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Centralized Storage

With the scientifically unsound proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump now canceled, the danger of "interim" storage threatens. This means that radioactive waste could be "temporarily" parked in open air lots, vulnerable to accident and attack, while a new repository site is sought.

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Entries by admin (702)

Thursday
Dec022021

"Consent-Based Siting" -- DOE Floats "Funding Opportunity" for Dump Hosts

(Just counting the Private Fuel Storage, LLC (targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah) consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) environmental review public comment proceedings (late 1990s/early 2000s), the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (2010-2012) public comment sessions, DOE's previous "Consent-Based Siting" public comment proceeding (2015-2017), and the current round of CISF targeting (Interim Storage Partners in Texas, Holtec in New Mexico) NRC environmental review public comment proceedings (2017-2021), our side has likely submitted more than 100,000 public comments opposed to CISFs! But, here we go again...

Please: note the March 4, 2022 deadline for public comments; help monitor the Dec. 7th, 2021 DOE session described below, if you can; and spread the word about this latest threat to public safety and environmental justice. Thanks.
---Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste Michigan)

 

Energy Secretary Granholm (who has also just floated the dangerous idea of undoing the hard-won agreement to shut down the faultline-surrounded Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by 2025) has pulled the trigger. In a press release, Fed. Reg. Notice, and web post, the Department of Energy published its long-threatened, so-called "Consent-Based Siting" Request for Information. Earlier this year, Granholm explicitly targeted Native American tribal governments, mentioning "a funding mechanism" if they would consider hosting "interim storage" for highly radioactive wastes.* This, despite DOE's own infamous environmental racism along these very lines in the past, and the Biden administration's oft-repeated, supposed commitment to environmental justice. Meanwhile, we and our grassroots allies across the country will continue to resist consolidated interim storage facilities already licensed in (Interim Storage Partners, Texas), or long targeted at (Holtec, New Mexico), low-income, people of color communities.

[*As Keith Lewis, environmental director for the Serpent River (Ojibwe) First Nation near Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada, is quoted in This Is My Homeland: Stories of the Effects of Nuclear Industries by People of the Serpent River First Nation and the North Shore of Lake Huron (edited by Keith Lewis, Lorraine Rekmans, and Anabel Dwyer; published by Serpent River First Nation, 1998 & 2003) --

“There is nothing moral about bribing a starving man with money.”

He was speaking about the harm done to his First Nation, and its homeland, by the offer of uranium mining and milling jobs beginning in 1948, and ending altogether by 1996.]

Wednesday
Nov242021

State of Texas and NRC battle over dump in 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals

On November 4, 2021, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) filed a Motion to Dismiss, against the State of Texas's federal appeal in opposition to Interim Storage Partners (ISP).

On Nov. 15, 2021, the State of Texas responded.

The lawsuit was prompted by NRC's September 13, 2021 approval of ISP's license application to construct and operate a so-called Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) for up to 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive, commercial irradiated nuclear fuel.

The ISP CISF is targeted at Andrews County in West Texas. It would occupy the Waste Control Specialists, LLC facility, just 0.37 miles -- and upstream -- from the state border with New Mexico. WCS is already a so-called "low" level radioactive waste dump for 36 states. WCS is located very near to, or even on top of, the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest in North America, stretching north to Ogallala Lakota homelands in South Dakota. The Ogallala Aquifer provides essential drinking and irrigation water to eight states on the High Plains.

Joining the State of Texas at the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is Fasken Land and Minerals, Ltd., as well as the Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners (PBLRO) Association.

Beyond Nuclear has also legally intervened against ISP for several long years. Our federal appeal has been pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Now that NRC has rubber-stamped the ISP license, our appeal is at long last moving forward for its day in court.

Joining us with their own federal appeals against ISP at the D.C. Circuit are Fasken and PBLRO Association, as well as Sierra Club, and also Don't Waste Michigan, et al. (a seven-group coalition, including SEED Coalition, and Public Citizen, both of Texas).

