STATEMENT OF SUSAN ZIMMERMAN ON BEHALF OF ROBERT R. LOUX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE STATE OF NEVADA AGENCY FOR NUCLEAR PROJECTS, REGARDING THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR A GEOLOGIC REPOSITORY FOR THE DISPOSAL OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NEVADA

PRESENTED AT THE PUBLIC HEARING IN LONE PINE, CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 4, 1999

In order for people to participate in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, they must first be afforded the opportunity to know that a major federal action has the potential to impact them and their communities. While the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting public hearings in various communities in Nevada and around the country, DOE has made no effort to inform citizens and public officials of the relevance of the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to them and their states and communities.

The notices for this public hearing, for example, refer only to a draft EIS for a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. They do NOT indicate that people in Inyo and San Bernadino counties and other parts of California stand to be significantly impacted by radioactive materials shipments as a direct result of the Yucca Mountain program.

One can only conclude that such an oversight is intentional and designed to suppress public interest in the project and participation in the public hearings.

Not only is the noticing for the public hearings deficient, but the draft EIS itself fails to identify the cross-country rail and truck routes used in DOE's transportation impact analysis, and fails to identify potential transportation routes to Yucca Mountain through California. The document further fails to provide a meaningful analysis of the potential impacts on California of rail and truck transportation to the proposed repository.

A 1996 study prepared for the State of Nevada by Planning Information Corporation (PIC) identified routes to Yucca Mountain through California, which might be used by DOE and its contractors under a consolidated southern routing strategy. Under this approach, the most likely east-west highway corridors would be I-44 from Missouri to Oklahoma, I-40 from Tennessee to California, and I-15 from California to Nevada. The most likely east-west rail corridor would be the Santa Fe-Burlington Northern line from Kansas City to San Bernardino, connecting with the Union Pacific from San Bernardino to Nevada. These routes are shown in Attachment 1.

Using the shipment numbers in the draft EIS and the routing study prepared by PIC, the State of Nevada has developed a preliminary estimate of potential legal-weight truck shipments through California to Nevada. Table 1 shows that 74,000 truck shipments, about three-quarters of the total, could traverse Southern California under DOE's mostly truck scenario. There could be an average of five truck shipments through California every day, seven days a week, for 39 years.

The DEIS evaluates a mostly truck scenario and a mostly rail scenario. Nevada believes that the final EIS must evaluate a third transportation scenario based on the current transportation capabilities of reactor and storage sites. Under the "current capabilities"scenario, there could be more than 26,000 truck shipments ( Table 2) and more than 9,800 rail shipments (Table 3) through California. Under this scenario, California would receive an average of two truck shipments per day and four to five rail shipments per week for 39 years.

This potential level of shipments through California certainly constitutes a significant impact which should have been identified and evaluated in the draft EIS.

Nevada believes that DOE has violated NEPA by concealing crucial information used in the draft EIS. Absent this information, persons affected by the transportation impacts of the proposed action have no way of determining the legal sufficiency of DOE's analysis. Moreover, DOE's attempted concealment of the shipment routes is a deviation from DOE's past practice of identifying the most likely transportation routes in NEPA documents, such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) EIS and Supplemental EIS. This action can only diminish public confidence in DOE's ability to safely transport these highly radioactive materials.

The State of Nevada will be submitting extensive written comments on this Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. It is our hope that these comments and those of all others will be seriously considered, and that a reasonable No Action alternative (as opposed to the unreasonable and unrealistic ones contained in the draft document) is selected as the preferred action in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.