The almost 800,000-pound piece of "slightly radioactive" steel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station will be moving to a disposal site in Utah through California and Nevada. / KCBSAs reported by KCBS News, a radioactive steam generator has been heavy haul trucked from the southern CA coast, across NV and into UT, before being dumped at the EnergySolutions "EnviroCare" so-called "low" level radioactive waste dump in Clive, UT, not far from the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation.
The heavy haul truck trailer measured 400 feet long. Heavy haul truck shipments are usually of much shorter duration, as they can only travel at speeds in the single digits of miles per hour.
This shipment's route was kept secret for "security reasons," officials said.
Although Southern California Edison claims little to no radiological risk associated with the shipment, a dental x-ray per hour at a distance of 5 to 10 feet still represents a gamma ray hazard for workers, inspectors, innocent bystanders, and passers by. As NAS has long affirmed, any exposure to radioactivity carries a health risk for cancer, and these risks accumulate over a lifetime.
And, as documented by Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility regarding radioactive steam generators at Bruce Nuclear Complex in Ontario, the radioactive contaminants inside steam generators are significantly hazardous.
As mentioned in the news coverage, the sheer size of the load is also a hazard. At 800,000 pounds, or 400 tons, this shipment is among the heaviest out there on the roads. In 2003, a 290 ton radioactive reactor pressure vessel traveling from northern MI to SC by train so damaged the tracks in SE MI, as well as in the Carolinas, that follow on trains derailed in its wake.
Update, Easter Day, 2013:
A 500-600 ton load dropped by Entergy at its Arkansas Nuclear One plant has killed one worker and injured 8.