Thursday, March 6, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
If Congress funds a U.S. Department of Energy pilot project, by 1999 a truck carrying metal radioactive enough to kill an unprotected person in 10 minutes could join the worst traffic jams in Las Vegas.
Carl Gertz of the DOE's Nevada Operations Office said the federal agency wants to try bringing 20 cubic feet of metal scrapped from the closed Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant in western Massachusetts on an alternate route.
Instead of trucking the radioactive wastes across Hoover Dam, over U.S. 95 to the Nevada Test Site, a train could bring the containers to Lamb Boulevard and Interstate 15.
From there, the nuclear loads would shift to trucks for the trip to the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on I-15 through the Spaghetti Bowl, where a truck loaded with food jackknifed Saturday, injuring six people and closing the highway for eight hours.
"Why would Nevada taxpayers want to store it here?" asked Dale Schutte, chairman of the Citizens Advisory Board, which met Wednesday at the Community College of Southern Nevada's Cheyenne Avenue campus.
"Probably Nevada taxpayers don't want it here," Gertz replied, but Congress has decided to send such waste to three or four regional sites.
The metal, contaminated with radioactive cobalt, cesium and strontium, is stored in pools of water at the plant.
"You would probably receive a lethal dose in five or 10 minutes standing next to a container unprotected," Gertz said.
The nuclear definition calls it "greater than class C," which means it is more radioactive than any other type of low-level waste, Gertz said.
If Congress approves Senate Bill 104 this year, the wastes will eventually go to a high-level nuclear waste dump. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site under study for a national radioactive dump, but won't open before 2010.
The Test Site is ideal for receiving such radioactive scrap, because it is dry, the ground water is 700 feet to 1,600 feet deep and employees are experienced in handling such materials, Gertz said.
Gertz outlined a plan for above-ground temporary storage at the Test Site for up to 20 years. Such a program does not require approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the way a proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain would.
If Yucca Mountain never opens, then the DOE would have to develop a storage strategy, he said.
Nevada officials didn't buy it. "If this comes here, we are prepared to sue," said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Nuclear Waste Project Office.
The state has already sued the DOE over disposing waste at the Test Site from out-of-state generators.
Gertz said the DOE believes such a program is the right thing to do with contaminated materials that cannot be buried in shallow ground. Before shipments begin, the DOE will answer all state and federal environmental concerns, he said.
Most plants shutting down reactors are storing highly radioactive fuel rods and wastes such as Yankee Rowe's on site in dry cask storage, Gertz explained.
William Rithle, representing Yankee Atomic Electric Co., said the 31-year-old plant was too expensive to inspect in order to extend its power production life another 20 years. The company set up a $340 million trust fund to close it down. It cost $60 million in the 1950s to build the plant.
Under "Project Green Field," the Yankee Rowe site will be restored for public use, he said.
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