The numbers provided by Teal Krech are inflammatory, and in general not
applicable.
For example, so what if there would be 440 rail accidents involving trains
carrying nuclear waste. That doesn't mean there will be 440 radiation
leaks. The predicted number of leaks from 440 accidents is zero because the
casks are designed to survive wrecks.
So what if there have been 47 regulatory incidents over the past 30 years.
I have been on an environmental committee for 14 years. I was appointed to
the committee and the committee is sponsored by the county health
department. We work with local refineries and chemical industries to help
promote safety and keep dialogue between the industries and the public. We
get reports of 20 to 50 regulatory violations per year just in our county.
Therefore if nuclear shipments have resulted in 47 regulatory violations
over 30 years, that is an incredibly good record. Understand that these
violations are pretty much always paper violations. A form was not signed,
or not dated, or someone didn't file it properly. Of the tens of annual
violations in my county, violations due to actual physical releases that
might harm the public have been zero.
Michael Edmiston
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio 45817