Comments to the LA Times, May 29, 2001

33 shipments in the fall of 2001
58 shipments sometime in 2005
6 shipments sometime in 2009.

All 97 truck shipments of transuranic nuclear waste from the Nevada Test Site (NTS) to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are currently routed through our remote rural area of California. 33 will take place later this fall, as thousands of out-of-state retirees in large Winnebagos take to the same roads. The shipments will travel south over state highway 127, basically a narrow paved wagon trail, with unimproved corners, blind spots, and many unmarked flash flood zones. The Amargosa River, one of the biggest in the western US, runs mainly underground and crosses the route 13 times. It is our only route in and out of this valley. One accident, and we are trapped, while the usual high winds disperse whatever contamination might result.

Route 127 runs 100 miles, between Interstate 15 in Baker, California, and Route 95 in Lathrop Wells, NV. It is the access road from the south and west to the toxic dump in Beatty, NV, the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and the Yucca Mt. proposed site. This road is already overused by many of the 1.4 million visitors to Death Valley each year, many of them in oversized RVs and tour buses. It is also used daily by dozens of trucks daily transporting other forms of toxic waste to the US Ecology site in Beatty. There have been several serious truck accidents each year that I have lived here, on unbanked curves with no shoulders. So far, no nuclear vehicles have been involved. The road is not scheduled for any improvement by the California Dept. of Transportation for another ten years.

Some of the 1,600 barrels of transuranic waste headed to WIPP from the Nevada Test Site have already been shuttled on the roads more than once. They originated at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the Bay Area. In the mid-90’s, an investigation halted shipments for a while, after some trucks were sent back to Livermore by CA Highway Patrol for carrying incomplete shipping documents.

Small amounts of contamination have already been found on the exteriors of some of the 225+ shipments of Trupact-II containers entering the WIPP site, assumed to be from loading at their place of origin. This contamination would have exposed nearby individuals along the entire route.

While these transuranic trucks are headed south on our only local road, 26% (125) of the low-level shipments to the Nevada Test Site in the last year have been heading north. About half of these originated in California, and therefore followed the most direct route. Our county officials estimate conservatively that the following shipments can be expected to travel through our small towns:

2001-2005: 1064 shipments
2006-2010: 399 shipments
2011-2015: 53 shipments
2016-2020: 67 shipments

We have no stop signs or stop lights. It just rolls on through, and we dodge it all, crossing the street, headed for the Health Clinic, grocery, cafe or local school. In this climate, we spend much of our time outside, breathing the dust as the trucks roll through at rates of speed far exceeding the legal limit. Shipments also pass directly by the 2,000 acres of land recently returned to the Timbisha Shoshone tribe for building their residential community. Indians beware: nuclear waste seems to be the newest form of smallpox blanket.

It is  my understanding that NTS only accepts shipments 4 days a week. I don't know how frequently they will ship out.

Low-Level Shipments in 2001
1st quarter- 74 trucks through Shoshone, average 5.76 per week or 1.43 per workday (52 days Monday-Thursday)
2nd quarter- 85 trucks through Shoshone, average 6.54 per week or 1.64 per workday (52 days Monday-Thursday)
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Total 159 trucks , average 6.15 per week, or 1.53 per workday (104 days Monday-Thursday)

WIPP Shipments in 2001
33 trucks over 3 months Average low-level 80 trucks over 3 months
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Total Low Level and WIPP:
113 trucks over 3 months, average 8.70 per week or 2.18 per workday (52 days Monday-Thursday)
WIPP shipments will raise the number of nuclear waste trucks in our community by 42% for that three month period even if low-level shipments remain the same. 

Here in Southeast Inyo County, we have only one County Sheriff Deputy, whose job carries him over hundreds of square miles in his 40 hour week. When he is off-duty, we have no coverage at all. Our private ambulance service is bankrupt. Our all volunteer fire and rescue district is completely unfunded at this time, has several antique and barely equipped ambulances, a handful of partially trained volunteers, and a fire truck that sometimes has to be jump started.

The DOE’s response to pleas for help has been to offer the loan of yet another antique ambulance. We need gas to run it, radiological detection equipment, haz-mat protective clothing, and training. We aren’t getting it. One DOE official pointed out at a recent Fire Dept. meeting that the approved response in dealing with a nuclear accident is to save the truck operators and worry about exposure later. This doesn’t sound like a plan to our few unpaid volunteers who have to go home to the kids when it’s over. It is my understanding that the nearest trained Hazardous Materials Team is personnel from the Nevada Test Site, several hours away, who rely on Amarillo, Texas, to back them up.

On March 16th, 1999, Inyo County Supervisors adopted Resolution 99-9, opposing low-level waste transport on highway 127. On May 12, 1999, California’s US Senators Boxer and Feinstein sent a letter to the DOE protesting this route as well. Similar resolutions are being considered for the WIPP shipments now. However, our voice is small compared to the Dept. of Energy’s, and has thus far been ignored.

A newly released U.S Geological Survey study of water flow in 1995 and 1998 shows that our Amargosa River "has the potential to transport dissolved and particulate matter well beyond the boundary of the (Nevada Test Site) and the Yucca Mountain area during periods of moderate to severe streamflow." Any contamination from a waste-truck along 95 or 127 would also be carried directly into our water. This report confirms that, besides Lathrop Wells, NV, our California communities are the first to be impacted by water-born radioactive contaminants from Nevada sites. Such storm runoff is not being considered in the environmental impact study for the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository at this time.

Nuclear waste dumping sites on the Nevada Test Site are situated over multiple aquifers about which little is conclusively known. In a terrain already contaminated by 50 years of deep nuclear waste injection through a thousand weapons tests, the kitty-litter technology used in unlined pit dumping can only further threaten the health of the public and the environment. The Pahrump and Las Vegas areas are currently experiencing the fastest population growth in the United States. Pahrump is already seeking water sources closer to the Test Site, and Las Vegas is draining their underground aquifers to the extent that buildings are sinking. As these radioactive contaminants will continue to be deadly for thousands of years, public water use and nuclear waste dumping are on an inevitable collision course.

A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal (May 22, 2001) confirms that emergency responders in New Mexico also feel uneasy with training and equipment for WIPP shipment accidents. And, according to Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center, "NTS shipments would also go through the "Big-I" in Albuquerque where Interstates 25 and 40 intersect. It’s having a 2-year, $270 million reconstruction that means that it’s very dangerous and that sometimes interstate traffic is diverted onto city streets." Activists in the Albuquerque area have vowed to block those shipments for the next 14 months, at least, until the reconstruction is done.