Our programs on-going task and goals:

We review activities of the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Civilian Radiation Waste Management (OCRWM), Yucca Mountain Project (YMP), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW), and other related agencies to analyze any potential economic, social, public health and safety impacts the proposed repository might have on Mineral County residents under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

We continue to review and analyze project activities which include tracking national transportation routes and modes of transportation and any other transportation activities that have potential impacts to Mineral County residents and/or visitors regarding the possible shipment of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel through Mineral County along the U.S. 95 highway corridor.

We are conducting analysis with respect to property value impacts and other potential land use impacts that have probable economic and health and safety issues related to the DOE EIS supplemental for, and environmental impacts regarding high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel that may be shipped through Mineral County en route to Yucca Mountain. 

We are preparing optimal land use analyses utilizing the Mineral County’s GIS data that will incorporate findings of the risk perception and property value impacts regarding high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel that may be shipped by truck through Mineral County along the US 95 highway corridor associated with the Yucca Mountain Project and provide this information to the Mineral County elected officials and the public.

Entrance tunnel to Yucca Mountain, 90 north of Las Vegas

Mineral County Courthouse - Yucca Mountain Oversight Office location

Funding provided to Mineral County is paid by users of electricity generated by nuclear power plants. Under a general contract with nuclear generating utilities, the federal government collects a fee of one-mill (one-tenth a cent) per kilowatt-hour from utility companies for nuclear generated electricity. The money goes into the nuclear waste fund which is used to fund all program related activities.

For more information contact:

Nuclear power plant towers

Linda Mathias, Director
Office of Nuclear Projects
P.O. Box 1600
Hawthorne, NV 89415
(775) 945-2484/2485

Yucca Mountain's location

Yucca Mountain is located within Nye County in south central Nevada (Map). Nye County is shaped somewhat like a lopsided "T" and is the largest county in Nevada. In fact, Nye County is the third largest county in the continental United States. With a land area of 11,560,960 acres, Nye County is larger than the total acreage of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware. Of this vast land area, only 822,711 acres (or just over seven percent of the total) is private land; the majority of the county's land is owned by the federal government. Churchill, Lander, Eureka, and White Pine counties border the county on the north, going from west to east respectively. Mineral (2.86 mb - be patient and Esmeralda counties are at its western borders, Lincoln and Clark counties are at its eastern borders and Inyo County, California is at its southern border. Las Vegas, in Clark County, is located about 90 miles southeast of Yucca Mountain.

Click on image to see the location of Yucca Mountain

Nevada potential Corridors:

Caleinte Rail Corridor - Since the 1996 release by DOE of its first environmental assessment of the Yucca Mountain project, the mainline Union Pacific rail line through Lincoln County and the City of Caliente has been viewed by the federal government as a likely corridor along which shipments of nuclear waste would move through Nevada to the Nevada test site.   More recently, DOE's Transportation Study 2, identifies the UP mainline, a rail to truck cask transfer facility at Caliente, and a heavy-haul truck route across Lincoln County. Interactive Google Caliente Route Map

The Department of Energy has set $3.155 billion as the latest price tag to run rail about 319 miles from Caliente in Eastern Nevada to the Yucca site in Nye County. -------- A previous cost estimate, disclosed in December 2005, was $2 billion.

The numbers underscore the growing cost of the proposed Nevada nuclear waste complex, and the likely challenges facing the Energy Department to secure funding from Congress for the undertaking.

Many are worried that the cost of over $3 Billion to construct a rail line from Caliente to Yucca Mountain may be too much:

Yucca rail estimated at more than $3b
Pahrump Valley Times -July 2007
WASHINGTON -- The cost of building a government railroad across rural Nevada to carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain has grown beyond $3 billion and is climbing with groundbreaking still several years away, according to new estimates. The Department of Energy has set $3.155 billion as the latest price tag to run rail about 319 miles from Caliente in Eastern Nevada to the Yucca site in Nye County.

Yucca passage dealt setback - Paiute tribe blocks one railroad route -Pahrump Valley Times - WASHINGTON -- Energy Department hopes to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain down a western Nevada corridor were dealt a possibly fatal blow on Tuesday when the Walker River Paiute Tribe withdrew its cooperation on a railroad route through its reservation.

The tribal council passed a resolution removing the tribe from a federal environmental impact study that included a rail segment for shipments of spent nuclear fuel along the outskirts of its sovereign lands north of Walker Lake.

The Walker River Paiutes faced growing pressures from their membership and from neighboring communities that were becoming increasingly vocal against the possibility of nuclear waste traveling through Northern Nevada.

• High-resolution Caliente corridor [pdf - 6mb, be patient]
• High-resolution Mina corridor [pdf - 11mb, be patient]
• Related Information —