Yucca Mountain

I hadn't heard much about this lately. Then I read this over at Mean Mr. Mustard.

I've gotten used to the hysteria anytime the words 'radiation' or 'radioactive' are heard, which is one reason I didn't pay much attention when this started. It reminds me of the people who scream about nuclear weapons materials being transported: "There will be an accident and the whole area will be contaminated! The terrorists will steal the stuff!" and so forth.

I mentioned before that I once was a dispatcher for the Highway Patrol here. In one in-service school we had some background and response materials on the transport of nuclear weapons materials, how they were set up, security, respoinses if trouble, etc. The containers, whether rail or truck trailer, are designed and built to both prevent the release of any materials in any conceivable accident, and to deny access to anyone who might attack them. In the case of truck transport, the semi pulling the trailer is armored and driven by two federal marshalls, both armed. And they have two- minimum- escort vehicles with more marshalls and sufficient weapons to fight a small battle. I do not use that description lightly; their training and focus was to, in the event of an attempt to seize the truck, hold off what would amount to an infantry assault until help could arrive. Which would be pretty damn quick. I won't go over the alert call procedures, in any case I'm sure they've advanced quite a bit.

The containers themselves were shot, lifted off the ground by cranes and dropped, crashed into by other trucks, and sat across railroad tracks and hit by a locomotive moving 65mph. All with no leaks. And if someone managed to stop the truck and kill all the marshalls? The semi would be disabled, the cavalry would be coming(literally), and the trailers contained 'denial' features, tear gas being the only one they would tell us about. Plus, it took at least two people, doing the right things in the right sequence, to unlock and open the thing.

And with all this, people still screamed about how 'unsafe' and 'insufficiently tested' all this was. The problem with those statements being that for the people making them, there was no way that they could EVER be 'safe'. No tests mattered, no security would be good enough, it involved RADIATION! This included clowns from the Benedictine Peace House who had people watching the highways for the trucks; they liked to follow them as a 'protest' to the transport of those 'immoral' weapons materials, but also because there was RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS involved.

Connected is the screaming about destroying our stockpiles of chemical weapons. Everyone wants to get rid of them, so the Army built a specially-designed incinerator for the purpose. Secured area, storage areas, the incinerator itself, all for the specific purpose of destroying the stuff. And what happens? The same people who are screaming the loudest about getting rid of it don't want it destroyed there. "You'll have to transport it through places where people live! There will be accidents and people will die! Whole areas will be contaminated!" As if the people trying to get rid of the stuff are just going to load it in a semi and drive it through, hoping for the best. So, let's see: you want it moved away from where it is, BUT YOU CAN'T DRIVE IT AWAY! You want it destroyed, but YOU CAN'T TAKE IT TO THE PLACE WHERE IT CAN BE DESTROYED! You want it gone, but YOU CAN'T BURN IT HERE!

The obvious question is, "What do you suggest we do with it, then?" But you won't get an answer. It's far too important to scream and threaten and worry about 'the children' than to actually do something. Or allow the people who are trying to do something to do it.

It's enough to make your head hurt.