will show that. Ultimately what we've got is a very expensive pilot project on our hands."

But this pilot, if this decision is a harbinger, is about to take off. I can't help but make an analogy to the Yucca Mountain project. After billions have been spent erecting a nuclear waste dump or a 285-mile pipeline, what are the odds it will be torn down? And the pipeline opponents don't have Harry Reid controlling a house of Congress to help slow the project.

Taylor's 56-page report is quite compelling, and he clearly took pains to be fair and reasoned, considering the political, economic and environmental stakes. He neatly dissected most of the protests, including the ones about Las Vegas already being large enough. To that claim, Taylor essentially said: Take that up with the Clark County Commission and other local governments who approve zoning and building requests.

And, of course, he's right. People can say Mulroy is a tool of the same interests that are often caricatured as puppet masters of local government officials. But the need for the water down the road would not be nearly so acute if Las Vegas were more like Boulder City - and how exactly would you do that anyhow?

As much as Taylor can defend his actions as proper within his narrow purview and as meticulously as he tossed aside most of the protests, his clarity and precision failed him when he summed up the potential effects. As with Yucca Mountain, it's hard to say because it's never been done before.

Check out this marvel of murkiness: "The state engineer finds that due to the great uncertainty, and no party's ability to quantify impacts with any degree of certainty, caution is warranted as it cannot definitively be said that there will or will not be unreasonable impacts, if those impacts would continue for an unreasonable period of time if pumping were ceased or if any impacts, reasonable or unreasonable, are environmentally sound."

That's a keeper, whatever language it may be.

Translation: Yes, Mulroy and the growth-first crowd are the big winners this week. But when it comes to what the consequences of those victories could mean, the state engineer has a simple answer in that Faulknerian sentence: He has no idea.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com." His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
April 18, 2007

Q+A: Chris Dodd

Presidential hopeful not willing to gamble on Yucca Mountain

By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun

( Editor's note: This is one in an occasional series of interviews with presidential candidates about issues of importance in the West.)

After 33 years in Congress, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut has decided to get out of the bleachers and into the presidential game.

One of eight Democrats running for president, Dodd hopes his foreign policy experience and authorship of influential legislation such as the Family and Medical Leave Act will distinguish him in a crowded field.

Last week, on his third trip to Nevada, Dodd met small groups of voters across the Las Vegas Valley.

The Sun caught up with Dodd after a town hall meeting in Pahrump.

Q: You voted for Yucca Mountain. What's your stance on the issue now?

I voted in favor of having a permanent storage site. And that was before they had developed a dry cask system, which really made this material a lot safer than before , when it was sitting in these pools.

At some point we're going to have to deal with this waste question, but it needs to be stored in a place that is safe. Certainly, after the number of years looking at Yucca Mountain, the conclusion has been that this is not a safe place. It's the wrong site for many reasons, and because of the geology and transportation issues.

So you're in favor of expanding the use of nuclear power?

I grew up less than a mile away from the oldest nuclear power plant in the country on the Connecticut River. I don't rule out nuclear power, particularly if you're serious about global warming.

Coal is not an answer. And you can't do it with wind and solar power alone. So we're going to have to rely on a technology that offers us some real alternatives that don't run the risk of being a polluting energy source.

Some day we'll still need to find a storage site, but in my view it ought to be a retrievable place , too. The technology may get good enough where we extract the material and defang it so that it poses no threat no matter where it's stored. And if we harness this correctly, it's what we ought to be offering some of these smaller, developing countries so they can have more of an independent energy source and not have to be bribed by Hugo Chavez or some of the Persian Gulf countries that control their destiny.

You've said if elected, the country would be free of Persian Gulf oil in a decade. What would the Dodd energy policy look like?

The technology's there. We need to start acting like we care. We need to set an example. Oil is used for just 1 or 2 percent of electrical generating power on the grids. So we need to get our cars right. This is inexcusable. Even today in Michigan, a majority of people believe that fuel-efficiency standards ought to be adopted. Had they been adopted 10 or 15 years ago, Detroit might still have a bright future.

Do you support the Employee Free Choice Act, and if so, does it have a chance of passing the Senate?

I do support the bill, and I hope it has a chance. Even the Republican chairman of the Federal Reserve Board has pointed out that one of the reasons the country has such an income disparity is the decline in union households. We need to recognize that we're losing our middle class. The reason we were able to build one is because there were people out there with the right to collectively bargain and to argue for better working conditions and better wages. People were able to own homes, raise their kids and send them to college. That did not happen miraculously.

