Broad coalition opposed to Holtec/ELEA CISF in NM meets NRC environmental scoping public comment deadline

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has refused to extend its deadline -- despite multiple strong requests from scores of organizations -- so comments were due at 11:59pm Pacific Time/2:59am Eastern Time last night/this morning (July 30, 2018). See the three requests, by environmental coalitions, attached to Beyond Nuclear's response to Holtec CEO & President Dr. Krishna Singh's comments, at the very bottom of this posting.

Despite this NRC hardball, opponents to Holtec International/Eddy-Lea [Counties] Energy Alliance's proposed centralized interim storage facility, for 173,600 metric tons of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel, targeted at southeastern New Mexico, met that deadline in a powerful way. Here are links to the oppositional comments filed:

(A.) Beyond Nuclear's latest comments, focused on the Holtec/ELEA CISF's violation of environmental justice. Our comments included 13 attached supporting documents:

(1.) The New Mexico map created by Deborah Reade, “Water, Air and Land: A Sacred Trust,” Version 3, July 2018.

NIRS, IEER, and Beyond Nuclear documents regarding the disproportionate harm done to women, and children, as compared to adult males, by hazardous ionizing radioactivity:

(2.) Radiation and Children: The Ignored Victims, NIRS, August 2004.

(3.) ATOMIC RADIATION IS MORE HARMFUL TO WOMEN, NIRS, October 2011.

(4.) The Use of Reference Man in Radiation Protection Standards and Guidance with Recommendations for Change, IEER, Rev. 1, April 2009.

(5.) Science for the Vulnerable Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental Health Standards to Protect Those Most at Risk, IEER, October 19, 2006.

(6.) Open Letter to President Bush on Protecting the Most Vulnerable, IEER, Oct. 19, 2006.

(7.) Nuclear Power and Children, Beyond Nuclear, March 2014.

Documentation of radioactively racist attempts to dump high-level radioactive wastes on Native American reservations, and traditional environmental protectors’ successful resistance campaigns, including President Obama’s proclamation honoring Grace Thorpe’s anti-CISF Mother Earth protection:

(8.) Women’s History Month, 2009, by the President of the United States, a Proclamation (re: Grace Thorpe, Rachel Carson, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, et al.)

(9.) Radioactive Racism: The History of Targeting Native American Communities with High-Level Atomic Waste Dumps, NIRS and Public Citizen, June 14, 2005.

(10.) Re: Private Fuel Storage, LLC application for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel "interim" storage site at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, environmental and environmental justice coalition (437 organizations) letter to NRC Commission, July 7, 2005.

(11.) Skull Valley Goshutes/PFS Timeline, Public Citizen and NIRS, June 14, 2005.

(12.) MEASURES OF COMMUNITY IMPACT FOR THE TRANSPORTATION OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS: THE CASE OF INDIAN TRIBES AND HIGH-LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE, State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, March 2, 2005.

Other:

(13.) U.S. Department of Energy, Legacy Management, Nevada Offsites, Gnome-Coach, New Mexico, Site, 11/2017.

Beyond Nuclear also submitted more than a dozen sets of previous comments since this environmental scoping period began on March 30. They covered such subject matter areas as: Mobile Chernobyl shipping risks; the risk of so-called centralized "interim" storage facilities becoming de facto permanent surface storage “parking lot dumps”; risks of loss of institutional control if de facto permanent surface storage “parking lot dumps” are abandoned, containers fail, and release catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity into the environment; risks of “routine” or “incident-free” shipments nonetheless being like “Mobile X-ray Machines That Can’t Be Turned Off,” and risks of externally contaminated shipments; why are all these high risks being taken in the first place?!; "We Do NOT Consent!", 15-page version, and 2-page summary; "When It Comes to Highly Radioactive Waste Transportation Risks, We All Live in New Mexico!"; and Beyond Nuclear's verbal comments on a variety of subject matter, submitted at the NRC public meetings in southeastern NM in late April/early May 2018. See them all, in their entirety, at this link. (Note that other groups' sample comments are also posted there.)

Beyond Nuclear also re-submitted whistle-blower allegations, by Oscar Shirani of Commonwealth Edison/Exelon Nuclear, and Dr. Ross Landsman of NRC Region 3, re: rampant Holtec container quality assurance violations. Shirani and Landsman first brought the QA violations to light in the year 2000. NIRS, Public Citizen, Beyond Nuclear, and others across the country, have worked with the whistle-blowers since 2003, in an effort to have the problems addressed. Neither Holtec nor NRC has rectified the violations, in the past two decades. (Sadly, Shirani passed on a decade ago.)

Beyond Nuclear also responded to a comment filed by Holtec's President & CEO, Dr. Krishna P. Singh.

Attached to Beyond Nuclear's response were the three environmental coalition letters to NRC, requesting comment deadline extensions, as well as public comment meetings to be held outside of NM. The letters were dated May 9, 2018; June 13, 2018; and July 19, 2018.

[See additional comments submitted to NRC by a large number of organizations in the environmental coalition, as well as individuals, linked here. And see below.]