The Department of Energy is proposing to dump 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada after transporting it through counties home to over 106 million people.  The proposed Yucca Mountain Repository for High-Level Nuclear Waste, 90 miles from Las Vegas is the only site being considered by the federal government for the storage of irradiated fuel from the nation’s 131 commercial nuclear reactors, Navy ship reactors, and private research sites.

Transportation of irradiated fuel to Yucca Mountain would involve truck or rail shipments through 43 states, within one half mile of the homes of tens of millions of people, and through over 100 of America’s largest cities. Barge shipments would move through 17 port cities on the Atlantic seaboard and through the drinking water of the Great Lakes via Lake Michigan.  Friends of the Earth is partnering with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Sierra Club to prevent Yucca Mountain from opening to nuclear waste.

The Yucca Mountain waste dump isn’t safe!

Getting waste there is the most dangerous part.

This plan calls for more than 100,000 shipments of radioactive waste from all across the country being dumped in Nevada.  Just one accidental train derailment, or intentional sabotage or a terrorist attack on one of these trains, could render a major city uninhabitable.  All that waste will come to Nevada, and some will even travel through Las Vegas, right down the strip.  That’s a risk Nevadans can’t afford.

Once waste arrives at Yucca, there are numerous dangers.

For example, there’s a risk of radioactive leaching into groundwater, or an earthquake destroying the storage facility and allowing radioactive material to escape.  The waste at Yucca would remain dangerous longer that the length of recorded human history—much longer than we can ensure we’ll be able to keep it safe.

Please contact the federal Surface Transportation Board.

It’s the federal body responsible for approving railroad route construction and is considering a new route that would be used to bring waste to the Yucca site.  We need them to hear that Nevadans (and all Americans) know this isn’t safe, and that we urge them not to approve this new route, the so-called “Caliente Line.”