[NukeNet] Help release new high-level waste transport maps

Tue May 15 16:57:57 EDT 2007

Please forward! 
 ACTION ALERT

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

HELP RELEASE NEW HIGH-LEVEL WASTE TRANSPORT MAPS!

Dear Friends - Please help NIRS Southeast Office release to the media in
your community a NEW set of MAPS showing projected high-level
radioactive waste road, rail, and waterway routes from commercial
reactors to two possible "interim" storage and reprocessing sites under
the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) plan--Savannah River Site
and Barnwell in South Carolina. 

We are inviting you to hold a press conference in your community to
unveil these new maps on May 22nd (or on a later date that works for
you) to inform, and warn, your media markets. Please respond to Mary
Olson (828-675-1792, nirs at main.nc.us) if you would like to participate!
If a press conference is too much to pull off, please consider helping
by sending out the report and a press release to your media list. The
idea is to get the word - and the maps - out there!

If you can organize a press conference or distribution of materials to
your press list, we will supply you with: the maps (hard copy and
electronic), the link to the full report (embargoed until May 22), press
advisory and press release. You can use our prepared materials, adapt
them, or create your own. We encourage you to use your own
letterhead/logos-and to add local details about the roads, rails and
water routes to the materials, where possible. 

This event is intended to be a second edition of a highly successful
January 1995 event when the Nevada projection of waste transport routes
to Yucca were released in 110 locations on the same day. I hope you will
make the time to be part of this event.

Mary Olson                                 Kevin Kamps

NIRS Southeast Office               NIRS

P.S. If, in the coming weeks or months, you would like to host report
author John Sticpewich, NIRS Southeast Office director Mary Olson,
and/or NIRS nuclear waste specialist Kevin Kamps, in your community to
present on high-level radioactive waste transport risks, please contact
Mary Olson to make arrangements.

BACKGROUND

The report, produced by the NC Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads
campaign, is a case study showing nuclear power plants north of the
Carolinas and east of the Mississippi River (the vast majority in the
U.S.) shipping their wastes by highway, railway, and waterway to South
Carolina. It is not intended to dismiss other sites targeted for
possible GNEP development, nor to discount the risks of transporting
wastes outside that geographic scope to the Carolinas. Hopefully, the
interest garnered by the publication of this case study will help
attract further support and resources that could lead to additional
analyses, examining other sites targeted for these GNEP facilities, and
the transport routes that would be impacted by moving high-level
radioactive wastes to those locations.

GNEP would require the shipment of highly radioactive irradiated fuel
(high-level radioactive waste) from reactor sites to a central location
(is GNEP just a new name for "centralized interim storage"/parking lot
dump?). One of our most powerful tools in organizing opposition to the
flawed and unsuitable Yucca Mountain dump has been the maps showing
projected waste transport routes from atomic reactors across the U.S.,
through 45 states and the District of Columbia, to Nevada.  

The new maps have been produced by John Sticpewich, of the Common Sense
at the Nuclear Crossroads campaign. John used the U.S. Dept. of Energy's
(DOE) database of irradiated fuel assemblies as of 2002 (the most
current available, if you can believe THAT, considering that every year,
2,000 to 3,000 additional tons of high-level radioactive waste are
generated at commercial reactors across the U.S.), and the DOE mapping
program (TRAGIS) that plots primary and alternate routes for truck,
train and barge. Because of the scale of the task, John defined a study
area - and looked at the shipment of waste from reactors that lie East
of the Mississippi River and North of Savannah River Site. The report
shows that every state East of the Mississippi River will have transport
of waste through it - by road, rail, or barge; however shipments
originating at reactors in the states of MS, AL, GA and FL are not
included in the analysis. We regret this-but since 2/3 of the US
reactors are covered in the Study area, the decision was to go forward,
given limited resources. We have to simply say, this is a "case study."

It is noteworthy that a number of states with no reactors nor high-level
radioactive wastes within their borders-such as Indiana, Kentucky, and
West Virginia-would still see high-level radioactive waste shipments
travel through bound for GNEP sites in South Carolina. Also important to
point out are the numerous barge routes possible on the Great Lakes,
rivers, and Atlantic coastline.

As ever, NIRS brings the transport issue to the fore not because we
oppose the movement of nuclear materials in every case-but because we
see the transport of nuclear waste for a really bad plan or for plans
that would result in extending or multiplying waste transport (the
radioactive waste shell game), as reckless and wrong. We also see that
the greatest number of people that will be impacted by implementation of
GNEP (whether due to accidents, attacks, or even "routine" radiation
exposures from "incident-free" shipments) are those along the transport
corridors.

 The groups taking part in this May 22nd day of action thus far include:

Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads, WNC
Physicians for Social Responsibility of Western North Carolina
STOP I-3, WNC
NIRS, Takoma Park & WNC
South Carolina Alliance for Sustainable Campuses + Communities, Columbia
SC
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, NC, VA
Nuclear Watch South, Atlanta, GA
Atlanta WAND
HIPWAZEE Columbia (SC) 
Environmentalists Inc. , Columbia SC
Citizens For Environmental Justice, Savannah, GA
South Carolina Chapter, Sierra Club 
North American Water Office, Lake Elmo MN
Southern Nevada Group of the Toiyable Chapter of the Sierra Club
Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana
Yggdrasil/Earth Island, Kentucky
NatCap Inc. 
Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power (PA)
Don't Waste Connecticut
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone
GRAMMES
Citizen Alert, Las Vegas NV
Carolina Peace Resource Center
Energy Justice Network (PA)
Don't Waste Michigan 
Nuclear Energy Information Service (Illinois) 
Earth Day Coalition (Cleveland, OH) 

 What ELSE You Can Do

If your group hasn't already, please consider signing onto the
"Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors."
See the statement and current list of groups signed on at:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/PrinciplesSafeguardingIrradiatedFuel.pd
f

To sign on, email Michele Boyd at Public Citizen at mboyd at citizen.org or
Kevin Kamps at NIRS at kevin at nirs.org. This statement, already signed by
over 130 groups, urges Congress to require that high-level radioactive
wastes stored on-site at reactors be better protected against accidents
and attacks, as an alternative to rushing "Mobile Chernobyls" and "dirty
bombs on wheels" onto the roads, rails, and waterways bound for
"centralized interim storage sites" (radioactive waste shell game) or
dangerous and dirty GNEP reprocessing plants.

Nuclear Information & Resource Service

Southeast Office   PO Box 7586 Asheville, NC 28802

828-675-1792        nirs at main.nc.us

www.nirs.org

NATIONAL OFFICE ADDRESS AND PHONE:

Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS)/World Information Service
on Energy (WISE)

6930 Carroll Ave, Suite 340, Takoma Park, MD 20912

301-270-NIRS        fax  301-270-4291        nirsnet at nirs.org

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