Wednesday
Nov172021

TELL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: NO BACKDOOR AUTHORIZATION OF ILLEGAL CONSOLIDATED INTERIM STORAGE FACILITIES THROUGH THE APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS

On September 13, 2021, the NRC licensed a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) to "temporarily store" irradiated nuclear fuel, also euphemistically known as “spent” nuclear fuel or SNF. It’s located in Andrews County, Texas, on the New Mexico border.  It would provide outdoor surface storage for 40,000 metric tons of this highly radioactive, dangerous nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, in canisters sitting on a concrete pad.

Nuclear facilities are supposed to be consent-based. Texas does not consent to the CISF.  In fact, on Sept. 10, 2021, the Texas legislature passed a law nearly unanimously that prohibits storage or disposal of this waste in the state.

Nuclear facilities are also supposed to comply with federal law. The Texas CISF does not. In fact, it blatantly violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended (NWPA).

The NWPA specifically prohibits the federal government from taking title to high-level waste on a privately owned interim storage site, unless and until a permanent geological repository is open and operating.  That’s so that so-called "interim” storage sites do not become de facto permanent surface "parking lot" dumps for highly radioactive nuclear fuel.   It would be cheaper, even lucrative, for nuclear plant owners and CISF licensees, to dispose of the fuel this way, but it would be irresponsible and threaten current and future public health and safety. 

Now Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (Democrat-CA) Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee is trying to make an end-run around the law.  Its pending appropriations bill would authorize CISF pilot projects, “notwithstanding any provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.” 

Call your Congressional representatives in Washington and tell them that CISFs are illegal and unacceptable, not only in Texas, but for the thousands of communities along the transport routes, all across the US. Defend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and say “no” to CISFs.  Below is a sample letter you can personalize and send to your U.S. Representative and both U.S. Senators.

Find the contact information for your U.S. Representative here.

Find the contact info. for both your U.S. Senators here.

(You can also phone your Congress Members' DC offices. You can be patched through via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.)


SAMPLE LETTER --

 

Dear ___________:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is starting to approve licenses for consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) to store highly radioactive irradiated fuel, also known as “spent” nuclear fuel, despite the fact these facilities violate federal and state laws.  Congress must not compound the NRC’s error by approving CISFs through the backdoor of the appropriations process.

On September 13, the NRC announceD license approval for a CISF in Andrews County, Texas: the Interim Storage Partners project. It would provide outdoor surface storage for 40,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel in canisters on a concrete pad.

On September 9, Governor Abbott signed a law banning storage or disposal of high-level radioactive waste, including irradiated nuclear fuel, in the state, and directing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to deny state permits the ISP project needs. The measure passed unanimously in the Texas Senate and 119-3 in the Texas House.  Resolutions opposing importing highly radioactive nuclear waste from other states to Texas were also passed by Andrews County, five other counties, and three cities, representing 5.4 million Texans. School districts, the Midland Chamber of Commerce, and oil and gas and ranching companies have joined environmental and faith-based groups in opposing the ISP project.

Siting of US nuclear facilities including CISFs is supposed to be consent-based.  Texas has made it clear it emphatically does not consent to importing and storing irradiated nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear waste.

Meanwhile, federal lawsuits are pending in the  U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which would block the ISP project and other CISFs on the grounds that they violate federal law, specifically the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended (NWPA)CISFs are predicated on the idea that the Department of Energy will enable SNF transportation by taking title to the waste as it leaves the reactor site, thus relieving licensees of their liability for it. But this is specifically prohibited by the NWPA unless and until a geologic repository is open and operating.  That remains many decades away. The CISF licensing process has been pushed ahead anyway, on the abusive assumption the law will change.  

But Congress knew what it was doing when it specifically excluded sending SNF to temporary surface “parking lot” or shallowly buried “interim” storage facilities that can easily become de facto permanent storage in the absence of a permanent geologic repository. Current efforts to license CISFs subvert Congress’s clear intent of preventing them.  

Opening CISFs would initiate many thousands of unsafe shipments of intensely radioactive SNF across 44 states and 75% of Congressional districts. SNF canisters and transport casks are subject to radiation leakage and other failures, which would pose threats to thousands of communities along the transportation routes. The large portion of high burnup (HBU) spent fuel in the nation’s SNF inventory compounds these safety problems. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board recommends spending a minimum of a decade to develop better SNF cask and canister designs before attempting to transport spent fuel. Yet CISF developers insist they will be open and start accepting shipments starting in 2023. 

