The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Transporting Nuclear Waste

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. There is another nuclear debate going on these days, not over a freeze on weapons, not over the safety of nuclear power plants. This debate concerns what to do with the growing amounts of nuclear waste. Especially, how to transport the highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial reactors. This waste is extremely lethal, it demands very special handling when it's moved. As nuclear plants ran out of storage room and began shipping their waste to other facilities, environmental activists started warning local communities that the shipments were unsafe. One scary scenario became a byword in the industry. It imagined a Hiroshima-like accident at 57th and Broadway in the heart of Manhattan. The nuclear industry insists that the shipments are safe, but scores of cities have passed restrictive laws and the nuclear industry wants Washington to override them. The issue gains in urgency as the number of journeys for spent fuel rises, from 108 in 1980 to a projected 1,500 by 1985 and perhaps 9,000 by the end of the century. Tonight, how safe are nuclear waste shipments and can local communities ban them? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, there are now 182 cities and towns across the country which do not let nuclear waste shipments pass through their communities, either on trucks or railroad cars. Another 211 have ordinances which require advance notification when such shipments are coming.New York City was the first to ban them outright. In 1976 a nuclear lab on Long Island challenged the ordinance after first trying to get their waste out by barge to New London, Connecticut, and then on west on trucks. That scheme failed when New London also passed a ban. The laboratory's appeal was to the Department of Transportation to override New York City. After three years of hearings DOT did just that: issuing national regulations effective last February. They require shipments of high-level nuclear waste, though, to be only on so-called preferred routes, meaning mostly interstate highways. But the city of New York took DOT to court on that and won. It was a narrow decision that affects only New York, so DOT's regulations are still in force elsewhere; although out there in elsewhere, cities and towns continue to pass nuclear waste shipment bans or restrictions. They do so, of course, out of the fear, real or imagined, that it's safety hazard. One of those who feels that it is real is Dr. Fred Millar, Director of the Nuclear and Hazardous Material Transportation Project of the Environmental Policy Center, a lobby and research group based here in Washington. Doctor, what is the real danger from these shipments?

Dr. FRED MILLAR: Well, as was said, these shipments are very, very hazardous. The federal studies say that if only one percent of the contents of a spent-fuel cask were to be released in an urban environment, it could cause anywhere from tens to thousands of deaths. The data is not very precise because there's no way to do very good experiments on this.

LEHRER: What are the chances of that happening when it's being transported either on a truck or a railroad car?

Dr. MILLAR: Well, the federal government and the nuclear industry place all their reliance in the packaging, in the very heavy casks that are used.

LEHRER: They're made out of lead, four feet thick and that kind of thing. Right?

Dr. MILLAR: They're very heavily shielded, they sometimes have water-coolant jackets around them which have to have valves and so forth. It's a very complicated mechanism. They claim that they're virtually impregnable. We claim that many of the nuclear casks we know have defects. In fact, there are only 17 nuclear casks in the entire country and seven of those have been withdrawn from service at one time or another for having had defects.

LEHRER: Are you suggesting that the other ten are also defective?

Dr. MILLAR: We're suggesting that the quality-assurance program that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has for these casks is certainly not adequate. These casks have already been used to carry spent fuel 800,000 miles across the country. After they were used, they were found to have very serious defects.

LEHRER: Well, how do you know that these others are defective and that there is a hazard?

Dr. MILLAR: Well, we're not saying that every single cask is defective. We're saying there's only 17 casks in the country, a good number of those have been found to be defective or excessively contaminated. We also think that, in general, the enforcement by the federal government of hazardous materials regulations is woefully inadequate. Just one example is that the DOT is supposed to regulate 413,000 tank trucks that regularly transport hazardous materials in the country and they have nine full-time inspectors in the entire country.

LEHRER: Well, that's all kinds of hazardous material --

Dr. MILLAR: That's all kinds of material.

LEHRER: That's obviously not high-level nuclear waste.

Dr. MILLAR: Right.But nuclear waste falls within that general category. I mean the fact is that none of the current casks that are currently in use have been tested. Only obsolete models of casks have been tested and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission only does sort of design reviews of these casks. It doesn't actually test the casks.

LEHRER: When you say tested, what would consitute a test that would satisfy you that these casks are safe?

Dr. MILLAR: Well, we think that first of all the casks should be tested under very severe crash conditions. The Association of American Railroads has been fighting against the federal government and the nuclear industry for some time, saying that they don't think that the casks have been tested in actual severe railroad crash conditions. The governor of Michigan has banned shipments through the state of Michigan because he said the casks -- until the casks have been tested to meet the actual conditions of that Michigan shipment.

