The proposed transportation routes into the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository have been extensively studied and highly publicized.

While the county waits to see what will happen with that project, low-level nuclear waste continues to travel via Highway 160, through the center of Pahrump. It's governed by a different set of transportation rules.

Now, the Community Advisory Board for Nevada Test Site Programs wants the Department of Energy to use computer models to determine the best transportation route for low-level nuclear waste shipments routinely passing through Pahrump from Interstate 40 to the Nevada Test Site.

Ted Oom, the Pahrump representative on the advisory board, said he noticed there were over 300 low-level shipments transiting Highway 160 via Pahrump from July through September 2007.

"It turns out there probably wasn't a study ever done to determine the best routes," Oom said during a CAB meeting at the Bob Ruud Community Center Thursday evening.

Language in the letter to Frank DiSanza, DOE director for waste management, states factors have changed considerably regarding the existing plan to use the Highway 160 loop from I-15 to the test site, avoiding Las Vegas.

There is now increased population on the highway, increased traffic, additional schools, additional hospitals and more retail businesses, the letter states.

The CAB requests the Department of Energy to consider the next five- to 10-year period in the study and projected population changes.

Oom said the current projections for Highway 160 were probably completed 30 years ago.

DiSanza told the CAB the Nevada Test Site has been accepting low-level waste for 30 years. He assured members the DOE understands what is in each waste shipment to ensure it's low-level status.

The DOE has avoided using the Spaghetti Bowl at the intersection of I-15 and Highway 95 in Las Vegas after a high level meeting with Nevada officials, DiSanza said.

The beltway around western Las Vegas is one way to avoid the Spaghetti Bowl while traveling through the city.

Kevin Rohrer, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Safety Administration, however, said the beltway wouldn't be an acceptable alternative because of all the population on the west side.

The DOE also ships the low-level waste on Highway 373 through Amargosa Valley. In the warmer months, shipments come from Highway 6 to Tonopah, then down Highway 95.

An annual NNSA transportation report showed 663 low-level shipments transited Highway 160 during fiscal year 2007, which ended last June 30.

"We are aware of the letter the CAB is sending to us," Rohrer said. "We do anticipate receiving it soon, and when we receive it we will certainly give it full consideration."

The transportation discussion came after a presentation by David Schafer, from the Desert Research Institute, that indicated there was virtually no threat to human health from the low-level shipments. Measurements of the hottest shipments were measured in microrems, at 1/1000th of a millirem. The amount of radiation emitted in a normal chest X-ray, is about 10 millirems.

Researchers checked the gamma radiation emitted from 1,012 of the 2,260 truck shipments. Nearly half had radiation levels indistinguishable from background levels, Schafer said.

Fifty-nine trucks had gamma radiation greater than 800 microrems.

There were higher radiation exposures in shipments to the test site via Highway 6, a rural highway from Ely to Tonopah, Schafer said. The DOE has studied what Schafer called the Goldfield scenario, because the highway is the narrowest in that town.

"There were no trucks that exceeded the Department of Transportation standard. A conclusion that is fair to say, the practices used by DOE and other agencies for low-level waste shipments keep exposure to the public quite low," Schafer said.

But he added, "I realize there are other issues involved in waste transportation, like accidents and other traffic, that's still on a road being used. But at least for the issue of potential exposure, this sort of snapshot of data shows there's comparatively little risk."