Nuclear Waste:  Shipments Are Main Concern, Las Vegas Mayor Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman yesterday said his staunch opposition to the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is based on the safety and security risks of transporting spent nuclear fuel (see GSN, March 13).

The waste shipments are “like a big old … baby out there waiting to be blasted,” Goodman told Global Security Newswire.  “Nothing could be done to satisfy me as long as [nuclear waste] is transported.”

An accident is inevitable during one of the more than 90,000 planned shipments of spent nuclear fuel to the Yucca Mountain repository from sites around the United States, Goodman said (see GSN, Feb. 4).  If waste from one shipment leaks, it could contaminate a 42-square-mile area, he added.

“One of the shipments isn’t going to make it and that’s going to be a disaster,” Goodman said.

There are also concerns that terrorists could attempt to attack shipments, Goodman said, adding that he is not satisfied by U.S. Energy Department claims that shipping casks are robust enough to withstand such an attack.

“I’ve seen too many Afghanistan movies where terrorists had … missiles with two-mile accuracy,” he said.

Goodman said he has been trying to convince the mayors of cities along planned transportation routes of the dangers posed by the shipments (see GSN, Feb. 22).  Already, mayors in Missouri and California and the mayor of Denver have expressed opposition to Yucca Mountain, he said.

Religious leaders and entertainers, such as Las Vegas legend Wayne Newton and pop culture icon Charo, have also been contacted to help with the anti-Yucca Mountain public relations campaign, Goodman said.

Charo is “cuchi-cuching against it,” he said, and “the message is catching on.”

Goodman said he is serious about his oft-quoted claim that he will arrest any truck drivers who attempt to transport nuclear waste through Las Vegas.  Once the drivers are arrested, Las Vegas towing companies have offered to tow the shipments outside the state, he said.

Truck drivers “would wish they had never come through Vegas,” Goodman said, flashing his diamond-decorated, law-enforcement badge (made by the same company that made frontier lawman Wyatt Earp’s badge, according to the mayor).

Supporters Disagree

Meanwhile, Nevada supporters of the Yucca Mountain plan said that Nevada politicians are only exploiting popular prejudices on the issue.

“The mayor is in the right place for entertaining,” said Bill Vasconi, a former Nevada Test Site employee and independent Yucca Mountain advocate.  “I would be comfortable if state officials attacked substance, not progress.”

“State politicians have created a bogeyman from scratch,” said Bill Phillips, a nuclear physicist and independent Yucca Mountain advocate.  “Politicians are demagogues and play on people’s fears to gain votes.”

With Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s expected veto of Yucca Mountain, the battle will move into Congress where Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a Yucca Mountain opponent, could play a decisive role in determining whether the plan moves forward (see GSN, March 7).

The Yucca Mountain vote will “zip right through the House” but “could fall apart in the Senate,” Goodman said, adding that Reid is influential enough to persuade enough senators to defeat the plan.

Reid has more power and influence than many people believe, Phillips said, agreeing that the senator could block the Yucca Mountain plan.

“I hope he doesn’t have” the needed clout, Phillips said.  “But I think he does.”

Vasconi, however, said he believes Reid would not be able to derail Yucca Mountain plans in the Senate.  There are about 40 states with temporary dry-cask spent-fuel storage sites — enough states and senators who want to get rid of their waste, he said.

Do Local Residents Care?

For most Nevada residents, Yucca Mountain is not an issue, Vasconi said, adding that public meetings on the issue have been sparsely attended.

Yucca Mountain ranks “14^th, 15^th on people’s list of concerns,” he said.

If Nevada residents do have negative views on Yucca Mountain, it is because they are not informed enough on the technical aspects, Vasconi and Phillips said. 

“Most people believe what the senators tell them, that it’s bad for them,” Phillips said.

Goodman said Nevada residents are well informed on the issue, and any talk of benefits to the state from the Yucca Mountain waste repository is misguided.

There are “no benefits when one life can be lost,” Goodman said.  “The people of Las Vegas are 100 percent behind me.”

