Shipment of radioactive waste to begin today

[sandlapper]

From today's paper.

Shipment of radioactive waste to begin today

By Ken Ritter
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1/6/2004 09:26 pm

LAS VEGAS — Shipments of medium-level radioactive waste were to begin today on a previously disputed route from the Nevada Test Site through California and Arizona to New Mexico, officials said.
“The schedule is tomorrow,” Ralph Smith, spokesman for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., said Tuesday. “We have seven shipments planned this month.”
<snip>

California balked at allowing the shipments in July, but the federal Energy Department and the four states’ governors agreed Oct. 9 to allow 40 to 60 shipments this year on the 1,130-mile route, Smith said.

I gather these will be experimental disposal system samples that are to be shipped but it is a start.

[Buzz Clik]

1. A start, but...

I love these quotes from the article linked in the opening post:

"Bob Loux, Nevada Nuclear Projects Office chief, said the agreement allowed for half the original number of shipments along the California desert route, as long as the other half goes another route...

...Loux said Nevada does not oppose transporting the transuranic material to New Mexico, but the state is fighting plans to ship 77,000 tons of highly radioactive material from nuclear power plants around the country to a planned national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas."

gawd.