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Nuclear Waste: Senate Committee Examines Terrorism Risk to Waste Shipments By Mike Nartker In a series of hearings that concluded yesterday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee considered various issues, including the potential risk of terrorist attacks on waste shipments en route to the repository. The committee is expected to vote June 5, and the full Senate is expected to vote in July, on a resolution that would override Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s veto of the Yucca Mountain site. The Senate override resolution is identical to one passed this month in the House of Representatives. Wednesday, Yucca Mountain opponents testified that waste shipments would present a symbolic target to terrorists and might lead to devastating effects if attacked. Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson, testifying on behalf of Nevada, told the committee that the large number of waste shipments that would have to travel to the repository might present terrorists with an attractive target (see GSN, May 22). “From experience, we know that the Yucca Mountain proposal would put most Americans, including all the citizens of Salt Lake City, at tremendous risk by creating tens of thousands of highly lethal ‘dirty bombs,’” Anderson said. Based on the mode of transportation used — the Energy Department has not yet created a comprehensive waste transportation plan — there would probably be 935 to 2,200 waste shipments to the site annually for 24 years once the repository is operational, Robert Halstead, transportation adviser for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, told the committee. Most shipments would occur under a “mostly legal-weight truck” transportation scenario, under which Energy would transport nuclear waste to the repository via standard trucks, Halstead said. Although there are several other scenarios, including the use of rail and heavy-haul trucks for the waste shipments, “the DOE mostly legal-weight truck scenario is the only national transportation scenario that is currently feasible,” he said. Preliminary waste shipment routes laid out in Energy’s final environmental impact statement (see GSN, April 26) would affect 45 states and more than 123 million people, Halstead said. The department also predicted that up to 16.4 million people could be living as close half a mile from a waste transportation route, either road or rail, by 2035, he added. Radiation, Contamination Potential Cited The spent fuel that would be shipped to Yucca Mountain contains significant amounts of fissile material, such as cesium-137, that would be a major source of radiation and contamination in the event of a terrorist attack, Halstead said. Unshielded spent fuel can emit a lethal dose of radiation in less than two minutes after being cooled for 10 years and in less than 5 minutes after being cooled for 50 years, he said, adding that Energy has estimated that spent fuel would be cooled for about 23 years before being shipped to Yucca Mountain. Energy has acknowledged that a successful terrorist attack on a waste shipment could expose the public to radiation and potential latent cancer deaths, Halstead said. Testing in the 1980s by the department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission demonstrated that the truck casks to be used to ship waste can be breached with an explosive device such as a military detonation charge, which could disperse spent fuel, he said. In its draft environmental impact statement, the department estimated that a successful attack on a truck cask in the middle of an urban area could result in a radiation dose equal to 31,000 person-rems — enough to cause 15 latent cancer deaths, according to Halstead. In its final version, Energy increased the estimate to a radiation dose of 96,000 person-rems — enough to cause 48 latent cancer deaths, he said. The department did not evaluate any other effects of a successful attack, such as the economic consequences, in either environmental statement, Halstead said. An analysis prepared for Nevada by radioactive waste experts came to a more dramatic conclusion in the event of a terrorist attack on a waste shipment, Halstead said. By using a different set of computer models than Energy, the independent analysis estimated that up to 1,800 latent cancer deaths could result if a truck cask was 90 percent penetrated by an explosive charge, he said. “Full perforation of the cask, likely to occur in an attack involving a state of the art anti-tank weapon, such as the TOW missile, could cause 3,000 to 18,000 latent cancer fatalities,” Halstead said. “Cleanup and recovery costs would exceed $10 billion.” Symbolic Target The general public fear of radiation and the potential consequences of a release of spent fuel from a cask makes nuclear waste shipments an attractive target for terrorists, James Ballard, an academic expert on terrorism, told the committee Wednesday. “The primary reason why these shipments will be a target is their symbolic value to terrorists,” Ballard said. “Just as the World Trade Center was not just a building, an attack against these waste shipments is not just an inconsequential incident probability to be explained away by statistics.” It might be better instead to continue to store spent fuel on-site at nuclear power plants, Ballard said. The number of needed shipments, as well as the transportation pattern and large physical size of the casks, presents terrorists with a “target-rich” environment for potential attacks, he said. “In short, moving them increases our risk of terrorist attack,” Ballard said. “It does not decrease the risk.” Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a staunch supporter of the Yucca Mountain repository plan, questioned the logic of maintaining thousands of tons of spent fuel at more nuclear plants throughout the United States, rather than storing it all at one centralized location. “Now, if the terrorist world believes that this is a right approach toward intimidating American citizens, then my guess is they know where every one of those locations is today,” he said to Ballard. “I cannot understand how you would suggest that this is not a level of high vulnerability.” Spent fuel on-site at nuclear power plants “seems like … a much more reasonable target than a mobile target,” Craig said. Salt Lake City Mayor Anderson expressed doubts that the government would be able to adequately defend waste shipments from a terrorist attack. “Protecting the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games for less than two weeks, in a relatively constrained geographical area, was a monumental task,” he said. “Adequately protecting tens of thousands of highly lethal shipments of nuclear waste as they travel thousands of miles through dozens of major cities over a period of 38 years will be impossible.” Making Shipments Safe During a committee hearing yesterday, however, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve defended the safety and security of nuclear waste shipments. “The commission believes that the spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste stored at multiple sites can be safely and securely transported to a single location,” he said. Both the NRC and the Transportation Department have responsibility for nuclear waste shipments. The department regulates all transport activities, and the NRC is in charge of certifying shipment casks. The NRC also oversees an inspection and enforcement program and approves security plans for nuclear waste shipments, Meserve said. Security plans include information from waste shippers about how they will comply with NRC regulations, advance notifications to state officials about shipments, establishment of several communication systems with transport vehicles, provision of escort services and establishment of contacts with local law enforcement officials along waste shipment routes, he said. Although the commission is satisfied with the current transportation regulatory system, the NRC will still conduct evaluations, Meserve said. The waste shipment casks are also being re-evaluated in order to upgrade their response to acts of attack or sabotage, he said. The NRC believes that the history of spent fuel shipments in the United Statements, as well as the NRC studies, reviews and inspections, provides a strong basis for confidence in the safety and security of waste shipments to Yucca Mountain, Meserve said. Spent fuel shipments could be made safer by delaying them for extended periods of time from the on-site locations at nuclear power plants where spent fuel is now stored, Halstead said at Wednesday’s hearing. Since radiation decreases over time, the oldest spent fuel currently on-site should be shipped first under any transportation plan, and newly spent fuel should be kept on site for 40 to 50 years before being transported to a long-term repository, he said. Halstead also said more research needs to be conducted on the potential effects of a release of radiological material from a damaged truck or rail cask. “It’s in this … area of protecting shipments from becoming dirty bombs that I am most pessimistic about our ability to actually protect the public health and safety,” he said.
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