Nuclear plant security attacked
And report echoes Utah concerns about risks from N-wastes
The report notes that "lightly protected spent-fuel pools are situated outside containment areas" and are subject to terrorist attack. The same holds true for the above-ground casks at the nation's nuclear power plants and potentially those that would be stored in Tooele County far outside any containment area.
Those same concerns have been raised by Utah officials for years.
"Instead of getting straight answers, we get platitudes and feel-good letters," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "We are being told there's no problem, that it's safe. But we don't believe that is the case."
Utah officials have argued before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Atomic Safety Licensing Board that spent fuel rods in above-ground casks are an inviting target for terrorist attacks, as is the shipment of the waste from nuclear power plants scattered around the nation.
"Those claims have been discredited time and again," added institute spokesman Mitch Singer of the Public Citizen study.
But the Public Citizen report observed that security improvements are a closely guarded secret, and the public has no way of knowing if the improvements are sufficient.
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has thrown a shroud of secrecy over security deliberations," the report states.
The NRC has assured state officials that security measures in place to protect nuclear power plants would be sufficient to protect nuclear-waste casks in Utah.
The Public Citizen report highlights the potential terrorist threats at nuclear power plants, not the risk of storing the waste in the Utah desert.
But it also highlights the risks of transporting wastes, criticizing the administration's support for a plan to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev. If enacted, it "would result in tens of thousands of rail and truck shipments of highly radioactive spent fuel — all potential terrorist targets — from reactors to a massive nuclear waste site."
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