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5/23/2007 - Caliente Corridor Being Considered Again For Yucca Mountain
KLAS-TV - Las Vegas,NV,USA
The Yucca Mountain project is far from dead. One of the trickiest parts about building a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain is getting the waste to ...
| View Video: Safe Passage: An overview of Plans for the Railroad to Yucca Mountain |
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The Department of Energy prefers the Caliente Corridor because it is remote, has few land use conflicts, and can avoid Air Force land.
The railroad, when it’s complete, will occupy a strip of land about 200 feet wide.
The mile-wide corridor set aside by the Bureau of Land Management allows DOE to finalize the “exact” route of the railroad within that corridor.
The land “not” used will return to its previous status.
Existing rail lines can carry shipments as far as Caliente. One DOE option brings shipments through the town. Two others bypass the town.
From there, shipments would travel generally west, winding through passes and valleys.
The closest town is Rachel, in Lincoln County, about 20 miles south.
From there it’s northwest, skirting mountains and the northern edge of the Air Force Test and Training Range, to Warm Springs Summit.
The line would be visible from Nevada Route 6 as it crosses the 62-hundred foot summit.
The line would continue west to a point about 15 miles north of Goldfield, where it turns south.
The line would then pass about 3 miles east of Goldfield—not through the town itself.
As the line travels further south, it could be visible from U-S 95 and may parallel the roadway for a few miles.
Shipments would pass about 5 miles east of Beatty—not through the town.
In one example of construction needed to cross Nevada’s rugged terrain, a bridge would probably be needed to cross the Beatty Wash.
The last stretch is between Bare Mountain and Yucca Mountain… and finally to the Repository.
Total distance: about 319 miles.
Time to construct: almost 4 years
Estimated cost: more than 800 million dollars.
The Department of Energy has observed certain natural or cultural resources along or near the route.
These resources include ranches… old mills or mines… springs… wilderness areas… and others.
DOE needs input from the public to help raise these concerns.
The Department will then consider and analyze them in its Rail Environmental Impact Statement.
All of this will be done according to the process laid out in the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. |
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High-Level Waste Transportation Updates
If the U.S. Department of Energy receives a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, it will begin shipping nuclear waste from commercial and government-owned sites to the repository sometime after 2017. This opening date of 2017 is a "best-achievable schedule" and is predicated upon enactment of new legislation.
The department must ship the waste according to strict federal regulations. The waste will be transported in heavily shielded casks certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission along approved transportation routes.
Additionally, the department will provide technical assistance and funding to states and Native American tribes for training emergency response personnel.
Environmental Impact Statement for the Alignment of a Rail Line in the Caliente Corridor (HTML) (PDF )
DOE produced brochure: Transporting Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Nuclear Waste
to a National Repository -- Answers to Frequently Asked Questions [pdf]
Information from the State of Nevada
Statement of Kenny Guinn
Governor of the State of Nevada,
Before the U.S. House of Representatives.
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittees on Railroads and Transpiration and Hazardous Materials -
April 25, 2002
Honorable Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, my name is Kenny C. Guinn and I
am Governor of the State of Nevada. These written comments are submitted for the record and
supplement my oral testimony. The state of Nevada compliments Chairman Young and Subcommittee
Chairmen Quinn and Petri for holding this important hearing on a set of transportation issues that few
people in the Congress seem to want to address in a substantive manner.
As is well known by this time, Nevada considers the Yucca Mountain project to be the product
of extremely bad science, extremely bad law, and extremely bad public policy. Moreover,
implementing this ill-conceived project will expose tens of millions of Americans to unnecessary nuclear
transport risks. For these reasons we in Nevada believe, and ask, that Congress should take no further
action with respect to the Yucca Mountain project.
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| Lander County Studies associated with high-level waste shipments |
Battle Mountain Impact Report, Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel to the Proposed Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada—2006
If a high-level waste repository opens at Yucca Mountain, a number of rail and truck shipments of nuclear waste are expected to pass through Lander County and the Town of Battle Mountain. These shipments of nuclear waste through Lander County would lead to a radiation dose to the public even if the transport is incident-free, because no shielding material can reduce direct gamma radiation by 100%. As a result, residents, drivers, pedestrians and workers will get a radiation dose, which depends on the recipient’s proximity and duration to the passing radiation source. Depending on the population estimate, the population dose due to incident-free transportation of the entire waste that is planned to pass Battle Mountain is as high as 3.16 person-rem. This number will be much higher if shipments stop (gas, lodging, etc.) in Battle Mountain. Even though this dose and the resulting population risk are relatively small, it nevertheless increases the risk to develop cancer. Read the full report by clicking on the link below. |
Lander County Rail Alignment—November 2006
There are two Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) lines traversing northern Lander
County. The westbound track, referred to as Track No. 1, is generally parallel to Interstate 80 (I-80) and goes through Battle Mountain. Track No. 2 is located north of Track No. 1 and carries eastbound trains. This study assesses
utilization of the rail corridor, the condition of points where railroad tracks cross roadways, and safety issues. It also maps zoning and physical characteristics of the corridor.
Both rail lines have a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) classification of Class 4, which allows for heavy haul trains with speeds over 50 miles per hour (mph). Typical speeds on the westbound track are 49 mph for freight and 59 mph for passenger trains, both are slowed to 45 mph though Battle Mountain.
Speeds on the eastbound track are 70 mph for freight and 79 mph for passenger trains. There are approximately 15 astbound and westbound freight trains per day. There is also a limited amount of local service, typically five trains per day, and daily AMTRAK service. The tracks have closely spaced timber ties and appear to be in good condition. Under normal operating conditions all eastbound trains use Track No. 2 and all westbound trains use Track No. 1. However, due to local traffic serving industrial uses in the area, trains could occasionally travel in either direction on either track.
Due to the large size of this document it has been broken up into sections as follows:
Pages 1– 11 (Adobe PDF File 582 kb)
Pages 12-23 (Adobe PDF file 544 kb)
Pages 24-36 (Adobe PDF File 409 kb)
Pages 37-49 (Adobe PDF File 2,412 kb)
Pages 50-63 (Adobe PDF File 3,501 kb) |
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