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Nuclear Waste:  Energy Department Adequately Prepared for Water Movement, Engineer Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

LAS VEGAS — The U.S. Energy Department has adequately prepared for handling water movement through the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository, a U.S. Energy Department design engineer on the project said here yesterday.  Preventing water from reaching and corroding the spent-fuel waste packages is one of the most important factors in the Nevada facility’s design, he said.

When the Energy Department first evaluated sites for the planned nuclear waste repository, U.S. Geological Service experts said the most important factor was “water, water and oh yeah, water,” Patrick Rowe, an Energy design engineer on the Yucca Mountain project, said.

There will be five radionuclides in storage that could be carried by water seeping through the mountain down into the water table, located about 1,000 feet from where the waste canisters would be stored:  uranium, plutonium, radioactive iodine, americium and technetium.  While these radionuclides could contaminate local groundwater if they leached into the water table, it would be physically impossible for them to do so unless they were carried by water moving through the mountain, Rowe said.

“The mountain’s natural features present a formidable line against the movement of radionuclides,” according to an Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management release. 

Yucca Mountain is located in the Amargosa Desert, a brown and arid stretch of land in Nevada that is one of the driest places in the United States.  On average, Yucca Mountain receives about seven inches of precipitation per year.  Testing conducted in an alcove located near the mouth of a tunnel leading into the mountain determined how much of that precipitation would seep down into the mountain, Rowe said.  By using a sprinkler system installed on the top of the mountain, covered to prevent evaporation, Yucca Mountain engineers determined only about a tenth would seep down to the level of the first alcove, about 100 feet from the top and far above where any waste canisters would be stored, he said.

At a second alcove cut into the tunnel leading down to where the waste canisters would be stored, Energy Department engineers evaluated whether any water that seeped down to that level would travel through a geologic fault, Rowe said.  He said the department determined that the fault would not carry water down into where the canisters would be stored.

At about 800 feet down into the mountain, researchers installed heating elements into holes cut into the rock wall to simulate the heat that would be given off by the waste canisters (see GSN, Feb. 1).  The heating elements, which reached a peak temperature of about 290 degrees during the four-year test, have now been shut down and will be monitored for an additional four years to determine the effect of the cooling of the rock on water movement, Rowe said. 

The heating elements were switched off “almost on the day [Energy Secretary] Spencer Abraham made his recommendation,” he said (see GSN, Feb. 15).

The tests determined that, while there would be movement of the rock due to the heat, the water itself would be drawn away from the canisters, in effect creating “a buffer zone,” he said.

Researchers also examined how the alternating layers of volcanic and nonvolcanic rock that make up Yucca Mountain would block the movement of water through the mountain.  If any water were able to penetrate down into the “drifts,” or underground tunnels cut into Yucca Mountain where the waste canisters would be stored, it would then have to corrode through a thick titanium drip shield placed over the canisters, Rowe said.  He added that if the water could corrode its way through the shield, it would then have to corrode its way through the storage canisters themselves. 

In that situation, most of what little water that would reach the spent-fuel itself would be evaporated by the heat generated by the waste before it could dissolve any radionuclides and carry them down into the water table, Rowe said.  Water would then have to make its way through the floor of the storage tunnels and through a layer of zeolites – minerals that can either filter out radionuclides or slow down their process through the rock layer.

Rowe was shocked at claims made by Yucca Mountain opponents that the mountain was in effect a sieve and water would easily flow through the mountain and carry radioactive contaminants into the ground water supply (see GSN, Feb. 6).

“It doesn’t look like any sieve I’ve ever seen,” he said.

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Radiological Weapons:  France Removes Missiles Guarding Nuclear Plants

Surface-to-air missiles no longer protect two nuclear facilities in La Hague and Ile Longue, Periscope Daily Defense News Capsules reported Saturday (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2001).

“The Crotale missiles have been redeployed,” said a spokesman for the Defense Ministry.  Officials are maintaining warning procedures, ready aircraft and a civilian overflight ban at the plants (Periscope Daily Defense News Capsules, March 8).

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