On July 9th the US Senate voted to approve the storage of nuclear waste
inside Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the nation's
fastest growing city. The state of Nevada produces not one kilowatt of
nuclear energy, and not one ounce of nuclear waste. Its congressional
representatives as well as every major environmental group in the nation
have opposed the transportation to and storage of America's nuclear waste
at this site.

The Yucca Mountain plan does not reduce the number of hazardous waste
sites in America. Currently, there are 131 nuclear waste storage
facilities, and the Yucca Mountain plan has resolved to consolidate these
sites into one. Logistically, however, this is impossible. As long as
nuclear reactors continue to operate, which is the main reason for finding
a waste "solution", there will continue to be waste stored above ground at
facilities across the nation. The DoE has estimated that it will
transport 3000 tons of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca mountain each year, but
the output of nuclear waste at the established facilities is currently
2000 tons per year, thus the depletion rate will only be 1000 tons per
year out of 46,000 tons of waste that has accumulated thus far. This
number predates any attempt to increase reliance on nuclear power, and the
Bush Administration has called for an increase in output from nuclear
facilities.

The DoE estimates that it will take 25 years to fill Yucca mountain to its
capacity of 77,000 tons. By then operating reactors will have created an
additional 50,000 tons of waste, leaving us right back where we started.
The transportation of waste through our neighborhoods for the next 38
years will not consolidate waste, make our neighborhoods cleaner, or make
us safer as the proposal promises, but instead it will give industry more
allowance for an increase in the use of nuclear energy while putting our
lives and our environment at risk.

The transportation of nuclear waste will be right through our backyards
(much of it will travel through California). DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham
has testified that the majority of waste will be transported by rail.
According to testimony before the US House of Representatives, Nevada
Governor Kenny Guinn says that the DoE plans to build at least 400 miles
of new rail lines within the state of Nevada for transportation, which is
more new rail capacity than the US has built in the last century. Many of
the reactor sites, however, don't have access to rail lines and thus the
transportation will take place either via truck or in a ship.

In its environmental impact statement on Yucca Mountain, the DoE reports
that there will be as many as 108,000 high-level waste shipments to Yucca
Mountain. More than 123 million people live within 1/2 mile of the planned
routes. The DoE has also stated the proposed use of barges to ship fuel to
and from several of the nation's busiest ports, including the Long Beach
Harbor, the largest and most frequented port on the west coast. By their
own estimates, the DoE warns that with 108,000 shipments we can expect
between 50 and 300 accidents. A single accident occuring from the
transport of high-level nuclear waste could result in latent cancer deaths
as well as millions of dollars in cleanup cost.

The solution is not to find a new storage facility for the nuclear waste,
but to stop the use of nuclear energy. We are allowing for the extended
and increased use of nuclear power, the continuation of a program that is
not only hazardous to our health and our environment but that is
intricately connected to the production of nuclear weapons. The
transporation to Yucca Mountain is still under heavy scrutiny and the
state of Nevada is fighting tooth and nail to keep the plan from taking
effect. It will be a few years still until the transportation begins,
which is why it is so important for us to take action now.

More info on the Yucca Plan can be found here:

www.nuclearneighborhoods.org
www.citizenalert.org/

Planned truck route through california:
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/maps2002/ca.htm

Counties affected by rail transport of waste:
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans/rail.pdf