- WASHINGTON (AP) -- It will
be years before the first shipment of nuclear waste travels to Yucca Mountain
in Nevada if the waste dump gets approved. But an environmental group wants
to make it easier for people to find out how close the radioactive waste
will come to their neighborhoods.
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- The Environmental Working Group unveiled a Web site on
Monday that allows the public easy access to detailed maps of the nearest
potential waste routes.
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- Areas within a mile of any route -- either highway or
rail -- are shown in red; those within two miles are in yellow. The site
also contains highway accident records.
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- Supporters of the proposed Yucca Mountain project said
the Web site was an attempt to influence an upcoming vote in Congress on
whether to override Nevada's objections to the waste dump 90 miles from
Las Vegas. A nuclear industry spokesman questioned why the environmentalists
wouldn't also pinpoint routes of the tens of thousands of shipments of
other hazardous cargo already on the highways.
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- The data on the group's Web site is based on preliminary
route maps found in the Energy Department's voluminous environmental impact
analysis of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Congress
this summer must decide whether President Bush can go ahead with the project.
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- Critics of the Yucca Mountain project -- especially Nevada
officials -- have accused the Energy Department of failing to give the
public detailed information about how the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste
now in 39 states will get to Nevada.
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- ``They want to keep the public in the dark,'' said Mike
Casey of the Environmental Working Group. ``We think the public should
be given a chance to weigh in on their (transportation) plan.''
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- Casey said the Web site is costing $120,000 and is supported
by several foundations and the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. It has no
support from the state of Nevada, which is also fighting the Yucca dump.
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- Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said no decision
has been made on what routes that waste will take. If the Yucca site is
built ``the actual routes will be classified'' and developed in conjunction
with state and local officials, said Davis.
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- Davis said the department has no objections to the environmental
group's Web site ``as long as it reflects the facts and doesn't try to
scare anybody.''
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- Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute,
the nuclear industry's trade group, questioned why the Web site would single
out nuclear shipments that won't take place for years and ignore the more
than 1 million shipments of hazardous materials, from toxic chemicals to
gasoline, now traveling by rail and truck.
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- The Energy Department has estimated that over 24 years
there could be as many as 2,200 long-distance shipments of nuclear waste
per year if most of it moves by highway. There could be as few as 175 shipments
a year if almost all move by dedicated trains, the department said.
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