While the Department of Energy is moving to dispose of a batch of uranium-233 at the Nevada National Security Site with the consent of state officials, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman (D) spoke out this week against the transport of the material near that city. The 403 canisters of Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Project will be shipped from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to NNSS for disposal. “Instead of talking about shipping this radioactive material 2,000 miles to Nevada from Tennessee, we should be devoting our resources toward neutralizing the waste where it is and look at other potential uses for it where it’s located,” Goodman said at a press conference Tuesday. She pointed to a resolution passed last summer by the U.S. Conference of Mayors on the shipment of DOE waste. “The mayors pointed out that shipping the waste so far adds so much to the potential danger. First, it has such a long way to travel. Second, it must pass through states and communities over a 2,000 mile route. And third, the infrastructure it must travel over in many areas is old.”
DOE had originally hoped to complete in 2013 the shipments of a controversial group of uranium-233 canisters, but initial strong opposition within the state led high-level DOE and Nevada officials to form a working group to discuss the proposal. After 18 months of discussions with state officials, DOE announced this week that it would move ahead with plans for disposal there and would provide numerous “accommodations” to the state. Nevada officials, for their part, did not speak out against the move. “Nevada’s environmental, technical, public safety, legal and administrative experts have determined that the CEUSP materials meet the criteria for disposal at the NNSS,” Michon Martin, chief counsel for Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), said in a statement this week.