You've suggested that America needs tougher trade agreements to compete in the global economy.

These are not trading agreements. I call them enterprise agreements. All we're doing now is giving companies the right to create a platform in some developing country with no commensurate obligations to the people in those countries to improve the conditions of the people who are going to work there. This is very harmful to us in the long run.

Our trading agreements ought to be demanding of these nations who want to be able to sell their goods and services here. We need to insist that these countries commit to improving wages and conditions so that people can start to grow out of poverty and afford America's goods and services as well.

At the same time we need to incentivize people to stay here. Our tax code, the Export-Import Bank (of the United States), the Overseas Private Investment Corp. are all built-in incentives to leave the country. I'm not opposed to providing alternatives to help people in developing countries, but I want to see us do at least as much for people here.

You're in Nevada. Are you a gambler?

I'm running for president. (Laughs.)

Any plans to hit the tables?

Well, the best table is the craps table, and I know that in terms of odds for the consumer, but I'm not a gambler.

--Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.

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Sparks Tribune
April 18, 2007

Proposed nuke waste route presents potential hazards

By Jessica Mosebach
jmosebach@sparkstribune.net

The proposed rail route to ship nuclear waste through Nevada to Yucca Mountain would present a variety of transportation and safety hazards and impact commercial and residential property values, the Sparks City Council heard at Monday's meeting.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, has been studying this issue for 25 years. Loux gave a presentation on the potential effects of allowing repository cask-shipments.

"In the early '90s we approached the (Walker River Paiute) tribe, which thought a more direct route now, called Mina, would be cheaper with less difficulty, engineering-wise," Loux said.

However, the tribe then purchased the rail line that runs from Wabuska to Hawthorne from Southern Pacific and sought the Department of Energy's aid in seeking out a better route, now the proposed Mina/Schurz corridor.

They have invited the Department of Energy (DOE) to study the rail line.

Loux said this northern route through Nevada would have a deeper impact on rural communities in terms of water and traffic.

The councilmen heard two potential scenarios for the shipment of nuclear waste for the years 2010 through 2033.

A railway method would produce about 10,725 cask-shipments by train – two or three daily, or eight rail casks – and one truck cask per week.

A trucking method would involve 53,086 cask-shipments, about six per day, plus 300 rail casks of spent nuclear fuel shipped from Idaho.

These numbers concern Loux, who stated that the track record of successful shipments of nuclear waste has been positive in the nation. With the increase of such loads being carried into Nevada, however, the potential for accidents in the handling of these materials would significantly increase.

"We're concerned that the magnitude of these shipments would lead to human error," he said. "If one of these transportation casks were to be breached, if 1 percent of this cargo got out, it would contaminate up to a 42-square-mile area."

Councilmen and citizens agreed that transporting nuclear waste materials could cause substantial harm to the land and personal health.

Joan Holbert, a resident in Wabuska, commented on how this route would affect her geothermal property.

"The contamination would affect our water, which is the fountain of life. It would destroy our gold, uranium, and other valuable resources," Holbert said.

Loux said citizens are urged to write to Ginia Williams, chairperson of the Walker River Paiute Tribe at P.O. Box 220, Schurz, Nev. 89427, or call 773-2306 to express their concerns about this decision.

Ward 1 Councilman John Mayer lamented that until now, Sparks has not been afforded the opportunity to have a meeting about the route. "We have not been respected or privileged to have a meeting so that the citizens of Sparks can make their wishes known. My family has worked in railroads ... and I know it is not a secured area behind (John Ascuaga's) Nugget," Mayer said. "It'll be a matter of months when it will be robotic switching and it will be catastrophic (if there's an accident)."

Mayor Geno Martini then informed the council that the DOE will hold a forum on the issue, although the venue has not yet been determined.

After Loux's presentation, Rob Joiner, government affairs manager, updated the council on the Legislature. Four bills regarding eminent domain and affordable housing were passed this week.

Also, councilmembers unanimously voted to approve an award of $380,000 for a contract to HNTB for Community Visioning and Master Planning Services to the City of Sparks. City staff discussed various phases in which to complete the master plan, including population planning, conservation management, and housing.

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KOLO
April 18, 2007

Walker River Tribe Pulls Permission for Yucca Mountain Rail Line

A federal proposal to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain along a western Nevada rail corridor has been dealt a blow, after the Walker River Paiute Tribe withdrew its permission to use a route through its reservation.