WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department added a public meeting in Reno later this month to discuss new designs for a Yucca Mountain repository and a possible Northern Nevada railroad corridor for nuclear waste.

The department on Tuesday also extended the official public comment period on both matters until Dec. 12, a 15-day extension.

The DOE announcement fell short of what the state of Nevada and activist groups had requested as the government embarks on a round of environmental impact studies for the proposed changes.

Besides Reno, state officials had sought meetings in cities across Northern Nevada, and also in Sacramento, Calif., and Salt Lake City, areas could be affected by rail shipments of nuclear waste along the so-called "Mina corridor" that the DOE is preparing to study.

Under the Mina route proposal, the nuclear waste would travel south near or through the small towns of Winnemucca, Silver Springs, Hawthorne, Mina, Goldfield and Amargosa Valley and then northeast to the repository.

The state plans to register growing irritation over the department's schedule for the Yucca Mountain "scoping" meetings and their format, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"Certainly this is not enough," Loux said. "DOE is making a deliberate attempt to reduce the affected public from any effective involvement in the process.

"There are thousands of people in the Interstate 80 corridor where the bulk of shipments would be coming through who don't know what is going on," Loux said.

The added hearing in Reno coupled with the extra time for Nevadans to comment at public meetings or on the www.ocrwm.doe.gov Web site "provides the public with sufficient opportunity to provide us comments," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said.

DOE was required only to hold a single public meeting, Benson said. "So clearly we are going beyond what was required," he said.

The additional meeting will be Nov. 27 at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nuclear waste could travel through the downtown of that city under a scenario DOE plans to examine, according to activists.

The Energy Department has scheduled a scoping meeting from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. today in Amargosa Valley at the Longstreet, state Route 373.

Another meeting is scheduled for the same time Thursday in Las Vegas at the Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North.

Meetings also will be held next week in Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.

At the sessions, information about new repository designs and maps of the proposed Mina route will be presented on poster boards, with project officials on hand to answer questions. Members of the public will be able to register comments to official recorders at the sites.

But Loux said the format is not informative based on comments he heard from people who attended an initial meeting in Washington on Monday.

He said the DOE and contractor officials gave conflicting answers to questions about repository blueprints and the status of multipurpose canisters DOE plans to employ to ship and store the radioactive waste.

"All in all, this whole process is really a disaster," Loux said.