[darrels joy]

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Bob Halstead, $125,000 per year NWPO transportation consultant, is not a transportation engineer but something of a science historian by training. While not a technician, he has attempted to earn his keep by traveling and photographing nearly every inch of the possible truck and rail routes through Nevada, producing a complete slideshow of potential problems along the highway and rail routes leading to Yucca Mountain. Halstead originally worked in Wisconsin as part of a state nuclear advisory board and has been an active opponent of nuclear energy since the early eighties, in part perhaps because of a belief that a daughter has a disease condition caused by atmospheric testing.

We mention this history not necessarily to criticize Halstead's tenacious study of the issues regarding nuclear waste transportation in Nevada, because he has proven to be a diligent worker. However, when it comes to designing emergency response measures to possible accidents along a nuclear waste shipping route, we are left with the uneasy feeling that political appointees may not be able to produce convincing technical arguments. Indeed, that is why the studies at UNLV's Transportation Research Center have utilized Civil Engineers with PhDs as consultants, at much smaller wages by the way.


http://www.yuccamountainexpose.com/Y63.htm