LEHRER: If you think that it's too -- it's unsafe to move these things about either in trucks or on railroad cars, what do you think should be done with the waste?

Dr. MILLAR: Most nuclear waste, as federal studies have been saying since 1978, most nuclear waste doesn't need to move at all. There are on-site storage technologies which are available for storing nuclear waste on the site. Eventually there will have to be many, many thousands of nuclear waste shipments through the country as we ship nuclear waste to permanent repository sites. But, see, what's going on now is simply a juggling nuclear waste from one temporary storage pool to another around the country. It's a national shell game and most of those shipments simply don't need move at all. As the New York City judge said, there needs to be a consideration of the possibility of no shipment at all until much later when there is a federal permanent repository established. Otherwise many communities run the risk of being exposed to these shipments twice: once on the way to a temporary storage pool and then back again, say through Iowa or some place, on the way to a permanent repository site.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: One the other side of the fence is the utility industry which owns most of the nation's nuclear power facilities. Bob Bishop is secretary and counsel for the Northeast Utility Service Company, which is based in Connecticut. He's also chairman of the Nuclear Utilities Transportation Group, a trade association representing 25 utilities across the country. Mr. Bishop, first of all, does the industry agree with Dr. Millar and his colleagues on the lethality of the stuff you're moving around? If one percent of it did get out, would it have the effect that they claim? I mean, is it as dangerous as they're saying it is?

BOB BISHOP: No, sir. It certainly needs to be treated with respect as do all other hazardous materials and that's why it's classified as a hazardous material. The major problem is that -- one aspect of it -- is that there have been about 5,000 spent-fuel shipments since about 1964 to the present. We haven't had one single accident that's resulted in the breach of the container such that any radiation was released.

MacNEIL: There have been accidents.

Mr. BISHOP: There have been accidents, there has never been a release of radioactivity from a spent-fuel cask shipment.

MacNEIL: What do you say to Dr. Millar when he says that a significant number, seven out of the 17 existing of these heavy casks have been found to have defects?

Mr. BISHOP: I think it suggests that there is a effective quality assurance program. There is effective monitoring. Far better to have a progam that you can feel confident is going to find where there are problems and we feel that improvement can always be made. If there are problems with a cask, we ought to find it, they ought to repaired and that's what has happened. Again, no member of the public has been at risk because of that.

MacNEIL: What kinds of lengths do you in the industry go to, to insure that these shipments are safe?

Mr. BISHOP: We satisfy all of the federal criteria and there are many. Senator Ribicoff determined that there were eight executive departments, two independent commissions and five agencies of the federal government alone that regulate radioactive materials in one way or another. There are extensive regulations. Department of Transportation regulations predominantly cover the packaging and the routing through what's called HM 164, which is effective February 1 of this year.

MacNEIL: HM 164 is what?

Mr. BISHOP: Is the Department of Transportation Highway Routing Rule. And that's what New York City challenged and that Mr. Lehrer talked about.

MacNEIL: Oh. Now, in other words, the position of your industry is: the casks are impregnable and the shipments are safe, in your opinion.

Mr. BISHOP: If I can give you just a quick example. Two physicists just completed a study for the Sandia Labs. They subjected a surrogate, full-sized cask with a surrogate fuel assembly in it, to an explosive attack in the way that they determined by their engineering studies would result in the maximum amount of damage. Their conclusion was that the previous studies, which they suspected were overly conservative, were grossly overly conservative in that their assessment was: if this were to happen in New York City with New York City conditions and temperatures and weather conditions, that, at most, statistically .19 latent fatalities would occur sometime later in the population. There would be no immediate fatalities, there would be no immediate illness or injury from the radioactive nature of the shipment. From the explosive blast, perhaps, but not from the radioactive nature of the shipment. That's the worst possible accident you can really think of is an explosive detonation aimed at the most vulnerable part of the cask.

MacNEIL: You mean as terrorists or somebody might --

Mr. BISHOP: That's right, that's right. So just thinking of a cask going off of a truck -- and you have to remember that all casks, all spent fuel's now shipped dry. There's no liquid, there's no possibility of a spill or a leak because you're talking about metallic components and they're all metal.

MacNEIL: Now, what about Dr. Millar's point that you don't need to be moving this stuff around as much as you do? You could leave it in the places where it's used, when it's spent and just store it in those sort of big swimming pools where these spent rods are stored.

