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Nevada military base would be endangered by Yucca nuclear waste dump

Yucca nuclear dump a threat to Nevada military bases, Rosen says By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 16, 2018

Nevada 3rd Congressional District Rep. Jacky Rosen looks at the controversy over a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain through the eyes of a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.  The transportation and storage of nuclear waste at the site — less than 100 miles from Las Vegas — would pose a threat to national security because of the U.S. military bases that surround the area, Rosen said Thursday on Nevada Newsmakers.

“We have Nellis Air Force Base, the premier pilot-training (facility) throughout the world. We have the Nevada Test and Training Range where we do all that training — 70 percent of the Air Force’s live munitions lives there,” Rosen said.

“We have Creech Air Force Base, where we have our unmanned aerial system,” she said. “We train those Topgun naval aviators in Fallon. We have a Hawthorne Army Depot, a Nevada Test Site and Area 51.”

“Yucca Mountain sits right in the center of all that,” Rosen said. “Nevada is critical to our national security, our homeland security and safety. And anything that could compromise that, moving nuclear waste through the Nevada Test and Training Range or any of those other routes, could put us at risk.”

Storage of nuclear waste near U.S. military installations is only one problem with Yucca, Rosen said. Another is moving it there through wide swaths of the United States.

“There are 75,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. At three loads a week via trains or trucks on our freeways, going through over 44 states and 300 counties, it will take 50 years to transport it,” Rosen said. “So don’t tell me that within that 50 years, there is not going to be some kind of accident.”………https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/sep/16/yucca-nuclear-dump-a-threat-to-nevada-military-bas/

September 17, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA, wastes