PROJECTED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL TRANSPORTATION TO THE FIRST US REPOSITORY SITE

This paper discusses the relative national environmental impacts of transporting nuclear wastes to each of the nine candidate repository sites in the United States. Several of the potential sites are closely clustered and, for the purpose of distance and routing calculations, are treated as a single location. These are: Cypress Creek Dome and Richton Dome in Mississippi (Gulf Interior Region), Deaf Smith County and Swisher County sites in Texas (Permain Basin), and Davis Canyon and Lavender Canyon site in Utah (Paradox Basin). The remaining sites are: Vacherie Dome, Louisiana; Yucca Mountain, Nevada; and Hanford Reservation, Washington. For compatibility with both the repository system authorized by the NWPA and with the MRS option, two separate scenarios were analyzed. In brief, they are (1) shipment of spent fuel and high-level wastes (HLW) directly from waste generators to a repository (Reference Case) and (2) shipment of spent fuel to a Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility and then to a repository. Between 17 and 38 truck accident fatalities, between 1.4 and 7.7 rail accident fatalities, and between 0.22 and 12 radiological health effects can be expected to occur as a result of radioactive material transportation during the 26-year operating period of the first repository. During the same period in the United States, about 65,000 total deaths from truck accidents and about 32,000 total deaths from rail accidents would occur; also an estimated 58,300 cancer fatalities are predicted to occur in the United States during a 26-year period from exposure to background radiation alone (not including medical and other manmade sources). The risks reported here are upper limits and are small by comparison with the "natural background" of risks of the same type. (ERA citation 11:037656)

• Corporate Authors:

  Sandia National Laboratories

  P.O. Box 5800
  Albuquerque, NM  United States  87185
• Authors:
  • Neuhauser, K S
  • Cashwell, J W
  • REARDON, P C
  • Ostmeyer, R M
  • McNair, G W
• Publication Date: 1986

Media Info

• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 10 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash rates; Environmental impacts; Fatalities; Hazards; Health; Probability; Radiation hazards; Radioactive waste disposal; Railroad transportation; Risk assessment; Shipping; Spent reactor fuels; Trucks; Waste disposal facilities
• Uncontrolled Terms: Probabilistic analysis
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Design; Environment; Highways; Marine Transportation; Motor Carriers; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; Safety and Human Factors; Terminals and Facilities; Vehicles and Equipment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00464490
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: SAND-85-2206C, IAEA-SM-286/88, CONF--860604--22
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 31 1987 12:00AM