Mr. BISHOP: And that certainly has been what's happened because there is no ultimate disposition, either reprocessing or final disposal. However, a number of reactors -- the Department of Energy study of last year determined that 26 reactors would likely run out of off-loading capability by 1990. Starting, some of them, as early as 1985.

MacNEIL: Their pools would get filled up.

Mr. BISHOP: That's right and if your pool is filled up you can't refuel the reactor, you can't operate the reactor again.

MacNEIL: Why can't you build another pool?

Mr. BISHOP: You can. Very expensive. Frequently, that's all subject to licensing and in many cases you may not be able to, physically, on that site.

MacNEIL: I see. Now, what effect is it having that so many communities, as Jim said, are passing local laws restricting your ability to route material through them? What is it doing to your industry?

Mr. BISHOP: Our concern is that if, and certainly in the absence of the DOT rule, but if this kind of circumstance continues, that shipments are going to be made much less safe. Certainly localities have a primary responsibility for the public health and safety of their citizens. And certainly they know local conditions worse but the concern that we who have to ship in interstate commerce on a national basis have, is that they're not nearly as concerned about what might be a deliterious impact on their neighboring community or a community two away. I think it's very clear from the Department of Transportation hazardous materials experience, not with radioactive materials, with all hazardous materials, that they should be routed in the way that poses the least danger to all of society. That means using the best roads possible, minimizing transportation times and distances, minimizing exposure to personnel along the way. And that's as true whether you're shipping chlorine or arsenic as shipping radioactive materials.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: What in the world is wrong with that, Dr. Millar?

Dr. MILLAR: Well, I think that he really finesses the question about whether the casks have been adequately tested. I mean --

LEHRER: No, no, no. But his point that the local communities passing these ordinances are, in effect, making it more dangerous rather than safer.

Dr. MILLAR: Well, when you look at the federal program which many local communities have looked at very carefully and you come to the judgment that they are -- that the federal programs are completely inadequate to safeguard your citizens' health and safety. I mean, we're talking about federal programs that would have allowed high-level nuclear waste to be shipped by the hundreds of truckloads through New York City. From Long Island through New York City. Now if there's anything more cavalier and arrogant in terms of public health and safety than doing that, I don't know of an example.

LEHRER: Okay. Well, let's go to the safety thing. You heard what he said. There have been 5,000 shipments since 1964. There have, in fact, been some accidents but there has been no release of any nuclear waste material, nobody has gotten hurt.

Dr. MILLAR: In terms of spent fuel, as far as I know that's correct. That is a very small data base upon which to base predictions about future accidents for up to 9,000 shipments per year of U.S. commercial spent fuel plus foreign shipments of spent fuel that come into this country all the time. In other words, even federal researchers say that they have a very small data base to make any kind of confident predictions about releases of accidents. We know that in terms of low-level nuclear waste, there has been, in fact, a lot of releases of radioactivity from packages and it's only when the governors of Washington state and South Carolina and Nevada raised all kinds of cain with the federal government that compliance markedly improved.

LEHRER: Mr. Bishop, do you have enough data to make a projection that you just made, that, I mean, do you believe that the 5,000 experience means that this is -- that, in other words, that speaks for itself? And it says: it's safe.

Mr. BISHOP: Mr. Lehrer, there have been so many studies by so many competent scientists. Let me give you another example. The Tell Pacific Northwest Laboratories just completed a study that said that the odds of having a fatality result from a railroad shipment of spent fuel, in their estimation, was approximately one in a hundred billion. That --

LEHRER: Let me ask, one in a hundred billion, would you live with that?

Dr. MILLAR: Look, they said the same kind of thing before Three Mile Island. I mean that accident wasn't supposed to happen once in a million years. Now, that's just the kind of absurdly inflated safety reassurances that we always hear from federal studies.

LEHRER: Mr. Bishop?

Mr. BISHOP: They went on to observe that approximately once every 60 years, if there were 1,500 shipments a year, and remember last year there were 85 shipments, if there were 1,500 shipments a year, statistically about once every 60 years there would be a release of radioactivity. But it would result in a fatality on their studies and, again, we have no experience, we have to go with analytical models, on their studies they estimate one fatality once every 2,400 years.

Dr. MILLAR: He says we have no experience so we have to go on analytical models. I mean, if you're a local --

LEHRER: You said the same thing.

Dr. MILLAR: Exactly. The point is if you're a local official and you're talking about the health and safety of your citizens, and there's no data about releases -- how spent fuel can be released from a cask -- are you going to be relaxed about that?

