[NukeNet] Radioactive waste alert: contact your state officials now

[Michael Mariotte]

NIRS Action Alert

 

Stop Mobile Chernobyls and DOE-imposed long-term high-level radioactive
waste dumps in every state with atomic reactors

 

Contact your Governor, State Attorney General, and State Legislators

 

Urge them to contact U.S. Congressional Leaders and your State's U.S.
Congressional Delegation to oppose the potential federal government's
siting of atomic waste "parking lot dumps" against your state's wishes

 

 

Contact info. for:

 

-->your Governor: http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Governors.shtml

 

-->your State Attorney General: http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php

 

-->your State Legislators: http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm (use
this website to find your State Representative and State Senator)

 

Call, write, fax, or email your Governor, Attorney General, State
Representative, and State Senator. Urge them to act now to prevent a
rush to centralize long-term surface storage of high-level radioactive
waste in your State, which could launch risky atomic waste shipments
onto the roads, rails, and waterways, undermining safety and security.

 

Urge your Governor to join with Governors from other States to oppose
this attempt by the U.S. Congress to grant DOE authority to site
radioactive waste dumps over the objections of state and local
governments.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------

Background:

 


A Rushed, Secretive, and Sweeping Bill


On June 27th, H.R. 5427, the Fiscal Year 2007 U.S. Senate Energy and
Water Appropriations Bill, passed the Senate Subcommittee for Energy and
Water Appropriations. On June 29th, the bill was passed by the full
Appropriations Committee. Section 313 of the bill, entitled
"Consolidation and Preparation" facilities, would empower the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) to site 25-year, "interim" storage sites in
each and every state that has nuclear reactors. 

            Although governors would be granted a consultative role in
the siting process, the Energy Secretary would have final say. A State
that refuses to cooperate with the siting of "interim" storage within
its borders faces the specter of DOE designating that State as a
regional "interim" storage site:  commercial irradiated nuclear fuel
from multiple surrounding states could then be centralized and
"consolidated" in the "un-cooperative" state. 

            Not only has this very troubling and sweeping change to U.S.
radioactive waste policy been inappropriately attached as a rider to a
spending bill, it was hatched secretly behind closed doors and passed by
the subcommittee and full committee without a hearing or debate. It will
likely be added to an omnibus spending bill after the November federal
elections, to be voted up or down without amendments by a "lame duck"
Congress.

 

What Could Happen: DOE-Imposed Long-Term Storage, and Radioactive
Russian Roulette on the Roads and Rails

As troubling as the process that led to the bill's unveiling and passage
has been, the content of the bill is even more troubling.

            Although the licenses for these "interim" storage sites
would be for 25 years and would be non-renewable, once waste is moved
somewhere, there is a high probability that it will remain there
indefinitely into the future. Thus, "temporary" storage could become
long-term or even de facto permanent storage.

            Centralized "interim" storage, whether carried out state by
state or regionally, would lead to hasty, helter-skelter shipments of
high-level atomic waste by truck, train, and barge - possibly through
states having no reactors, considering shipments bound for potential
multi-state "regional interim storage" sites. This would multiply
"Mobile Chernobyl" accident risks and "dirty bombs on wheels" terrorist
attack risks, as waste would roll to "interim" storage sites, but would
then have to be transported yet again if and when a permanent national
repository was ever opened. 

            This flies in the face of recommendations made by the
National Academy of Science earlier this year, which advised that before
a large-scale transport program is undertaken, significant issues must
be addressed, studies carried out, and preparations made on: full-scale
crash testing of transport containers; the threat of terrorist attacks
upon shipments; the danger of long-duration, high-temperature fires
during severe accidents; numerous steps to improve the transparency,
safety, and security of DOE's waste transport plans and policies (see
http://www.citizen.org/documents/NASTransportStudy.pdf for more
background).

 


DOE's Targets for Long-Term Surface Storage


 The following 34 States have either operational and/or shutdown
reactors, and thus are eligible to "host" one or more DOE-imposed
"interim" dumps for commercial irradiated fuel: Alabama, Arizona,
Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. (Michele
Boyd at Public Citizen has created a table listing the states with
nuclear reactors, where those reactors are located, when their operating
licenses expire, and the amount of irradiated nuclear fuel expected by
2046 in each of those states. This document is available upon request
from Michele at 202.454.5134 or mboyd at citizen.org, as well as from Kevin
Kamps at NIRS at 301.270.6477x14 or kevin at nirs.org.) 