Loaded SNF canisters plus transport casks weigh up to 180 metric tons, not counting the weight of the vehicles.  US roads, rails, bridges, and other infrastructure can’t safely take that weight. Assuming they get upgraded through new infrastructure spending, which could take decades, that won’t make SNF transportation safe from collisions, terrorist attacks, fires, submersion, and leaking or failing canisters, which could lead to severe radiological releases.

Despite all this, Section 308 of S.2605the FY22 appropriations bill for energy and water development, authorizes the Secretary of Energy “to conduct a pilot program to license, construct, and operate one or more Federal consolidated storage facilities to provide interim storage as needed for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.”  This is to be done “notwithstanding any provision of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.”  It amounts to an end-run around the law, which Congress established for good reason, to protect the public and the environment. 

It’s imperative not to preempt the NWPA with an obscure provision buried in the appropriations package.  Shipping irradiated spent fuel and storing it at ISP’s facility or at other CISFs is unsafe, and violates consent-based siting and environmental justice principles as well as federal law.  

And it's unnecessary.  A far safer approach is to make onsite storage more robust,  improving currently inadequate dry storage and security systems and keep the waste on reactor sites until a permanent geologic repository opens.  This hardened on-site storage (HOSS) strategy has been endorsed by 200 groups, in all 50 states.   The waste would be shipped to off-site storage once a geologic repository opens, using cask and transportation safety technologies that must evolve far beyond where they are now.  For especially vulnerable sites where HOSS may not be a good option, for example on the coast or in flood zones,  then hardened near-site storage – shipping the waste inland, or to higher ground, as near to the point of generation as possible, is the next best thing.

Nuclear licensees don’t want to implement HOSS because it costs them money, and because they want to offload the liability for the waste to the federal government – socializing the costs and risks after privatizing the profits. At the same time, CISF storage could be a major source of new public money for them. 

But public health and safety, not the interests of the nuclear industry, are paramount when it comes to disposition of nuclear waste.  CISFs may be lucrative for the industry, but they are not the answer for American communities and families. The safest way to deal with irradiated nuclear fuel is to improve storage systems, implement HOSS, and keep the waste on reactor sites until a geologic repository opens, then only move it once, not twice. 

For these reasons, we urge Congress to respect and uphold the NWPA, and not evade it by approving Section 308 of S.2605.

Sincerely,

Thursday
Nov112021

Beyond Nuclear v. NRC

On Monday, November 8, 2021, Beyond Nuclear's legal counsel filed our docketing materials in the Interim Storage Partners (ISP) consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) federal appeal.

Beyond Nuclear's legal counsel are Diane Curran of Washington, D.C., as well as Mindy Goldstein and Geoff Toy of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Beyond Nuclear's filings include:

PETITIONERS’ JOINT STATEMENT OF INTENT TO USE DEFERRED JOINT APPENDIX;

PETITIONER’S NONBINDING STATEMENT OF ISSUES;

CERTIFICATE AS TO PARTIES, RULINGS, AND RELATED CASES;

UNDERLYING DECISIONS FROM WHICH PETITION ARISES;

DOCKETING STATEMENT WITH ADDENDUM AND STANDING DECLARATIONS.

Wednesday
Sep292021

Nuclear Hotseat: Radioactive Nuclear Waste Dump Dangers – Kevin Kamps

Listen to the Nuclear Hotseat interview, by host Libbe HaLevy, of Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, HERE. (Introduction begins at the 3 minute, 40 second mark; the interview proper begins at the 4 minute, 45 second mark, and concludes at the 35 minute, 40 second mark.)

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

  • Radioactive nuclear waste dump dangers are the primary wheelhouse of Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog (bullldog?) for Beyond NuclearKevin specializes in high-level waste management and transportation; new and existing reactors; decommissioning; environmental and public health risks associated with government and industry efforts to dump commercial irradiated fuel rods on Native American lands in the western United States. We spoke on Thursday, September 23, 2021.
  • LINKS mentioned in the episode:
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