Shearon Harris Waste Could Move

But some residents say the bad news is that the waste will be shipped out on trucks and trains that will pass within a mile of more than 300,000 North Carolina residents and more than 300 of the state's schools.

However, the members of the U.S. Senate who recently approved the bill believe moving the waste to a central location makes more sense than allowing it to build up at plants all over the county.

This is especially true for Carolina Power & Light Co.'s Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, located about 20 miles southeast of Chapel Hill, where 3,500 spent-fuel assemblies are held in three cooling pools.

If the waste is not transferred in the next seven years, Shearon Harris might have to use its fourth cooling pool.

"Assuming the Yucca Mountain project moves forward, what it ultimately means for the Harris facility is we will likely need less storage space for spent-fuel than we had anticipated," said Keith Poston, a spokesman for Progress Energy, CP&L's parent company.

"And in the future we would begin seeing the amount of spent fuel stored at Harris gradually decline, depending on the shipping schedules."

But the Yucca Mountain storage facility seems to be far from the day it receives its first load of nuclear waste.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission first must approve a license for the project. Officials hope to open the site by 2010, though some supporters say that date is optimistic.

Most of the facility's waste will travel from North Carolina to the Yucca Mountain facility by rail.

Poston said there might be some trucks used on highways to transfer the waste to rail stations.

Security has become the main concern with the project because the waste will travel close to many of the state's residents.

But Poston said CP&L has shipped waste to Shearon Harris by rail from other facilities in the Carolinas for more than a decade without running into problems.

"We are one of the few companies in the country that has experience shipping fuel," he said.

"We ship spent fuel by rail to Harris from our two other nuclear plants in the Carolinas. We have been doing that for about 13 years."

Despite the company's experience, in the wake of Sept. 11 some people fear the transportation of nuclear waste leaves the door wide open for terrorists.

"The shipping containers are designed with safety in mind," Poston said.

"Since September 11 we have made additional security enhancements. Beyond that, the more common type of incident that we plan for is some type of derailment or other impact."

The shipping containers are made of steel and weigh 70 tons.

The containers are designed to withstand crashes, explosions, bombs and submersion in water.

"Even if there was some sort of incident with the shipment, the public would not be at any risk from material that is inside those containers," Poston said.

Most people who oppose the project would like to continue to store waste where it is generated under increased security.

But while the company maintains that the cooling pools at Shearon Harris are safe, Poston said, "They were never designed to be a permanent storage facility."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.