KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasYucca Mountain Safety Questioned
(Nov. 17) -- Barbara Searcy is a Las Vegas realtor visiting Yucca Mountain during a public tour. "I hear a lot of conversation about Yucca Mountain from people who are coming in from out of state and I have not been here. So I thought it would be very wise for me to learn first-hand a little bit more about it," said Barbara Searcy.
She's learning from the people on the front lines of the federal government's efforts to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. As a realtor, Searcy is concerned about the financial impacts of the proposed nuclear waste dump.
A new impact report created by Clark County's Nuclear Waste Division doesn't paint a pretty picture. Irene Navis predicts home values would decrease at least 3-percent, even more if there's a transportation accident.
"Actually, that's kind of the lower end of the spectrum. The high-end of the spectrum is more like a 30-percent drop in property values depending on the land use you're talking about and what types of incident you were talking about," Navis said.
Navis says an accident could also impact our local economy by creating a stigma. "If the accident happens 50 miles outside of Las Vegas, the words "Las Vegas" will show up in the newspaper article or CNN or anywhere."
Then there's the county hospital. "They just don't have the equipment or the room, or the facility set up to respond to such an accident," Navis said. She says UMC needs an isolation area for people who may be contaminated and funding to train staff.
Former Nevada Governor Bob List works on behalf of the nuclear industry. He says a lot of this information is fear mongering. "The reality is there have been over 3000 shipments, safely done of spent nuclear fuel all around the planet, with no release of radiation damaging to anybody," List said.
"The worst thing people can do is well this is no big deal, because we're doing a lot of other shipping. This is a totally different deal than what we have done in the past," said Fred Dilger, Clark County Nuclear Waste Division.
Dilger studies nuclear waste transportation for Clark County and says Yucca Mountain officials don't have a completed transportation plan, but he doubts it will be by rail. "We have a lot of mountains, yes they're very low, but we've got a lot of them. It's difficult to build, we have flash floods, we have steep grades, and the United States doesn't have a lot of experience building rail roads anymore," Dilger said.
"I believe it will be brought by rail, we're gonna build a rail road and while there may be few shipments by truck, most of it will be by rail," List said. He thinks 95-percent will come by rail.
The woman in charge of creating the DOE's transportation plan says nothing has been finalized, but waste would probably be brought in by rail and trucks that would likely travel through Clark County.
The plan is for the waste to be brought in by rail, where it'll travel through a tunnel about one mile into Yucca Mountain where it will be stored about 1,000 feet below the surface. Proponents say it's safer to store the nation's nuclear waste in one place rather than in 39 states. Navis doesn't buy that argument.
"We don't think this eliminates a danger, it adds another place for a danger. If you're talking about 103 places where waste is stored right now, this just adds a 104th. Reactor sites will still produce and store waste," Navis said.
Searcy says her tour made her more confident about yucca mountain as a site, but she's still not sold on how the waste will get here. With so much information coming at her, she needs time to think it over. "I'm going to have to digest what I've seen and heard here today and come up with some reasonable answers."