LEHRER: Speaking about local officials, Robin's going to talk to one now. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes. Let's look at one local example in the Midwest. The Nebraska Public Power District wants to ship nuclear waste by rail from its Cooper Station plant in the Southeast part of the state through neighboring Iowa and eventually to a nuclear facility in Morris, Illinois. This route passes directly through Lincoln, Nebraska, a city of 175,000 and the state capital. The City Council has expressed concern and is considering a law regulating such waste transportation. Eric Youngberg is the City Councilman who has proposed the new law. He's with us at the Nebraska Educational Television Network in Lincoln. Mr. Youngberg, what precisely are you afraid of, you and your fellow city councilors, if these shipments went through Lincoln?

ERIC YOUNGBERG: Well, our main concern -- and this was outlined in the resolution which the City Council passed earlier this spring -- said, first of all that we're concerned about inadequate notice, in that the way that the structure is arranged right now, the city of Lincoln and our civil defense, police and fire officials wouldn't receive proper notice in our opinion. Second of all, we're concerned about inadequate training and physical materials available to our personnel to be able to react in the case of an accident, no matter severe, through the city of Lincoln. And thirdly, is the safety of our individuals who work for the city, the fire officials and our police officers and our health department officials, as well as the health and safety of the individuals who live along the trackage throughout the city of Lincoln.

LEHRER: What are you using as the basis for your judgment as a city councilor and presumably you're not an expert in nuclear matters -- maybe you are, but --

Mr. YOUNGBERG: No. I'm not.

MacNEIL: I'm assuming you're not -- what are you using as the basis for your judgment that there is a risk? You've just heard one man say there is and another man from the industry say there isn't.

Mr. YOUNGBERG: Okay, I can tell you as an elected official that we are presented with woefully inadequate information from the federal government, from the utility industry generally and from this specific utility, as to exactly what is going to occur, exactly where it would go and what the impacts might be. So that we can judge what our response might have to be and what kind of resources we may have to have to counteract that.

MacNEIL: What do you want your law to do? The law you are proposing.

Mr. YOUNGBERG: Okay. First of all, the ordinance would require prenotification of the Mayor of the city of Lincoln. That's a critical factor as we've explained before. Second of all, it would require that the material which is to be transported through the city of Lincoln would be packaged according to standards of DOT as well as the NRC. As well as having it properly identified on the vehicle on which it's being transported. Now, that's not different that the regulations which DOT or NRC may have in place presently.

MacNEIL: NRC is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. YOUNGBERG: Yes, that's correct.Also, there would be the burden of proof and I think this is the critical factor in the ordinance is that the burden of proof doesn't lie with the city of Lincoln. Certainly the people of the city of Lincoln did not ask to bear the burden of proof, did not ask to bear the consequences of these shipments through the city of Lincoln. The ordinance would put the burden of proof squarely and plainly upon those who were introducing the risk into the city of Lincoln and, that is in this case the Nebraska Public Power District and the shipper, General Electric. The burden of proof would have to show that it is in urgent -- meets the criteria of urgent public policy to transport these materials through the city of Lincoln.

MacNEIL: And not just for the economic convenience of the utility.

Mr. YOUNGBERG: The ordinance clearly states that economic considerations, alone -- and I emphasize alone -- are not sufficient criteria to meet that condition.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this finally? If it comes down to a power struggle between the City Council of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the federal government over who has the right to regulate this, what is your feeling and your colleagues' feeling about who would win it?

Mr. YOUNGBERG: Well, our feeling is that we would. Certainly I would not introduce the ordinance if I didn't think that was the case and our City Attorney has assured us, what with court cases recently and with the experience in communities in this region as well as nationally, that we certainly would win.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: The federal government does have a policy on nuclear waste transport and one of the officials responsible for developing that policy is Howard Dugoff, head of the Department of Transportation's Research and Special Progams Administration. Is Lincoln permitted to do what Mr. Youngberg wants under your regulations?

HOWARD DUGOFF: Well, the answer is I don't know. The system which the federal policy presents to the federal government and to local jurisdictions such as Lincoln to resolve a thorny and contentious issue like this one is complex one. It is one that takes place largely in the courts. The Hazardous Material Transportation Act of 1974, the statute we administer, which provides the basis for our actions, requires that the Department of Transportation issue and enforce a set of uniform national safety regulations which will assure the public of an acceptable level of safety in the transportation of hazardous materials, including radioactive materials. That law also provides for an appropriate and sensible role for state and local governments. It holds that no state or local ordinance which is inconsistent with the Hazardous Material Transportation Act or with standards issued by the Department of Transportation pursuant to that act may be enforced. It does not stipulate more precisely what is meant by the term "consistent". And it doesn't stipulate how enforcement should take place in practice. What has tohappen is somebody has to initiate a legal action, go to court, make the argument --

LEHRER: Which is what New York did, what New York City did.

