CARSON CITY -- A Nevada panel fighting a proposed Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste was told Wednesday that project backers face big obstacles but are still seeking approval of the facility and of rail shipping routes, including one through downtown Reno and Sparks.

The warning to the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects prompted its chairman, Richard Bryan, a former state governor and U.S. senator, to say, "This is no time to sit back and assume everything will unfold ... in our favor."

Bob Halstead, a transportation adviser to the commission, said rail shipments through the Reno-Sparks area would have a huge impact on commercial and residential properties near the route, possibly lowering their combined value by well over $1 billion.

Asked after the commission meeting why Nevada must press its fight against the repository, Halstead said, "We've driven a stake through this vampire's heart three or four times, and each time he stands up and says, 'Yucca Mountain.' "

Halstead said while U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised to block the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Project, which already has cost at least $9 billion, Nevada remains the No. 1 target because no other states want to take high-level radioactive waste.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Feb. 5 that his department will prepare an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license for the repository, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by June 2008.

The project has been set back repeatedly by lawsuits, money shortfalls and scientific controversies.

In his remarks to the commission, Halstead said some trains from waste-producing power plants would run on tracks parallel to Interstate 80 in Northern Nevada, coming from the east and west. Trains from the west would run through downtown Reno and Sparks.

The trains would then run south to Yucca Mountain along a route near U.S. 95, which goes through several towns including Schurz, Hawthorne, Mina, Tonopah and Goldfield. Halstead said the Energy Department's estimated cost of upgrading rail routes and laying new track is $1.6 billion, but he called that "a made-up number."

Also speaking at the commission meeting was Sparks City Manager Shaun Carey, who said Energy Department officials rejected a request for a hearing on the rail route. He said the route is of particular concern for his city, since it's home to a major rail operations yard.

Bob Loux, head of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said it looks like the Energy Department wants to "deliberately keep people in Northern Nevada out of the process."

Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said a preliminary hearing on rail routes was held at the University of Nevada, Reno in late November, adding, "I don't know much closer we could get to Sparks City Hall."

Benson said additional hearings will be held in Northern Nevada in the future.

"We're years away from routes. We haven't settled on any routes. Our focus is on completing and submitting the licensing application."

Benson also said the federal government has been hauling nuclear waste by truck for half a century with no problems, and "we're quite confident we can continue our safety record."

Benson said waste headed for Yucca Mountain would be in solid form and security guards would accompany the trains, which would run about twice a week over a 24-year period.