Issues > April 14, 1998 (#53) > Rolling Nuclear Thunder... Trucking Past a Location Near You!

Rolling Nuclear Thunder... Trucking Past a Location Near You!

If the nuclear industry gets its way, after showering Congress with $12.8 million from January 1995 to June 1997, we the public will pick up the tab for moving and storing the 85,000 tons of highly toxic radioactive waste created by the industry over the last 30 years. At the same time, this massive radioactive waste hauling program, dubbed "Mobile Chernobyl" by anti-nuclear activists, will subject us to enormous health and safety risks.

Last year, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which is currently in conference committee. It orders continuous transportation of high-level nuclear waste on public roads and rail lines from the nation's 120-odd nuclear reactors (both active and closed) and 27 weapons facilities to a temporary storage site at the Nevada Test Site next to Yucca Mountain. The shipments are slated to begin in 2002 and take 30 years to complete. The proposed routes go through 43 states, and 50 million people live within half a mile of them.

Nuclear physicist Marvin Resnikoff says the fission process makes the fuel assembly in the reactor's core "intensely radioactive," and after three years it must be replaced. "To stand for ten seconds, three feet from a fuel assembly as it comes out of the reactor core," he says, "means certain death from internal bleeding and anemia." A report by the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects says thirty seconds' exposure to an unshielded 10-year-old fuel assembly, when standing three feet away, significantly increases risk of cancer or genetic damage.

Transporting such lethal material on public thoroughfares presents several problems: radiation exposure to nearby drivers and the risk of accidents, if not sabotage. Waste casks emit gamma radiation, and the dose to adjacent drivers and passengers could be about one chest x-ray an hour. Using U.S. Department of Transportation data, Ralph Nader's consumer group, Public Citizen, estimates 210 to 354 accidents over the duration of the shipments, an average of seven to 12 a year.

In the event of an accident, clean-up would not be cheap. According to the Department of Energy, a realistic scenario involving a high-speed crash with a fire emitting a small amount of radiation would contaminate 42 square miles, take 462 days to clean up, and cost from $620 million to $19.4 billion, depending on the extent of contamination and cleanup.

President Clinton has vowed to veto the legislation when it reaches his desk, but it is essential that we keep the pressure on to both bolster his resolve and let our Senate and House representatives know this plan is unacceptable. See page 3 for what you can do.

Resource:

To see how close to your neighborhood shipments of nuclear waste would pass en route to Yucca Mountain, according to the Department of Energy's proposed shipping routes, see the Environmental Working Group's www.mapscience.org.

Karen Charman is a New York-based investigative reporter.