Do you feel safer in the dark? · 24 December 08
I want to post this press release from Sen. Ron Wyden’s folks calling for federal rules on the transport of radioactive waste. This is in response to a truck that jack-knifed on I-84 this week. The truck was carrying radioactive waste to the Hanford area. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the waste was not spilled. But at issue here is not only whether radioactive waste should be transported through Oregon in adverse weather conditions. At issue is also a rule change that closed records documenting the transport of radioactive waste after Sept. 11, 2001.
That change and others like it prompted SPJ to launch the “Do You Feel Safer in the Dark” campaign, raising awareness about the link between the terrorists attacks on the United States that year and new regulations that took a range of government activities out of the public eye. This storm-related incident is a sobering reminder that we are, still, in the dark.
On the heels of the jack-knifed truck, we should again raise the question of whether Oregon faces a greater risk from terrorists who search out waste transport routes or from the folks that drive them through unwitting communities. We can’t escape our geographic proximity to Hanford. But we can reduce related hazards by keeping the public informed.
Wyden’s remarks:
“The tractor-trailer that jack-knifed on ice-covered Interstate 84 near La Grande on Monday was carrying 233 packages of solid and liquid waste to a processing plant near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no hazardous material leaked into the environment. Nevertheless, that truck never should have been allowed to travel through Oregon in those conditions. Transporting radioactive waste, no matter how low the level, is dangerous enough under ideal road conditions, but doing it in the kind of weather we’ve had in Oregon this week makes no sense at all.
“When you’re moving a cargo that has a half-life of several thousand years, it won’t hurt to wait a few hours or days until the roads are safe. That is not going to happen until we improve the regulations governing the shipping of radioactive waste. Oregonians need to be assured that all hazardous material is being moved under the safest conditions possible and that it won’t be done at all in the middle of a snowstorm.
“While the materials on board the truck that crashed didn’t appear to be particularly hazardous, other hazardous materials are sent on Oregon highways all the time with the same lax regulation, creating not only an environmental danger, but a national security one as well. It’s time for the U.S. Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop rules for the transportation of all radioactive wastes during inclement weather. That includes notifying local communities when radioactive waste shipments are sent and giving states more authority to regulate transportation of nuclear waste on their own highways.”
