Nevada ups battle against nuclear-dump site

Also at the mayors' conference, Goodman solicited support from leaders. "Americans need to be aware of the vulnerability of their communities as a moving target traverses their neighborhoods," Goodman says.

Yet Nevada officials face an uphill battle in making such concerns predominant - and for having Congress see things their way. Leaders in other states, it turns out, are much more worried about what could happen if the waste stays put. "Some mayors have this in their backyards, and they want to get rid of it," says Erik Pappa, an aide to Goodman.

The DOE proposal calls for the shipment of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste from more than 100 power plants and defense sites to Yucca. The waste - a solid, ceramic-like material - is to be enclosed in metal tubes and shipped in what are called dry casks, which are made of concrete and steel and weigh several hundred thousand pounds each.

According to the DOE, the shipping containers will travel under strict physical security requirements. Pro-Yucca officials say tests conducted at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico prove the casks can survive high-impact crashes, free falls, fires, punctures, and water submersions.

The DOE, as well as the nuclear industry, points out that since 1962, no radioactive releases have occurred as a result of transportation accidents. But the amount of waste shipped to a repository like Yucca in just the first year of operations would exceed the total amount of low-level radioactive waste shipped in the United States in the past 30 years, according to a Nevada study.

Another report, by the Nevada Department of Transportation, found that safety assessments from the 1970s and '80s by the DOE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have not taken into consideration a post-Sept. 11 world. "[T]he potential risks associated with terrorism or sabotage" has been underestimated, the study says.

But others cite careful safety preparations. "I've seen the test films," says Richard Hughes, a radiation physicist who has consulted for the federal government as well as the private sector. "They've literally crashed trucks into walls for the sole purpose of causing damage. It's inconceivable to me how any radioactive material could be dispersed."

That's little comfort for Nevadans. A poll conducted last month for the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that 83 percent oppose the Yucca project - although 68 percent think it's inevitable.

Indeed, some experts question the usefulness of anti-Yucca efforts such as Goodman's lawsuit. Richard Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, notes that it will be up to the mayor to prove something is wrong with the DOE's safety tests.

"The court will say, 'Prove to us that there is a safer [transportation] route,' " says Mr. Epstein. "The burden is on the attacker, in this case, the mayor. No matter what you do with nuclear waste, it's a risk."

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