November 22, 2007
Yucca Mountain EIS Meeting Held in Caliente

Photo by Dave Maxwell Bob Halstead giving public comment at DOE meeting in Caliente.

By Dave Maxwell

Two environmental impact statements (EIS) have recently been released by the Department of Energy (DOE). The first, about 1200 pages in length, studies building the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain inside the Nevada Test Site. The second, almost 3000 pages, details building the railroad line to transport spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in Nevada to the test site.

A meeting to take public comment on the two statements was held November 15 in the auditorium at the Caliente Youth Center. More public meetings are scheduled for November 19 in Reno; Amargosa Valley November 26; Goldfield, November 27; Lone Pine, CA, November 29; Las Vegas December 3 and Washington D.C. December 5.

Some of the following material in this article is drawn from the November 2007 issue of the Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program Newsletter prepared by Coordinator Connie Simkins which summarizes, in part, some of the information contained in both impact statements.

The Nevada Rail Corridor EIS is combined with the Rail Alignment EIS and both review the possible environmental impacts of building and operating the railroad from an existing line in Nevada to Yucca Mountain. The purpose of the EIS is to help DOE decide whether to build and operate the railroad and which corridor to use along with which alignment option.

The public has until Thursday, January 10, 2008 to submit oral and/or written comments on what they see in the new documents.

DOE External Affairs Manager Allen Benson, from the Las Vegas office was on hand at the Caliente meeting, along with a number of other experts regarding both EIS’s. After an informal time for viewing the displays and talking with people, a time for public comment was held.

Controversy over the repository site at Yucca Mountain becoming the nation’s nuclear waste dump has fielded strong opposition from both state and federal leaders, a principal opponent being U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Meanwhile, the DOE plan to build the railroad has not been much in the public eye, outside the southern part of the state, but it could result in significant environmental impacts and economic changes for Lincoln County. If any legal issues are raised, it is likely that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would pay particular attention to how much local residents participated in the hearings and made comments. The DOE is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to consider the proposed action (building the railroad and repository) and the No-Action alternative; look at the environmental consequences of each of these and what can be done to mitigate the adverse impacts.

NEPA requires the DOE to identify alternatives that are environmentally preferable, federal permits, licenses, and to list all agencies consulted. They must look at these environmental consequences: direct effects, indirect effects, cumulative effects, conflicts with plans, adverse environmental effects that cannot be avoided, the differences between the short term effects and the long term effects, what effects are irreversible or irretrievable, energy requirements, economic and social effects, quality of life, and historical and cultural resources.

DOE must also consider measures to mitigate all adverse environmental impacts. NEPA says that to be adequate and effective, the mitigation measures would fit into one of the following categories: Avoid the impact, Minimize the impact, Rectify the impact, Reduce the impact, or Pay for the impact.

As reported in the EIS for the Caliente Rail Corridor, the project might take four to ten years to build. This would depend on what route was selected. Studies have been done for Caliente, Mina, Carlin, Jean, and Valley Modified. DOE favors building the line through Lincoln County, starting in Caliente and going north on the former Pioche Branch line rail bed. Much of the Pioche Branch is now on privately owned land and starts in Caliente, moves northward in Meadow Valley before turning west over Bennett Pass into Dry Lake Valley. The studies of the Mina route crosses Churchill, Mineral, Nye, and Esmeralda counties.

The actual rail construction area would be 1,000 feet wide, and reduced to 400 feet wide during operations.

In the rail EIS, DOE assumed they would need just over 100 new wells to supply their estimate of 6,100-acre feet of water needed for constructing the more than 300 miles of track from Caliente to Yucca Mountain. They look to build a construction camp every 30 miles along the proposed rail route.

DOE would need to build up to 240 bridges, 138 large culverts and five overpasses along the route from Caliente to Yucca. Plans also call for a pass track or siding about every 25 miles along the new railroad.

Once the line is finished, it could carry 2 or 3 trains a day. This would mean moving 9,500 casks of spent fuel and about 290,000 cars of construction material, diesel fuel, and supplies for the repository at Yucca Mountain.

If DOE does select Caliente, plans call for trains to come in on the Union Pacific main line, go into the Interchange Yard and then to the Staging Yard where train cars would be put together to make up the complete train for the trip to Yucca. A one-way trip to the rail equipment yard at Yucca is expected to take about 10 hours. Casks would be unloaded for storage at the repository. The National Transportation Operations Center would oversee the shipment of the casks from sites throughout the United States, train movements, rail operations, and emergency response efforts along the entire route and on the proposed new rail line.

DOE believes the impacts of building a railroad through Lincoln County would be generally small to natural, human, health, social, economic and cultural resources.

However, that was not the thinking of the few people who did sign up to make public comment for the record at the hearing at the Youth Center. The most interesting comments were made by Bob Halstead, Transportation Advisor for the State of Nevada, out of the Office of the Governor, and local resident Jan Cole, owner of the Hot Springs Motel and a local realtor.

Halstead commented it is was his opinion the DOE haven’t given themselves enough time to review comments before publishing a final EIS for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission set for June 2008. “There are still a number of transportation and security issues that haven’t been completely considered or considered accurately,” he said. “Such as reasonably foreseeable accidents, high temperature fires in accidents, and predicting what happens if a successful terrorist attack occurs.” He also said he feels that the DOE continues to underestimate the consequences and that the Caliente Corridor does have larger impacts on land uses, ranching, mining, recreation and cultural resources than DOE says it does.

Lincoln County Commissioners have completed a couple of studies on alternative routes to submit for consideration to DOE, but they apparently were not included in the public EIS documents. In his comments, Halstead did not mention the Commissioners studies by name, but did say, “It seems to be some alternatives seem to have been ruled out because they would cost a few more tens of millions of dollars to build, but would have addressed the specific concerns of the affected land owners.”

Local realtor and Hot Springs Motel owner Jan Cole was concerned about a section in the Rail EIS, also found on page S-56 in the Summary report, which deals with Radiological Occupational Health and Safety Impacts. The report states, “The region of influence for radiological impacts to members of the public during incident-free transportation includes the area of 0.5 mile on either side of the center rail alignments.”

Cole said the Rail EIS also includes a table that shows only 279 people would be affected by the half-mile wide “Radiological Region of Influence” on either side of the track. However, she pointed out on a map, that the half-mile wide region of influence would involve the railroad Interchange Yard and cover nearly the entire town of Caliente. “And it will always be there,” she said. She claimed this fact would not only be detrimental to local residents but also the local real estate market. She said, by law, realtors are required to inform prospective buyers what hazardous conditions might be in the area where they want to buy, if any. Having a half-mile wide “radiological region of influence” that covers most of Caliente, “is certainly not going to be helpful for those who are wanting to retire and buy homes here,” she said. How much at risk people in the “region of influence” would be from radiation is not really spelled out in the Rail EIS and members of DOE in attendance did not address the issue.

For anyone interested in getting a copy of the EIS or to make a comment, more information is available by calling 1-800-967-3477 or by faxing your request to 1-800-967-0739. Written comments can be mailed to: EIS Office, OCRWM, US DOE, 1551 Hillshire Drive, Las Vegas, NV. 89134.

The internet address for comments is www.ocrwm.doe.gov.