Elko County could figure prominently in nuke train routes

ELKO, Nev. - One of the railroad routes considered for shipping radioactive waste to a proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain would send most all the materials through Elko and Eureka counties, state officials say.

Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, a division of the governor's office, said one of four rail alternatives would involve construction of 300 miles of track from Beowawe in Eureka County south to Yucca Mountain.

''Selection of the Beowawe alternative would have significant implications for Elko County and the cities of West Wendover, Wells, Carlin and Elko,'' agency officials said in a recent letter to Elko County Manager George Boucher.

''In that event, almost all of the waste destined for Yucca Mountain would come into Nevada on the Union Pacific main line and pass through Elko County en route to the proposed rail spur,'' the letter says.

More than 19,000 shipments of spent fuel over a 25- to 38-year period may pass through Elko County communities, according to the letter first disclosed by the Elko Daily Free Press.

''For long-term planning purposes ... it is appropriate ... to assume that significant impacts are possible from the selection by DOE of the Beowawe rail spur option,'' the agency advised.

It's also possible highways in Nevada will be used for ''legal weight truck shipments of high-level radioactive waste and mid-level 'miscellaneous waste' from DOE's Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington,'' the state agency said.

In addition to Hanford at Richland, Wash., the agency also acknowledges possible shipments from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Elko County Commissioner Mike Nannini earlier complained to Energy Department officials about the lack of federal funding for local emergency preparedness training in case of a hazardous material spill from one of the nuclear shipments, whether by rail or truck.

Hanford and INEEL may try to ship their waste via U.S. Highway 93, agency officials said.

But the letter said that ''it is questionable whether U.S. 93 can be used for high-level waste shipments'' without a specific designation of the highway as a preferred alternative route by the states of Idaho and Nevada, ''something that is unlikely to happen.''