Sunday, March 23, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
NEVADANS may soon get a taste of what a nuclear dump might mean to them.
The Department of Energy plans to ship 110 tons of nuclear waste through the state to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory at Arco. The waste is highly enriched -- spell that radioactive -- and will be coming from nuclear reactors in Taiwan, Japan and Korea this summer.
How the DOE is handling public reaction is an eye-opener. It plans to hold hearings in Concord, Calif., the point of debarkation, and at the Idaho destination. It also has ordered an environmental impact statement -- volumes of mere paper -- a poor substitute for public education and training.
Residents of cities between Concord and Idaho will not be afforded hearings to be informed on the issue. Municipalities such as Reno and Sparks, which will have the shipment rumble through their downtowns, apparently don't matter. City officials in Nevada also will not be given emergency management training to provide a decent chance to react in case of an accident.
The shipments will travel on Union Pacific Railroad tracks east from California to Utah, where they'll be switched to a northbound line into Idaho. That route experienced devastating flooding this winter and is not out of the woods yet as the spring runoff begins.
The DOE's cavalier attitude toward local governments is appalling, but well in line with the department's historical practices. Shipments of waste through Oregon on their way to Hanford, Wash., are routinely kept secret. Most Americans are unaware of what's moving on nearby highways.
We sympathize with the plight of Northern Nevadans and we hope they now understand what all the commotion has been about at the southern end of the state.
Las Vegans for years have been alarmed at the prospect of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste traveling on railroads and highways -- through populated areas -- on the way to a remote dump site.
Waste shipments from the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain would converge from throughout the nation, endangering not only Nevadans but everyone living along main transportation routes. Enormous costs would be required to train hundreds of fire departments in the basics of radioactive containment. The risk to human health would be frightening, despite DOE's assurances that nothing can go wrong.
The department may have done Nevadans a favor. It has clearly demonstrated what precautions it will take on future nuclear shipments: almost none.
No wonder Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan point to this shipment as an example of what could happen if the temporary aboveground dump is approved at the Nevada Test Site. The lesson may serve to further unite the state against this threat.
The DOE may have inadvertently provided a public service, weakening its case for any kind of nuclear dump in Nevada. For that we eventually may be thankful. But, for now, we wish our northern neighbors the best of luck.
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