The Ethics and Politics of Nuclear Waste are Being Tested in Southern California

Jim Heddle of EON (the Ecological Options Network) in California has written an excellent article, published at Counterpunch, summarizing the current state of "play" of the irradiated nuclear fuel dilemma in the U.S., with the most hotly debated microcosm currently being at San Onofre in s. CA.

Please note, re: this passage in the article

Political maneuvering led to a ‘Screw Nevada’ strategy because it had the fewest Congressional votes,  and the million dollar development of the state’s Yucca Mountain site.  Originally thought to be dry and impermeable to the migration of radioactive elements, the discovery that trace elements from explosions at the nearby Nevada Nuclear Test Site had penetrated deep into the Yucca Mountain facility in a relatively few years debunked that contention. (emphases added)

that $11 billion, a combination of nuclear power ratepayer funds from the Nuclear Waste Fund, as well as federal taxpayer funds tied to nuclear weapons complex high-level radioactive waste management, has been spent thus far on the Yucca Mountain Project. The U.S. Department of Energy's most recent cost estimate for the first 200 years of construction and operation, if the Yucca dump opens, is close to $100 billion.

And the trace element found deep in the heart of Yucca Mountain (artificial, radioactive Chlorine-26) actually originated from nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific Ocean. It fell with rain onto Yucca, then percolated down into the mountain very deeply in just decades. The Cl-36 thus unintentionally served as a sort of radioactive tracer, showing how fast corrosive water travels through the site's geology. This would cause early failures of waste burial containers at Yucca, leading to massive, hazardous radioactivity releases into the environment over time.

Update on August 31, 2017 by admin

No Nukes CA has posted not only EON's work re: San Onofre's irradiated nuclear fuel, but also other environmental and Native American representatives' -- the latter (Angela Mooney-D'Arcy, Native American spokesperson) asking why indigneous peoples have not been consulted in decision making by the "powers that be."

1,800 tons of radioactive waste has an ocean view and nowhere to go

As reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The centralized interim storage facilities (de facto permanent parking lot dumps) targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, TX, and Eddy-Lea [Counties] Energy Alliance in southeastern New Mexico, are mentioned in the article. The article also mentions Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS).

The PFS parking lot dump targeted at the tiny, low-income Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in west Utah was blocked from opening a decade ago. 437 environmental justice groups, led by Native Americans, protested the environmental justice to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but NRC rubberstamped a construction and operation license nonetheless. Thankfully, a coalition between the U.S. congressional delegations of Nevada and Utah, the State of Utah, environmental groups, and traditional Skull Valley Goshute opponents to the dump, led to the establishment of the first federal wilderness area in Utah in a generation. The wilderness area around the Skull Valley Goshute community effectively blocked the laying of train tracks, preventing delivery of high-level radioactive waste to the reservation.

Late last month, Energy Secretary Rick Perry even floated the idea out loud at a U.S. House hearing that centralized interim storage could even be done at the Nevada nuclear weapons test site, while a permanent dump at Yucca Mountain next door is prepared. The State of Nevada and its U.S. congressional delegation's strong howls of protest and resistance were immediate, and Perry quickly backpedaled.