For the third year in a row the United States Transport Council is sponsoring a fact-finding trip to visit foreign nuclear waste facilities. This year up to seven Nye County officials may travel to Sweden and Finland Aug. 25 to Sept. 1.

County commissioners recently approved up to $7,000 for each county representative to attend the tour. Commissioners Roberta "Midge" Carver and Gary Hollis, the commission's two liaisons on nuclear waste, plan to go on the Scandinavian tour.

Last October, the U.S. Transport Council escorted a fact-finding tour to visit nuclear waste facilities in Japan. Commissioner Carver and Bob Gamble, the county's on-site representative at the U.S. Department of Energy, visited Japanese facilities for transferring nuclear waste casks, recycling fuel and waste storage. The year before, Carver went on a fact-finding tour to visit a shipping facility in Cherbourg, France and a reprocessing plant in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Darrell Lacy, director of the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Office, said he doesn't know yet who will be making the trip; he said some county employees who don't have passports won't be able to get one in time for the trip.

Lacy said Sweden and Finland both made decisions to store nuclear waste in geologic repositories. Members of the tour will see what long term monitoring plans those countries have and other plans, he said.

In his memo to county commissioners, Lacy wrote: "It is incumbent on Nye County's elected leadership and staff to ensure Nye County's community protection plan objectives for the repository program are realized. Awareness and understanding of other nation's programs has the potential to contribute to Nye County's success in dealing with issues related to this country's repository program."

The Nye County community protection plan outlines steps to protect the county from the impact of the Yucca Mountain project, where the DOE plans to store 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.

The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board visited Sweden and Finland in 2006.

Delegates will stay in the Hotel Diplomat in Stockholm, Sweden and visit the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority and the Swedish Nuclear Waste Management Company SKB, touring their canister laboratory.

Delegates will visit with local authorities in Oskarshamn, Sweden and visit a central interim storage facility. Next it's up to the Aspo Hard Rock Laboratory.

Delegates will travel by ferry from Sweden to Turku, Finland, then continue by bus to the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Station in Finland. A visit is scheduled to a repository site, then a transfer to the Pori Airport for a flight to Helsinki.

Delegates will stay at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Helsinki. They have visits planned to the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the STUK, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority.

Besides public policy representatives from government, the delegation includes transportation leaders in fields ranging from rail commerce to spent fuel management to transport technology to strategic communications.

The item was passed under the consent agenda, in which numerous items can be approved with one vote.