January 22nd, 2006

by Russell "Ace" Hoffman

The real purpose of California's proposed Route 241 is to provide a way to move nuclear "spent fuel" from San Onofre to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, without bringing the waste too near Los Angeles.  The city's vast population has undoubtedly been coldly analyzed by government-operated computer programs, which would indicate a grave danger from transporting the waste so near such a large number of people.

And Hollywood activists must not be agitated into action -- that is another reason to keep the waste route away from Los Angeles.

Over 2,000 tons of highly radioactive "spent fuel" sits precariously at San Onofre.  The fuel is so deadly it must be isolated from humanity for millions of years.  If you stand next to it for a fraction of a second it will kill you, except for the thick steel and concrete around it, which lowers the dosage levels near the massive containers to the range of a chest x-ray every so-many minutes -- still a significant dose.

Moving the backlog of radioactive waste is a nightmare requiring hundreds of individual shipments.  Each shipment will need armed guard vehicles front and back, and enormous special transporters with nearly a hundred wheels and a dozen axles.  There will be significant radiation exposure risks to the public all along the route even without an accident.  And of course, all this needs to be done without any public announcements as to when it will happen or what is being transported.

Presumably, if all goes according to plan, most of the extremely deadly nuclear waste currently stored at San Onofre will be moved during the first few years after the road is completed.  Making Route 241 a "toll road" is truly audacious, but it might be done just to keep traffic as light as possible for as long as possible, and to keep housing construction along the route to a minimum while they transfer the current nuke-waste inventory, built-up from more than 35 years of storing used reactor cores on-site near the ocean.

Would they really build an entire highway just to move that waste?

You bet they would -- they are doing it all over the country, not just here.  But the ultimate kick in the pants for Southern California is that they are building Route 241 through some of our few remaining parks and farm areas, at private contractor's expense, and then having users of the road (other than government) pay for it all, at very profitable rates for everybody involved in the building.  Ingenious!

Citizens should know that by supporting Route 241, they are choosing, once again, to support San Onofre Nuclear WASTE Generating Station.  As usual, support for the old atomic power plant is hidden in some other agenda, but that's still the real choice that is being made here.

It's long past time to shut San Onofre and get realistic about renewable energy.

Russell "Ace" Hoffman

Concerned Citizen

Carlsbad, CA