NEVADA NUCLEAR DUMP
Rogers' attack could be dismissed as just another example of the nuclear industry lashing out at
state officials in response to the defeat of its pet legislation in Congress, legislation defeated by the
effective work of the state's congressional delegation. However, the information about spent fuel
transportation and the state's oversight program contained in Rogers article is simply wrong and
misleading.
The fact is there have been accidents involving spent fuel shipments - at least three of them since
1970 when accurate record keeping was initiated. Between 1957 and 1964, there were 11
transportation accidents and incidents involving spent fuel shipments by the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission and its contractors, including several which resulted in contamination. Transport of
waste to any Nevada facility will result in more spent fuel being shipped during the first year than
during the past 40 years combined. If shipments to a repository or interim facility experience the
same accident and incident rates as past shipments, we can expect to see between 50 and 310
accidents and 250 to 1,000 regulatory incidents over the duration of the shipping campaign.
Contrary to Rogers' assertion, casks are not tested full-scale and no shipping cask has ever been
"subjected to the effects of large anti-tank missiles." In 1981, DOE-sponsored researchers at
Sandia National Laboratories attacked an obsolete truck cask containing a single spent fuel
assembly with a shaped charge designed for attacking reinforced concrete fortifications. The
explosion carved a 6 inch (15.25cm) diameter hole in the outer cask (made of inch-thick stainless
steel), completely penetrating that surrogate fuel assembly inside the cask and releasing more than
five pounds (2.49 kg) of simulated fuel, even though the blast did not penetrate the opposite cask
wall. Currently available anti-tank missiles are designed to penetrate 15 to 36 inches of modern
tank armor.
In 1986, DOE published an Environmental Assessment for Yucca Mountain in which DOE
analysts concluded that transporting high-level radioactive waste by truck to a Nevada facility
could result in 11 radiological fatalities even assuming no accidents during routine operations.
The relentless efforts of industry apologists to discredit the State's effective nuclear waste
oversight program is just one more indication of the industry's growing desperation at the
national level. Nevada's Nuclear Waste Project Office has steadfastly kept the spotlight on the
important issues of health, safety, and risk with respect to the federal program and has refused to
be silenced or to let key safety, site suitability, and transportation concerns be swept under the
rug. Because of this, the Agency and its staff have been subjected to unrelenting attacks - some
of them vindictive and personal in nature - and politically-inspired "audits"ordered by industry
congressional supporters. Even DOE has refused to accept the "findings" of the GAO audit
Rogers refers to.
It is time for the nuclear industry and its representatives to face the fact that political solutions, slick public relations and lobbying campaigns, and misleading attacks on state officials will not result in a workable solution to the industry's problems.