Mr. DUGOFF: Yes, indeed. And in the case of Nebraska, presumably if a shipper or carrier affected by this feels that it is an improper application of local jurisdiction, they will go to court and make arguments.

LEHRER: But you won't go to court?

Mr. DUGOFF: No, we will not go to court.

LEHRER: You don't enforce your own regulations.

Mr. DUGOFF: We don't enforce them and we don't have statutory authority to enforce them. We have attempted to devise an administrative mechanism to facilitate the resolution of such controversies. We've issued a regulation that permits a party to petition a department for a finding as to whether a given ordinance or regulation issued by a state or local government is consistent or inconsistent with federal standards.

LEHRER: But once you do that, that's it. Right?

Mr. DUGOFF: Once we do that it has advisory status but no dispositive effect. Historically, the courts have tended to give very substantial weight to the findings of the Department but they're not dispositive.So, in this instance, and it's a typical one, a process would be complex, it would be lengthy, it would be contentious.

LEHRER: So I understand this and in the simplest of terms, the transportation regulations that you put out in February, the ones I mentioned at the very beginning, that Mr. Bishop mentioned also a while ago, essentially says that it is perfectly all right for anybody to ship either by railroad or by truck high-level nuclear waste as long as you follow various safety regulations which are contained already in the law and if they follow these preferred routes, correct? And that is essentially what you're saying.

Mr. DUGOFF: That is essentially correct. The rule in fact is limited to highway transport, by virtue of the fact that it doesn't speak specifically to rail transport. I think it is fair to characterize it in terms you have. It's the position of the federal government, having heard the arguments put forward by the two gentlemen that you've interviewed here and many others, that on balance the finding that you characterize is an accurate one. It is safe to ship such materials provided they conform with the packaging and other requirements for operations that we have stipulated, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stipulated. On the other hand, the statute, as I indicated earlier allows for a state or local government to accommodate to specific and special local conditions by implementing additional requirements, provided they're not inconsistent with ours.

LEHRER: So your regulation doesn't mean anything really, does it?

Mr. DUGOFF: Until it's tested by the courts, its practical effect is not clear.

LEHRER: I mean, it's only if the city council of Lincoln, Nebraska, or McKinney, Texas, or whatever decides: Okay, we're going to follow DOT regulations, we're going to let them pass or we're not and we're going to pass an ordinance, that's it. That's basically, they're going to make the decision, if somebody challenges them, goes to the courts and that's it.

Mr. DUGOFF: Exactly, they have the discretion to attempt to test the system by promulgating regulations as they see fit. Then it's up to the courts to decide whether or not those regulations are consistent or inconsistent. If this happens a few times, and if the courts establish a case law basis which makes it clear to state and local governments just exactly what in the legal sense is permissible, the situation will define itself. Now, we've attempted to stipulate our opinions as to what would or would not be inconsistent with our regulations. But, again, it's not binding on anybody.

LEHRER: All right. Robin?

MacNEIL: And you, Mr. Bishop, want the federal government to override those local ordinances. Is that correct?

Mr. BISHOP: Yes, sir. The DOT rule does exactly that.

MacNEIL: But we've just heard that, in effect, in practical effect it doesn't until it's tested in the courts.

Mr. BISHOP: Yes, sir. And that's one of our concerns. There's some 53,000 municipalities, I understand; 200 and some odd have passed regulations that in one way or another restrict the transportation. Obviously, as that number grows, the ability to most efficiently and therefore, frankly, most safely transport becomes very much in question.

MacNEIL: Dr. Millar, what's your view on who should have the controlling regulating power in this?

Dr. MILLAR: Well, it seems that localities have been certainly convinced that the federal government's not doing an adequate job to safeguard the shipments of nuclear waste. I don't think anybody's arguing that in the long run, every single community in the country should have a ban on nuclear transportation. But what we certainly do need is vigorous local action starting from the local communities and going through the regional activities that will, in effect, force the federal government back from very hasty and very complacent kinds of activities and force them to develop a system that, in cooperation with states and localities, that can assure people that the nuclear wastes are being transported somewhat safely, as safely as possible.

MacNEIL: Thank you, Dr. Millar, Mr. Dugoff and Mr. Youngberg in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Mr. Bishop in New York.Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.