Hold Yucca hearings in Salt Lake City?

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department should hold public meetings in Salt Lake City and other Western cities on its latest transportation plan to move nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, the state of Nevada argued in a letter sent Friday to the department's radioactive-waste management director.

Shipments of nuclear waste moving from Eastern states to Nevada would go through Utah if the government approves the federal storage site planned at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The department opened a 45-day public comment period on Oct. 13 for a new environmental study on a potential rail route that would take loads of nuclear waste to the mountain. It also planned several public meetings in Nevada to discuss the new rail route and plans to develop new storage options at the federal repository.

But Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said most of the waste would go into Nevada via Salt Lake City and Sacramento, Calif., so residents of those states need public scoping meetings and more time to evaluate the proposal.

Loux said the latest route moves waste on existing railroad lines running parallel with I-80 from the California border on the west and the Utah border on the east.

"The notices of Oct. 13, 2006, are yet another example of DOE burdening Nevadans with short time limits and inadequate information for meaningful participation," Loux wrote in a letter to Edward Sproat, director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Loux noted that the time frame is too short for local governments to meet and approve what comments they would submit based on county commission and city council meetings.

He wants the department to extend the comment period to at least 90 days and to have detailed maps ready to show the public on the new route. He wants public meetings in Salt Lake City, Sacramento and other cities.

The department had favored a route known as the Caliente Corridor, which would have taken waste along a specific rail line that the department would build to bring waste to Yucca.

Another potential route, known as the Mina route, was off the table because the Walker River Paiute Tribe Reservation, northwest of Hawthorne, Nev., had refused to allow the department to move waste through the reservation.

But in May, the tribe said it would allow the department to finish the environmental study it needed to see how it would transport waste across the reservation.

A preliminary study showed the route could be better for the department, but the tribe was to know the results before it would decide whether to allow shipments. So the department opted to create a federal environmental study to formally evaluate the route, which required the public comment period and scoping meetings.

Meanwhile, the department issued a separate announcement saying it planned to redesign a surface building at Yucca where waste would be handled before going into the mountain. This also has 45-day public comment period going on at the same time. Loux said it is too much at once for anyone to get through the information involved and make a proper comment.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com