NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT (Senate - July 10, 1996)

[Page: S7644]

Harry, one of the things that I do that gives me as much concern as anything else is we get notices every day of hazardous substances that are being driven through our town.

He said:

It would be better if they didn't even tell us about it, because if something happened with one of those vehicles with the hazardous substance in it, there is nothing we can do about it anyway. We have no equipment. None of our personnel, police or fire, are trained to handle these hazardous substances. Our equipment is certainly inadequate.

Multiply this thousands and thousands of times all over America. We are going to ship nuclear waste on trucks and trains. There will be accidents. There have been accidents. We have already had seven nuclear waste accidents. They have not been significantly harmful, but there have been accidents.

The industry and the sponsors of this bill, as I have indicated, would have you believe, would like you to believe that this transportation is risk free. Well, it is not. There have been truck and train accidents involving nuclear waste , and there will continue to be accidents involving nuclear waste . There will be many more accidents because there will be many more shipments.

The industry and the sponsors of this bill will tell you that the probability of an accident resulting in a large radioactive release is very small; that, in fact, we have never had a significant release. Well, probabilities have inevitable results, that if you push them long and hard enough, the adverse outcome will occur.

The day before Chernobyl, the probability of such an accident was very, very low. But the day after the accident, the consequences were enormous, and the probabilities of other such accidents increased significantly.

Mr. President, there are a number of us who have been concerned about the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal. In working on these issues, I came to realize that there have been numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons. We have been so fortunate. We have been so lucky that there has not been death and destruction as a result of those accidents. In North Dakota, a B-52 caught fire loaded with nuclear weapons. The wind usually blew in one direction, but during the course of this fire on the airplane, it blew in the other direction and, as a result of that, there was no danger as a result of nuclear weaponry.

We know that there has been an accident in Canada of an airplane with nuclear weapons on it. Again, it was found and everything worked out fine. But these accidents will happen. The day before Chernobyl, the probability of such an accident was very low. But the accident happened. And the consequences were enormous. The same potential exists here.

Mr. President, again, I would like to draw your attention to the chart that shows the number of trucks and trains that will be used to transport this very high-level nuclear waste . I, of course, highlighted the States with the biggest risks. It is in bold print: Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. There are others that are close to that. But I just highlighted those.

It is significant, because we are talking about over 12,000 shipments through Illinois alone; over 11,000 shipments through Nebraska and Wyoming; over 14,000 through Utah; over 15,000 for Nevada. These are some of the States.

As I have indicated, we have already had seven nuclear waste transportation accidents. The average has been 1 accident for every 300 shipments of nuclear waste . Well, we do not know for sure how many new trains and trucks will be required because of S. 1936. But we know it will be magnified significantly. So we can expect at least 150 or 200 accidents if this S. 1936 is implemented.

Where will the accidents take place? Omaha? Chicago? New York? Atlanta? I do not know. No one knows, just like no one knew that this inferno would occur at Chernobyl. We should not be ready to take that risk, because it is unnecessary. Why would we want to take the risk? To help the nuclear industry reduce its costs and risk exposure? It is a tautology that accidents are unpredictable; but that an accident will happen is certain.