Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Nevada asks court to halt Yucca rail line plan
By KEN RITTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nevada asked a federal court Tuesday to derail Energy Department plans for a rail line to ship radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, claiming "abuses of authority" by the Bush administration and its "decide-first, analyze-later approach."
"We say they have to go back to the drawing board," said Joe Egan, a Vienna, Va.-based lawyer for the state.
Nevada wants the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to halt planning for the rail line and order the Energy Department to complete studies Nevada says are required before construction begins.
Energy Department spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton declined comment, saying department lawyers were reviewing the filing and the matter was being litigated.
No rail line runs to the site the Bush administration and Congress picked in 2002 to entomb 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste stored at nuclear reactors and military facilities in 39 states.
The Energy Department announced in April 2004 that it intends to build a line from a railhead near Caliente, a small town 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to the Yucca Mountain site, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The state brief dismisses as "naked assumption" the Energy Department's assurances that the 319-mile rail line and nuclear waste cask transfer stations could be built within six years of opening the Yucca Mountain repository. The cost has been estimated at $880 million.
Nevada officials call the plan dangerously flawed. Egan said Nevada does not believe Yucca planners can ensure the safety of the tens of thousands of shipments they expect to make over 24 years through cities including Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Salt Lake City.
The state also asks the court to order the government to fully analyze the risks of an interim plan to ship casks of spent nuclear fuel to Nevada by train, but complete the journey by truck while the Nevada rail line is being built.
"None of us has any doubt whatsoever that interim would become permanent," Egan said. "They save time and money. We end up with a mode of transport they themselves determined was the most dangerous."
Egan said the 34-page brief filed in Washington was the last of the state's written arguments in a lawsuit it filed against the Energy Department in September.
