Deadline doesn't deter nuke criticism

Hours after a deadline to make their voices heard had passed, a group of 25 Southern Nevada residents expressed their fears over a plan to transport high-level nuclear waste through Las Vegas.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which had refused to extend a comment period on the report after state officials discovered it, has quietly sent an invitation to selected local and state officials, environmental groups and others to meet behind closed doors to voice their concerns.

They will meet Friday at McCarran International Airport, Rick Nielsen of the environmental watchdog group Citizen Alert said.

The NRC tucked the transportation plan into a report on the renewal of nuclear power plant licenses. It considered two routes to take highly radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. One route travels through the Interstate 15-U.S. 95 interchange and the other along the yet-to-be-built northern edge of the beltway.

Yucca Mountain is the lone site under study as the nation's repository for waste from the nation's nuclear reactors. If it is found scientifically suitable, the earliest it would accept waste would be 2010. However, there is a move in Congress to create a temporary repository at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, that if successful could bring trucks through Las Vegas as early as 2003.

The northern portion of the Las Vegas Beltway is due to be complete in 2003.

"I don't like being the garbage can," said Pat Phillips, a North Las Vegas resident who lives near the beltway route and moved here from San Jose, Calif., in 1995. "It scares me when the government says it's safe."

The NRC transportation report used local information on population and traffic flow that was 10 years old, local officials pointed out. So as with two-thirds of the current population, Phillips' residence near the beltway was not considered in the study.

The commission also picked the beltway as an alternate route, although it is a county road, not a federal highway, Russell di Bartolo, principal planner with the county's Nuclear Waste Division, said.

"The NRC assumes they can use the beltway and they did not consult with the county or the state," di Bartolo said. "They didn't talk to Indian tribes or anyone else."

"It's unconscionable that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is so blatantly doing this," Don Cloquet, representing the Las Vegas Indian Center, said. "It's not a matter of if an accident will happen. It's when."

Duke Phelps, leader of Boy Scout Troop 812, brought a handful of scouts earning their Eagle badges to the meeting. The scouts put their comments in writing, pleading with the commission to accept public comment beyond Tuesday and to schedule a public hearing in Las Vegas.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., also has called on the commission to reconsider its "short-sighted and extremely rudimentary analysis" of health and safety impacts related to nuclear waste transportation through Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain has not been proven to be scientifically sound, the senator said.

archive