Yucca Mountain Project opponent Richard Bryan said Tuesday he was "stunned" when he watched a video of small explosions that followed more powerful ones Oct. 18 at a low-level nuclear waste dump near Beatty.
He said explosions and fire at the now-closed, state-owned landfill at the US Ecology site that shut down a 140-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 95 for nearly 24 hours added to his concerns for federal plans to haul 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel assemblies and high-level waste to Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We've already got kind of a glimmer of what can happen with low-level. ... This stuff is highly dangerous," Bryan, chairman of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, said following one of 70 press conferences held at cities nationwide on nuclear waste transportation.
The Las Vegas press conference, also featuring Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Judy Treichel, executive director of Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, was part of Nuclear Information and Resource Service's "Stop Fukushima Freeways" campaign launch.