Nevadans plan to emphasize the risks of transportation

By Benjamin Grove / Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON -- The week before the House approved the Yucca Mountain project, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., gave the weekly Democratic radio address.

The five-minute speech follows President Bush's weekly message each Saturday morning, and Democratic leaders allowed Berkley the time as a final chance to plead her case to a national audience. She made an impassioned plea, arguing that the plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is scientifically flawed -- and dangerous.

Berkley also hammered a point that has become central to Nevada's fight against the dump: transporting high-level nuclear waste creates needless risks of accidents and terrorist attacks.

"People make mistakes; accidents happen," Berkley said. "But an accident involving nuclear waste could be catastrophic, exposing whole communities to radiation and utterly destroying the environment for nearly a quarter of a million years."

The argument didn't have much of an effect on House lawmakers. As expected, they approved Yucca Mountain on a 306-117 vote.

But Nevada officials say they have just begun their crusade to spread their waste-transportation message. The Senate is expected to vote on the Yucca plan by the end of July, and ultimately the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be required to license the site.

"This was not the end," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said after the May 8 House vote. "True to our battle born heritage, Nevada will continue to fight."

If Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- and eventually, the federal courts -- approve the Yucca plan, the high-level waste could be hauled to Yucca Mountain by train and truck as early as 2010, although many observers believe 2015 or 2020 is more realistic.

Both sides in the Yucca debate generally agree that shipping 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to the Nevada site would be an unprecedented transportation campaign for a single nation. But agreement on transportation issues stops there.

Nevada officials say it could take 100,000 shipments or more over 38 years. That assumes that mostly trucks do the shipping.

But nuclear industry officials say it would take only about 4,375 shipments, using mostly rail routes, over just 24 years.

"The fact is that there will be no armada of shipments to Yucca Mountain," said Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International Co., which manufactures steel nuclear waste containters -- one of many companies that stands to gain from Yucca.

In fact, no one knows for sure how many shipments would be needed, or whether mostly trucks or trains would do the hauling -- the Energy Department has not made final decisions on those issues.

About 3,000 high-level waste shipments have been transported -- with only eight accidents, none of which resulted in radiation release -- since 1964, nuclear industry sources say.

Their message: it's safe. And nuclear industry lobbyists have been aggressive in arguing the point to lawmakers and the public. They say lead-lined steel waste containers can survive fire, falls and collisions in case of an accident.

They have produced video tapes of some of the tests for media and even developed a public relations campaign called "An American Success Story: The Safe Transportation of Used Nuclear Fuel." Industry officials add that the federal government, working with local governments, tightly regulate and track the shipments.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham agrees waste shipping can be conducted safely.

"Nothing that the opponents of Yucca Mountain have presented, including baseless allegations regarding the transportation of nuclear waste, rises to the burden of proof that requires Congress to stop the process before a thorough review of the site is conducted by the independent experts at the NRC," Abraham said after the House vote, when he urged the Senate to follow suit.

But Nevada officials point to the Energy Department's own admission that accidents are likely, given the sheer volume of shipments it would take to fill Yucca Mountain. They insist the unprecedented waste shipping campaign needlessly puts Americans on truck and train routes at risk, when waste can be safely stored -- and guarded -- on-site right where it is.

Nevada officials and environmental groups argue that full-scale models of the waste shipping containers have not been adequately tested. They stress that even experts acknowledge that a terrorist with a small missile can blow a hole in a cask and spew deadly material into the environment (how much is a matter of great debate).

Nevada officials also say the Energy and Transportation Departments are not nearly prepared to monitor so many shipments, nor are state and local governments and emergency response teams ready to handle an accident.

Many municipalities are just now becoming aware of the proposed Yucca plan and know little about it, Nevada officials say. "The federal government is treating every community in America with the same contempt as they are the people of Nevada," Sen. John Ensign said in April in written testimony prepared the House Transportation Committee. "At least they have had the decency to tell us that we Nevadans will be exposed to radioactive material -- the rest of the country will just have to wait for disaster before they find out."

Ultimately, Nevada officials figured that they might just be able to drum up substantial opposition in Congress to Yucca Mountain if they generated enough concern -- critics call it irresponsible fear-mongering -- about waste transportation. Failing that, Nevada officials hoped that they would have at least laid the groundwork for future cases to be made before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and federal court judges.

Nevada officials and environmental groups have stretched their creativity to get their message across, through advertising, raucous rallies, quiet, closed-door lobbying, and congressional forums.

The state of Nevada last year established a fund for anti-Yucca activities. The Legislature committed $4 million, plus another $3 million if the money could be matched by private citizens and companies. The gaming industry has contributed about $750,000. Clark County chipped in $1.5 million.

The money pays for lawyers -- the state has filed four suits already in federal court to block the project -- plus lobbyists, public relations specialists and television commercials. So far, two anti-Yucca commercial has been aired in Vermont and Utah: 30-second spots that predictably centered on the transportation issue: in the Vermont commercial, the narrator, actor Ed Begley Jr., tells viewers that nuclear waste will be rolling "right through the towns we live in."

Terrorist missles could blow holes in nuclear wate casks, potentially sending radiation into the environment, as shown in this 1998 test at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Photo courtesy of International Fuel Containers LTD.

It's not clear how effective the advertisement was -- the two principal targets of the commercial, Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Independent James Jeffords, still intend to vote for the Yucca project. Like many lawmakers, they want waste stored at a temporary site in their state shipped off to Nevada.

A similar commercial began running in Utah May 9, aimed at Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, both Republicans who have supported the Yucca project.

Nevada officials also tried to use a congressional hearing to highlight the dangers of waste shipping. Nevada's two House lawmakers, Berkley and Gibbons convinced Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young to hold a hearing on waste transportation. The committee assembled an impressive panel of experts and witnesses that included Gov. Kenny Guinn, Gibbons, Ensign, plus political foes Dario Herrera and Jon Porter, who are vying for Nevada's new third House seat.

Nevada leaders said the hearing stirred new fears among a few lawmakers and began a new national debate on waste transportation.

"Some have accused Nevada of fear mongering simply for honestly and sincerely raising the many questions that these shipments to Yucca Mountain pose for our nation's citizens," Guinn told the congressional panel. "But these are extremely legitimate questions, and they deserve legitimate answers."

Of course, the hearing had no practical effect on the House vote. In fact, at the very hour Nevada officials were testifying that waste shipping was dangerous, the House Energy Committee was voting to approve Yucca Mountain, 41-6, in another hearing room in the same House office building. That panel vote set up the full House vote May 8.

The hearing panel had also included witnesses who testified that waste shipping is safe, including officials from the Transportation Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Energy Department, the Federal Railroad Administration and a national railroad union.

"The railroads' safety record speaks for itself," Association of American Railroads CEO Edward Hamberger said in his testimony. "There has never been a (radiation) release in connection with the transportation of spent nuclear fuel. Furthermore, the railroads' overall safety record shows that the public has every reason to expect this record will continue."

Still, Nevada senators continue to lobby their colleagues on the transportation issue.

Reid and ally Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are likely to corral 35 Democrats to vote against the controversial project. That leaves the heavy lifting to the freshman Republican Ensign to rally enough Republicans to give Nevada a 51-vote majority.

Ensign told the congressional transportation panel to consider the Baltimore tunnel fire last summer in which a hazardous materials freight train burned for several days.

"Imagine a similar accident," Ensign said, "only the waste is radioactive."

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