Transporting Nuke Waste to PFS – How close to routes are we?

Trucks transporting spent fuel rods to the pending Private Fueld Storage (PFS) Site in Utah would take up 2/3 of the road leading to it, making two-way traffic impossible, according to Utah officials quoted in an article published in today’s Deseret News.

The Utah Attorney General’s office spokesperson, Denise Chancellor, briefed the Utah Legislature’s Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee on the issue stating that The route, U-196, is in “sad shape.” Varying from 20 to 22 feet across, often without a shoulder, it is a main thoroughfare to Dugway Proving Ground. It is also an escape route that would be used if an accident happened at the Army’s chemical weapons incinerator, located near Stockton, Tooele County.

The transport trucks would weigh 225 tons and would haul casks of highly radioactive fuel to the PFS site, with much of the weight being the “protective” casing around the rods. The D-News has a diagram and map in today’s article.

Nuke Waste will also be transported by rail through Salt Lake City en route to Tooele County, according to Chancellor. About 697,000 Utahns live within five miles of the route.

You can find out how close you and people around the country for that matter live to a proposed rail line for shipping this waste at Citizen Alert, NukeWasteMap, and NukeWaste states.

In related news, a U.S. House panelOK’d option of private nuclear waste facility.

I wonder how close the people on that panel live to transportation routes?