- Transporting waste to Yucca Mountain from 77 reactor and storage sites in 39 states will require more than 96,000 truck shipments over at least 38 years.
- These shipments would impact 44 states and at least 109 cities with populations of 100,000 or greater, including major metropolitan areas like Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, St. Louis, Omaha, and many others.
- Truck shipments of deadly spent fuel and high-level waste would pass through 703 counties in those 44 states, with a combined population of over 123 million.
- More than 7 million people live within one-half mile of these nuclear waste shipping routes, and close to 50 million reside within 3 miles.
- There will be more spent fuel shipments in the first year of Yucca Mountain operations than occurred in the entire 40-year history of such shipments. They will involve much greater average distances (2,000+ miles vs. less than 300 miles).
- Assuming the same accident rates as for past shipments, there would be at least 400 accidents involving spent fuel and high-level waste shipments during the 38-year shipping campaign.
- Casks used to ship spent nuclear fuel are NOT required to be physically tested. Certification is provided by the NRC based only on computer simulations and scale model tests.
- A study by Radioactive Waste Management Associates of New York found that conditions presented by the rail tunnel fire in Baltimore in July 2001 would have been severe enough to breach a canister had the train been carrying spent fuel.
- Such an accident would have contaminated large areas of Baltimore, caused over 1,500 latent cancer fatalities over a one-year period, and up to 31,800 latent cancer fatalities over 50 years. The costs for cleaning up contaminated areas were estimated to exceed $13.7 billion.
