Risks of transportation along various routes to the Nevada Test Site.

Residents of Southern Nevada have expressed interest in the risks posed by transportation of radioactive materials to the Nevada Test Site for disposal. Residents of the urban sections of Clark County, in particular, are concerned because the trucks carrying this material pass through fairly densely populated areas on both primary and secondary highways. Excellent studies by the Desert Research Institute (Miller, et al, 2005; 2007) measured the external radiation doses from these trucks and provided a benchmark for estimating the doses sustained by the population along the transportation routes. The studies did not, however, assess the doses to the population in the event of an accident involving these trucks. The present study estimates doses to the population along these routes and to various individual receptors, both for routine, incident-free transportation and for transportation accidents.