Beyond Nuclear - Waste Transportation

NIRS factsheets on barge shipments of deadly high-level radioactive waste on waterways, by state (published on September 28, 2004; the cited 2002 route maps were published by the U.S. Department of Energy, in the context of Yucca Mountain, NV-bound shipments; however, de facto permanent parking lot dumps in TX and/or NM could use very similar, or even identical, barge shipment routes). Such barge shipments are necessitated by the fact that more than two-dozen U.S. atomic reactors lack direct rail access. Thus, to move the giant, 100+ ton rail-sized casks to the nearest railhead, either barges, or else heavy haul trucks (a puller truck in front, and perhaps even a pusher truck in back, and 200 wheels in between on the trailer; heavy haul truck shipments can only go a few miles per hour, and cannot negotiate significant curves in the roadway) must be used: