 |
|
 |
LUCKY THIS TIME:
NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE ON BOARD
Train and truck
crash photographs highlight the recklessness of government
nuclear waste transport plans
The wrecks speak as loudly and clearly as all the scientific and political
criticism of the Yucca dump scheme. Perhaps each picture is worth a thousand
words from
the DOE's Yucca Mountain environmental impact statement.
The government's plans for shipping high level radioactive waste across the
country have been attacked as scientifically unsound and politically untenable.
Yet Congress
passed and the President signed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump proposal
in July 2002. All the arguments against bad science and bad politics failed
to sway the industry and the government from its disregard for the public
health
and safety along the proposed roads, rails and waterways. (We call the DOE's
proposed barge shipments on Lake Michigan and major rivers the ExxonValdez
Plan, or Edmund Fitzgerald Redux.)
Under DOE plans, the public would be forced to accept vastly increased risks
of deadly, long-lived and irreversible radiation accidents. The department
has proposed up to 104,000 transports over 38 years, using shipping casks
that have
not been "tested to failure." Neither the DOE nor anyone else knows
at what point a crash, a fire, or water pressure will smash open its waste
canisters. (For example, a cask from a DOE barge is only required to withstand
the pressure
of 600 feet of water for 30 minutes.)
With highly radioactive reactor fuel rods (don't call them 'spent') from
104 aging reactors, potentially crisscrossing the United States on railroads,
highways
and barges, statistics on rail crashes take on a new significance.
On its website, the Railway Administration reports that in 1998 there were
3,500 collisions at highway rail crossings. About every 100 minutes a train
collides
with a person or a vehicle.
In Nevada, the site of the proposed Yucca Mt. dump, an average of 275 truck
accidents happen every month, or about nine per day in 2001. This according
to the state's
office of Traffic Safety. (Reno Gazette Journal, Nov. 3, 2002)
Locomotive engineer, Ken Gillsdorf, told National Public Radio's All Things
Considered, July 5, 1999, "You could probably have a grade crossing crash or hit a trespasser
every trip. We have a lot of close calls every trip." No records are
kept of close calls.
Railroad workers say there are two kinds of people that operate trains: those
that have been in a collision and those that are gonna to be in one, NPR's
Michael Ivey reported. One engineer told Ivey, "I’ve hit everything
from an airplane, to a truck, bus, snow mobile, a four-wheeler, a three-wheeler,
a bicycle,
and a snowplow, and also a tanker."
Although the country has been lucky till now, a crash with high level radioactive
waste must never be allowed to happen.
An empty Department of Energy M-140 transport cask tipped over in the Buffalo, NY train yard Sept. 22, 2005. This underreported incident should be enough to stop the shipment of used military fuel rods in the U.S. It truly was just luck that this M-140 cask was not filled with the deadliest radioactive waste on earth.
Consideration of the following photos and stories just might convince you. Waste Trains Derail, Lucky This Time
December 18, 2008 - Dresbach, Minnesota
When the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump
plan began gaining momentum in Congress, Nukewatch staffers began
collecting newspaper photos
of train and truck wrecks. Some of them are available here and make a nonverbal
case against the transport plans.
In Sept. 1999, the Nukewatch Pathfinder reported the Federal Railway Administration's
statistics on railroad crashes. Our point is to forewarn the public and the
nuclear industry. There is no room for error in shipping high-level radioactive
waste,
by train, truck, or barge, as proposed by the Energy Department.
Continued on page 1
By Bonnie Urfer, Nukewatch Quarterly, Winter 2007-'08
March 29, 2008 - Massachusetts
July 8 2005 - Atlanta, Georgia
February 21 2003 - Ontario, Canada
February 7 2003 - Western Michigan
January 31 2003 - Australia
November 3 2002 - Long
Beach, California
October 2 2002 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
September 16 2002 - Knoxville, Tennessee
September 10 2002 - India
July 29 2002 - Kensington, Maryland
July 12 2002 - Chicago, Illinois
June 24 2002 - Tanzania
May 27 2002 - Mozambique
May 26 2002 - Arkansas River, Oklahoma
May 14 2002 - Coosawhatchie, South
Carolina
May 10 2002 - Potters Bar, Great Britain
April 23 2003 - Placentia, California
April 18 2002 - Crescent City, Florida
March 14 2002 - Ringgold, Georgia
February 20 2002 - Al Ayyat,
Egypt
January 18 2002, Minot, North Dakota
October 24 2001 - Airolo, Switzerland
August 30 2001 - Mulvane, Kansas
August 9 2001 - Chicago, Illinois
July 31 2001 - Hartford, Iowa
July 19 2001 - Baltimore, Maryland
June 22 2001 - India
March 19 2001 - Des Moines, Iowa
December 18 2000 - Plymouth, Minnesota
Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2008-09
Twenty Die in Latest Military Submarine Disaster
