Editorial: Thinking about a traffic nightmare

THE U.S. Department of Energy can hardly be surprised that Nevada officials won't cooperate with the department's plans to upgrade or maintain any of the roads that could be used if nuclear waste is ever trucked to Yucca Mountain.

J.C. de la Garza, transportation manager at the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, appeared last week before a state legislative panel to discuss possible truck and train routes in Nevada carrying high-level radioactive waste. He told the Legislative Committee to Study Construction and Maintenance of Highways that the Energy Department would prefer to ship the waste by rail, but the agency has identified five possible truck routes, three of which would go through Las Vegas. Under this scenario, there would be 11 shipments a week into Yucca Mountain aboard trucks pulled and pushed by tractors. These huge trucks would have a top speed of 45-50 mph and carry about 150 tons. State Transportation Director Tom Stephens couldn't have been more right in saying that these trucks would be "extremely disruptive" to highway traffic.

De la Garza, however, said that turnouts are planned for every five miles on U.S. 95 for the trucks to use and allow vehicles to move past them. But considering the explosive growth the valley has experienced, it's hard imagining that shipping by truck wouldn't create traffic nightmares, let alone the danger that an accident involving the world's most dangerous substance would pose to fellow vehicles.

Once again the federal government has proven it is not serious about a truly scientific review of Yucca Mountain. Shipping high-level nuclear waste through one of the nation's fastest-growing areas makes no sense at all. Then again, storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain doesn't make any sense either, but that isn't stopping the federal government from moving forward.

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