Nuke-waste meeting draws little public interest

The Citizens Advisory Board for the Nevada Test Site invited the public to sound off about low-level waste shipments to the former nuclear weapons experimental area.

Except the public didn't show up Wednesday night at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in North Las Vegas.

Rick Nielsen, director of Citizen Alert and a CAB member, said he was frustrated by the lack of public interest in truckloads of low-level nuclear waste rolling through the heart of Las Vegas to reach the site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

People may not want to visit the DOE's headquarters in an industrial neighborhood in North Las Vegas, Nielsen said. Wednesday's meeting ended after 10 p.m.

"I've told them to look for another place to hold these meetings," Nielsen said. "I'm frustrated."

Dennis Bechtel, director of Clark County's nuclear waste program and also a CAB member, said he felt the same way.

Bechtel visited Savannah River, S.C., last month and learned that it's citizen's group had the same problem attracting people to the meetings.

Instead of a couple trucks a week, Bechtel noted, Las Vegas highways could see up to seven radioactive truckloads every five days. And Clark County emergency crews admitted last month their resources would be "overwhelmed" in an accident.

The CABs are interested people who oversee environmental cleanup at DOE sites across the nation. There are 12 CABs operating. The Test Site's CAB has 18 members with two vacancies reserved for native Americans.

It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to see that Southern Nevadans stayed away. Are they indifferent?

Nuclear physicist Anthony Hechanova said he thinks the public may be smarter than they seem.

"They're not worried about low-level nuclear waste when there's Yucca Mountain," Hechanova said. "They put all their anger into fighting the high-level nuclear waste from coming here."

The DOE is studying Yucca Mountain as the only U.S. high-level nuclear waste dump, just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. That site, if approved, would have to keep 77,000 tons of highly radioactive wastes intact for more than 10,000 years.

No matter what the reason, the DOE is eyeing the Test Site as a low-level nuclear waste storage dump. It may be the main repository or a regional site, said Carl Gertz, DOE's director for nuclear waste projects.

An environmental assessment is expected later this year on DOE's preferred path to cleaning up radioactive soils, clothing, equipment and sludge, Gertz said.

archive