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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The Republican-controlled Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that it will move forward with temporary high-level nuclear waste storage in New Mexico, despite hazards of transportation and failure to have a long-term solution. Kevin Kamps from Beyond Nuclear discusses the issues.
A draft environmental impact statement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a proposed interim waste storage facility in West Texas would largely have limited impacts on the surrounding environment.
[The rest of the article is behind a pay wall.]
Beyond Nuclear and a broad environmental coalition from coast to coast, including Texas groups, oppose the dump scheme.
See the document, posted online here:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML20121A016
A copy of the PDF formatted version of the Overview is viewable posted online here as well.
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Don Hancock of Southwest Research Information Center (SRIC) in ABQ, NM points out:
"The Overview (like the Holtec one) again repeats the factual error that PFS's [Private Fuel Storage, LLC] license is terminated (page 4)."
Here is the false statement, as printed in NRC's Overview:
"The NRC previously licensed one other away-from-reactor dry cask spent fuel storage facility, called Private Fuel Storage (NUREG-1714); however, that facility was never built and the license was subsequently terminated." (emphasis added)
This is not true. The license was not subsequently terminated.
Thus, NRC's Overview is inaccurate as to NRC's own licensing decisions.
NRC made the same mistake in its Holtec NM CISF DEIS summary/overview, first published on March 10, 2020.
And the DEIS documents themselves do not state that the PFS license is terminated. So in that sense, the summaries/overviews contradict the DEIS documents.
Significantly, if Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists, and the nuclear power utilities, were serious about these CISFs being entirely private, then why not use the license rubber-stamped by NRC at PFS more than a decade ago? Because the actual goal is to transfer title/ownership, and liability, onto the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) -- that is, federal taxpayers. Which is illegal, a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended. This illegality is the heart of Beyond Nuclear's lawsuit against both CISFs. Don't Waste MI et al. (a seven-group national grassroots environmental coalition), Sierra Club, and Fasken Oil, have also challenged this violation of the NWPA represented by these CISF schemes.
Not that Beyond Nuclear and our environmental and environmental justice allies think the PFS CISF targeting the Skull Valley Goshutes was or is a good idea. Quite the opposite. It is a dangerously bad idea, and an outrageous violation of environmental justice. Learn more about the environmental movement's successful resistance to the PFS CISF, a victory won in close solidarity and collaboration with Native American partners, including Skull Valley Goshute dump opponents Margene Bullcreek and Sammy Blackbear, Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth, and others.
As reported by the Carlsbad Current Argus.
Beyond Nuclear and its legal counsel, Mindy Goldstein, are quoted.
See the coalition's requests, made on March 25th, here.
But on May 1st, NRC essentially told us to go jump in a lake. Our 50 group NGO letter of March 25 to NRC, above, combined with the united NM US congressional delegation letter of March 20, did force NRC to give us 60 more days for public comment.
So that's a 120-day public comment period altogether. Instead of a May 22nd deadline, we now face a July 22nd deadline.
But NRC rejected most of our requests. We had called for 199 days for public comment. We had called for two-dozen public comment meetings in a dozen states, including outside of NM on transport routes. We had called for the countdown clock to not even start till after the pandemic. We had called for in-person public meetings after the pandemic, so they'd be safe.
See NRC's email to coalition legal counsel Terry Lodge, below, as well as a link to the NRC's letter.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: NMSS_DSFM_Admin Resource <NMSS_DSFM_Admin.Resource@nrc.gov>
Date: Mon, May 4, 2020 at 11:28 AM
Subject: SUBJECT: Letter to T. Lodge from A. Kock, USNRC re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, Holtec International HI–STORE CISF (Request for DEIS public omment [sic, comment] period extension and additional public meetings)
SUBJECT: Letter to T. Lodge from A. Kock, NRC re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, Holtec International HI–STORE CISF (Request for DEIS public comment period extension and additional public meetings)
Dear Mr. Lodge, et. al.,
Attached [linked here] for your information is the US NRC’s response to your letter dated March 25, 2020.
Regards,
Staff of the US NRC