 


Just How Fast This Might Go Down


This bill also establishes very short deadlines for these "interim"
storage sites to be opened. Within just six months of enactment of the
legislative language, DOE would publish a report on siting these
"interim" storage sites. Within three months after that report, DOE must
designate one or more "eligible sites" (on any federal land except
National Parks, Nat'l Forests, Nat'l Wildlife Refuges, or U.S. BLM land;
or, any private land willingly sold to the federal government) for
"interim" storage within each state with nuclear reactors. Just one
month after that designation, DOE must submit a license application to
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking permission to open
and operate these "interim" storage sites. After it receives such
applications, NRC is allowed only 2 years and 8 months to publish an
environmental impact statement on each proposed "interim" storage site,
and to make a licensing decision. Thus, in just three and a half years,
centralized, long-term surface storage facilities for high-level
radioactive waste could be operating in each state with atomic reactors.


 


Political Ins and Outs


Senator Harry Reid, Senate Democratic Leader and Ranking Democrat on the
Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, helped craft this
bill as a way to further oppose the ill-conceived and dangerous Yucca
Mountain dump targeted at his State of Nevada. Sen. Reid believes that
no governor would designate a new, clean site for interim storage of
wastes, but would instead designate the reactor sites themselves, where
the waste is already stored. In addition, this bill would transfer title
for the waste to DOE, thereby avoiding court-awarded damages - costing
U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions to billions of dollars - to nuclear
utilities since DOE has failed to "pick up the garbage" beginning in
1998 as required.

            One flaw in that logic, however, is that as written the
legislation would allow the Energy Secretary to override governors'
decisions, and open waste dumps over the objections of state and local
governments - even at away-from-reactor sites, if DOE deems that
"feasible and desirable."

            In addition, Sen. Pete Domenici, Republican Chairman of the
Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee (and also chair of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee) is a leading booster and
advocate for commercial waste reprocessing. Centralized "interim"
storage, whether within states or regions - and the transportation
needed to accomplish it - would support Sen. Domenici's scheme to revive
reprocessing in the U.S. Also, this FY07 spending bill would approve $10
million to "promote the development of one or more" consolidation and
preparation "interim" storage facilities that are "away from civilian
nuclear reactors." Although $10 million is a relatively small amount of
money when it comes to national nuclear waste schemes, its exclusive use
for away-from-reactor "interim" storage points to rushing waste onto the
roads and rails, rather than keeping it on-site at the reactors where it
was generated.

            Sen. Domenici is also a leading advocate for new nuclear
reactor construction in the U.S. Another key aspect of H.R. 5427 would
declare "Nuclear Waste Confidence" - that irradiated nuclear fuel and
high-level radioactive waste will be "disposed of safely and on a timely
basis for the purposes of the [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's]
decision to grant or amend any license to operate any civilian nuclear
power reactor" - the law of the land. This would effectively block
interventions by concerned citizens, environmental organizations, or
even State governments that reactor license extensions, and operating
licenses for new reactors, make no sense, given the lack of a solution
for the nuclear waste problem. 

            But Sen. Domenici's push for statewide or regional "interim"
storage for at least 25 years shows that states hosting new reactors
will be stuck with the wastes generated there for a very long time to
come. As Michele Boyd at Public Citizen has pointed out, Congress could
revoke the Law of Gravity if it wanted to, but of course the reality is,
gravity would still apply. Likewise, Congress can declare "confidence"
that a radioactive waste repository will be opened, but the fact remains
that - due to Yucca's leaky geology -- no scientifically suitable site
has been identified. As Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free
Great Lakes has put it, "interim storage" is as much an illusion of a
solution to the radioactive waste dilemma as is the Yucca dump itself.
Once generated or moved, high-level radioactive waste tends to stay put
for many decades into the future.

            Significantly, Sen. Domenici is also a leading proponent of
the Yucca Mountain dump, and is still pushing hard to open it in some
way, shape or form. He seems to believe that this bill would not do away
with the need for Yucca. Rather, it could embolden Yucca dump proponents
to declare atomic waste transport safe, and facilitate shipments through
the 45 States (and Washington, D.C.) targeted for Yucca-bound shipments
(see http://www.ewg.org/reports/nuclearwaste/find_address.php for how
close these road and rail routes come to your address).

 

Further Reading and Resources: 

To read H.R. 5427 itself, go to
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills
&docid=f:h5427rs.pdf. See Section 313, "Consolidation and Preparation
Facilities," on pages 111 to 122.

 

Public Citizen's "Summary of Nuclear Waste Storage Provisions in the
FY2007 Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Bill" is available upon
request from Michele Boyd at Public Citizen (202.454.5134 or
mboyd at citizen.org) as well as from Kevin Kamps at NIRS (301.270.6477x14
or kevin at nirs.org). 

 

NIRS' comprehensive critique of U.S. radioactive waste policy, with
suggested alternative approaches, is at:
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nm643.pdf

 

Contact Kevin or Michele if you have questions.

 

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

6930 Carroll Avenue, #340

Takoma Park, MD 20912

301-270-6477, www.nirs.org <http://www.nirs.org/>  

 

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