Risk of Transporting High-Level Radioactive Waste is a Real Halloween Nightmare: SEED Coalition Files New Legal Contention to Halt Dangerous, Unnecessary Transport

NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR For immediate release: October 31, 2019 Contact:  Tom “Smitty” Smith, Former Director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, 512-797-8468

Risk of Transporting High-Level Radioactive Waste is a Real Halloween Nightmare

SEED Coalition Files New Legal Contention to Halt Dangerous, Unnecessary Transport AUSTIN, TX -- An alarming recent federal report has prompted a new legal challenge to the licensing of a high-level radioactive waste dump in Texas. [Beyond Nuclear is forwarding this press release on to the media as a courtesy to the SEED Coalition.] The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board’s “Preparing for Nuclear Waste Transportation” report released in September details thirty safety challenges related to transporting spent nuclear fuel across the country, including travel through major U.S. cities. Private companies have applied for licenses to store the nation’s deadly high-level radioactive waste for decades at sites in Texas and New Mexico. Texas and New Mexico residents have raised concerns about the transport risks of this radioactive waste in public forums and in legal opposition to the proposed consolidated interim storage applications.  “The potential for disaster in transporting and storing the nation’s radioactive waste is worse than any Halloween nightmare,” said Karen Hadden, Executive Director of the SEED Coalition. “The SEED Coalition filed a new legal challenge based on a recent report to Congress that lays out significant issues that need to be resolved. Transport of high-level radioactive waste is too risky and current plans to haul thousands of tons of deadly waste across the country must be halted.”  The new report to Congress by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board confirms that stored spent nuclear fuel can go critical.   “The report confirms that the massive transport of thousands of tons of dangerous spent nuclear fuel across the country is unprecedented,” Hadden said. “The nuclear industry wants us to believe that such transport is routine, but never has so much dangerous nuclear waste been moved on the vast scale proposed, an undertaking that would involve thousands of shipments over many decades. In fact, the report indicates that transport could require 80 years or more, double the time that WCS has suggested in their license application.” “Significant infrastructure improvements would be needed, and technological challenges are numerous,” Hadden added. Concerns about the radioactive transport include: - Some existing radioactive waste can’t be shipped without being put into new containers, and new container designs are needed that haven’t been developed yet.  - There is no technology in place to fully inspect existing spent nuclear fuel containers and the impacts of shaking and bumping of radioactive materials on railways are not yet fully known. - Cracked or leaking containers would have to be repackaged but the report points out that cost for even one repackaging facility would be a whopping $1-2 billion. “The NRC is considering licensing sites in Texas and New Mexico to store the nation’s high-level radioactive waste for decades, which could lead to unsafe de-facto permanent dumps,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, former Director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. “The need for extensive research and the technical hurdles are among many reasons that licensing of centralized storage sites should be halted.” Current plans would move tons of deadly waste to Texas and/or New Mexico, just to store it in a in a different location, needlessly creating risks from transportation accidents, leaks and potential sabotage. No progress would be made toward permanent waste isolation with this band-aid approach.  In fact, spending billions of dollars this way could stall the development of more robust storage systems and progress toward viable permanent disposal.  “The focus should be on isolating this waste for the long-term in order to protect all living things, our planet and our economy,” Smith said. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board report, the SEED Coalition legal filing and expert witness testimony by Bob Alvarez are available at www.NoNuclearWaste.org Another resource - https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cities_Affected.pdf - has maps of 20 of the many major cities that high-level radioactive waste could travel through if this plan is approved [Attorney Wally Taylor, on behalf of Sierra Club's Rio Grand Chapter, has filed a similar motion in opposition to the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, targeted at southeastern New Mexico, 39 miles from the Waste Control Specialists site in western Texas. See the contention posted here.] Karen Hadden Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition  605 Carismatic Lane, Austin, TX 78748 karendhadden@gmail.com 512-797-8481 -30- Beyond Nuclear is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear. Beyond Nuclear: 7304 Carroll Avenue, #182, Takoma Park, MD 20912. Info@beyondnuclear.org. www.beyondnuclear.org.

Fraud, corruption trial underway for former SNC-Lavalin executive Sami Bebawi

As reported by the Canadian Press.

Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin has partnered with U.S.-based Holtec International to form the consortium Comprehensive Decommissioning International.

Holtec itself also has bribery conviction, and additional bribery allegation, skeletons in its closet.

Despite this, Holtec has already secured the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rubber-stamp, to take ownership of the shutdown atomic reactors at Oyster Creek, New Jersey and Pilgrim, Massachusetts, for decommissioning and high-level radioactive waste management.

Holtec is also scheming to take over the Indian Point, New York reactors, as well as Palisades, Michigan, once those nuclear power plants shut down in the years ahead (Big Rock Point, an already decommissioned but still contaminated site also in Michigan, along with its irradiated nuclear fuel, would be lumped in the deal along with Palisades).

Holtec has also applied for a construction and operating permit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to transport 173,600 metric tons of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel to New Mexico for so-called consolidated interim storage.

Rep. Greg Walden, top Republican on powerful House panel, says he will retire

As reported by the Washington Post.

Walden (R-OR) is Ranking Republican on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. The politically powerful committee has jurisdiction over commercial irradiated nuclear fuel policy, such as the Yucca Mountain dump targeted at Western Shoshone Indian land in Nevada, and Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities (currently targeted at the Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas).

Walden has long led the advocacy for such dangerously bad nuclear power industry schemes.

Update on November 1, 2019 by admin

Politico has also reported on this story:

• Politico - Greg Walden to retire in latest sign of GOP doubts about retaking House - By John Bresnahan, Melanie Zanona and Ally Mutnick

The most radioactive state

Who will be the ultimate bearer of the nation’s nuclear waste?

In Mashable’s series Wasted, they dig into the myriad ways we’re trashing our planet. Because it’s time to sober up.

See the article here.

It reports:

Though New Mexico will resist, and may prevail. “Folks in New Mexico are not going to take it,” said Albuquerque resident Don Hancock, who is the director of the Nuclear Waste Safety program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, an advocacy group focused on environmental and social justice. “We’ll stop this.”

SRIC is an Alliance for Nuclear Accountability member group, as is Beyond Nuclear.

Re: ISP/WCS, TX: MOTION OF INTERVENOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COALITION FOR LEAVE TO FILE LATE-FILED CONTENTION, AND CONTENTION 17

MOTION OF INTERVENOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COALITION FOR LEAVE TO FILE LATE-FILED CONTENTION, AND CONTENTION 17

Filed by Toledo, Ohio attorney Terry Lodge, on behalf of SEED Coalition of Texas.

Robert Alvarez serves as expert witness. See his expert witness declaration, here. See his CV here.

The contention is based on revelations contained in a U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board report, published in September 23, 2019.