Recently I blogged about costs related to the handling of nuclear materials left over from the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons. If such radioactive materials are not going to be permanently stored where they are created, then they will have to be transported to a permanent storage location which may be thousands of miles away. Transportation of radioactive materials is dangerous for a number of reasons including possibility of accidents and deliberate attacks on transport vehicles.
There is a debate over whether the public should be informed of such dangerous shipments or whether such transportation should be secret. On the one hand, critics of secrecy say that people who live and work along the route deserve to know that dangerous shipments are passing. Supporters of secrecy say that keeping the shipments secret is necessary to prevent attacks and hijacking of shipments.
Nevada filed an injunction to stop shipments of nuclear materials to Nevada for storage before a thorough study was made of the possible environmental impact. Today, the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that the court proceedings were moot because the NNSA had already secretly shipped half a ton of highly radioactive weapons-grade plutonium from Georgia to Las Vegas.
The plutonium came from the Savannah River Site located twenty-five miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia. It was sent to the Nevada National Security Site which is about eighty miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is around two thousand miles between the origin and destination of the shipments.
Bruce Diamond is the general counsel for the DoE. He said in a court filing, “Because sufficient time has now elapsed after conclusion of this campaign, DOE may now publicly state that it has completed all shipment of plutonium (approximately ½ metric ton) to Nevada. Although the precise date that this occurred cannot be revealed for reasons of operational security, it can be stated that this was done before November 2018, prior to the initiation of the litigation.” He went on to say that concerns about the security of the shipment stopped the DoE from sharing any information about the shipment before or during the transport.
Steve Sisolak is the Governor of Nevada. He responded to the revelation of the shipment by saying, “I am beyond outraged by this completely unacceptable deception from the U.S. Department of Energy. The department (of Energy) led the State of Nevada to believe that they were engaging in good-faith negotiations with us regarding a potential shipment of weapons-grade plutonium, only to reveal that those negotiations were a sham all along. They lied to the State of Nevada, misled a federal court, and jeopardized the safety of Nevada’s families and environment.”
Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen said that the actions of the DoE were “deceitful and unethical” and that they were a danger to “the health and safety of thousands of Nevadans and Americans who live in close proximity to shipment routes.”
Concerns about the safety and the security of shipping highly radioactive materials across the U.S are both valid. However, the likelihood of accidents during transport is much greater than the likelihood of deliberate interference and/or hijacking of such shipments. Therefore, I believe that the right of the public to know about such shipments should outweigh the security concerns. If such shipments are kept secret and there is one major accident with a shipment that exposes people to radioactive materials, there will be enormous public outrage. It will be very difficult to maintain secrecy after such an event.