Nuclear waste transit safe?

An activist worries about terrorist attacks on high-level nuclear shipments to a federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., a program that may begin in 2010.

But federal officials say the shipments will be safe.

Meanwhile, uncertainty about budgetary matters has left some shipment details unresolved, according to Gary Lanthrum, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of National Transportation.

The setting for the discussions was a meeting of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board's Transportation Planning Panel. The federal board convened the two-day meeting Wednesday in the Sheraton City Center Hotel, 150 W. 500 South.

The session comes about three months after the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down all challenges to the selection of Yucca Mountain as the site of the first national long-term repository for high-level nuclear waste. It's also about one month after settlement of a suit by Union Pacific Railroad concerning use of rail lines to move the material, according to Lanthrum.

That was the first suit to be settled, among a number that are pending with railroads. Some suits have been going on for 20 years, he said.

"These shipments are not something the railroads can turn down," Lanthrum told the panel. "If we're compliant (with safety regulations), they have to accept them."

Spent fuel rods and other dangerously radioactive waste are expected to be shipped from utilities and federal storage areas throughout the country. According to the DOE, shipments should begin in 2010.

Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL), Salt Lake City, said whether railroads or highways are used to move the material, "about 90 percent of the shipments are expected to come through Utah."

He cited federal figures that if the material traveled mostly by rail, 95 percent would go through Utah; if by truck, the figure drops to 87 percent. When the Deseret Morning News attended the board's morning session on Wednesday, the board's focus was strongly on rail transport.

HEAL is concerned about "the security issue of moving nuclear waste across the country," Groenewold told the paper. He called the shipments "mobile dirty bombs."

"And how do we ensure that terrorists won't sabotage a shipment?" he asked.

If an accident were to occur, about 80 percent of Utah's population lives within five miles of the transportation belt, Groenewold said. He worried about health impacts to the public and emergency responders, as well as the temporary shutdown of ordinary transportation.