Toxic train wreck in Ohio is latest reason not to fund Yucca Mountain

It has been more than two weeks since a train carrying dangerous chemicals used in the production of PVC plastics and adhesives derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The wreck underscores the rights of communities to know and control what they might be exposed to as it rolls through their backyards.

A growing number of East Palestine’s residents are reporting severe headaches and pets falling ill. While scientists maintain that the air in East Palestine is generally safe to breathe, they can’t be certain which homes or neighborhoods experienced acute exposure in the immediate aftermath of the wreck.

The effects are extending far beyond East Palestine as well.

On Friday, almost 300 miles away, officials in Cincinnati announced they would close the city’s water intake valves. They’re concerned about a plume of toxic butyl acrylate that escaped the train wreck and is flowing down the Ohio River. Earlier in the week, the chemical plume caused thousands of fish to die near Huntington, W.VA., nearly 200 miles downstream.

Transporting highly toxic substances poses a risk not only to the communities immediately adjacent to the tracks but to any communities in the region that are connected by water and air. As we wrestle with aging infrastructure, communities are blinded to what kind of freight is hauled through or near them. That should change so cities know and can have some control over their exposure.

Here in Nevada, the advocacy of people like the late U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and current Rep. Dina Titus, D-nev., stopped in their tracks federal government plans to transport nuclear waste across the desert for storage at Yucca Mountain.

The disaster unfolding before our eyes in East Palestine and downstream along the Ohio River demonstrates why the Yucca Mountain plan needs to be officially taken off the table and new options explored for the disposal of nuclear waste.

Just like in East Palestine, where rail tracks traverse directly over tributaries that feed the Ohio River, the Yucca Mountain Rail Corridor traverses tributaries of the Colorado River. If a train derailed and spilled radioactive waste into one of these tributaries, it might affect the water supply for tens of millions of people.

A scenario like this isn’t speculative. In 2019, under the leadership of then-president Donald Trump and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the federal government secretly shipped plutonium from South Carolina to the Nevada National Security Site. The secret shipments were revealed and eventually stopped following legal action by thengov. Steve Sisolak and Attorney General Aaron Ford, as well as legislative action by Titus. Fortunately, none of the trains secretly carrying plutonium derailed.

However, just months after the secret shipments were discovered, a train derailed near the junction with the Yucca Mountain Rail Corridor and sent 33 cargo containers filled with automobiles tumbling off the tracks. The wreck occurred along a 30-mile stretch of track that closely follows — at times within mere yards — the Meadow Valley Wash. During the wet months, the wash creates a creek that flows 35 miles downstream into the Muddy River, and in turn, the Overton Arm of Lake Mead.

To compare, chemicals from the East Palestine wreck traveled nearly 20 miles through tributaries to reach the Ohio River.

Beyond the threat to the water, radioactive waste from a derailed train could threaten millions of lives in Southern Nevada and Southwest Utah. The growth of cities like Las Vegas and St. George has only increased the number of lives endangered by a project like Yucca Mountain. Prior to the ban on nuclear testing, St. George was hit even harder than Las Vegas by cancers now linked to nuclear fallout.

When the Yucca Mountain project was first designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, the population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area was just over 600,000. Today it is more than 2.2 million. There are another quarter-million people in the St. George metropolitan area.

Millions of people live in and around the Yucca Mountain project and the rail lines that would carry nuclear waste to it. Tens of millions rely on the interconnected water system beneath those tracks.

The U.S. government should not endanger those lives in the fight for a repository that lacks scientific support, lacks community support and lacks funding. The Yucca Mountain project should be killed once and for all.

Last week, Democrats in Nevada’s congressional delegation, led by Titus and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-nev., proposed the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act. The act would require a consent-based approach that ensures state, local and tribal officials have a strong voice in siting and funding nuclear waste facilities.

Titus previously led efforts to reopen the licensing proceeding regarding Yucca Mountain with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission so that a vote to suspend the project permanently could be taken.

Congress should act with haste to pass the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act, before we are forced to learn what happens when a radioactive version of East Palestine occurs in a region with 2.5 million people.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should also act to end the Yucca Mountain project once and for all. Only then can more appropriate sites be located and the centuries-long work of storing and disposing of the United States’ spent nuclear fuel begin.

As we wrestle with aging infrastructure, communities are blinded to what kind of freight is hauled through or near them. That should change so cities know and can have some control over their exposure.