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Yucca Mountain Project - Rail Transportation Project

The Yucca Mountain Project, an-depth study of a proposed nuclear waste storage repository in Nevada, has been underway for several years. Barry Lawson Associates served as moderator for a national series of public hearings on that project in 2000 (See project description in Archives).
In late 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy, through its Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, held another series of public hearings to receive public comment on a supplement to its original environmental impact statement (EIS) and on proposed plans for the construction and operation of options for rail transportation within Nevada of spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and other materials destined for the repository. The Department’s preferred rail alternative would cross the southern portion of the state and require construction of a new line across range lands, around mountains, connecting the town of Caliente in the east with existing or former rail lines in the west. The so-called Mina rail corridor was also studied.
	The hearings, moderated by a Barry Lawson and his associate Holmes Brown (of Afton Associates), provided opportunities for interested parties to express their opinions on the update to the original project EIS and railroad options as well as on the analyses on which the preferred alternatives were based. Meetings were held in several locations within Nevada, including a large gathering in Las Vegas, and in Washington, DC. They were held within a 90-day public comment period, and the public input will help the Department finalize its environmental impact reports and lead to a Record of Decision on a chosen rail alternative. That decision is expected in 2008.
More information on related public documents is available on line at: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov.