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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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Tuesday
Feb072017

Mobile Chernobyl shipping risks

Sample comments you can use to prepare your own for submission to NRC (pasted in below; also posted online here as .pdf and .docx documents):

Mobile Chernobyl shipping risks

Eunice, New Mexico (four miles from WCS, across the TX/NM border) has the dubious distinction that every single train car load of high-level radioactive waste will pass through on its way into (and, if it ever leaves, out of) WCS. But transport impacts, to import more than half the irradiated nuclear fuel in the U.S. into West Texas, will be felt nation-wide. In that sense, when it comes to radioactive waste transportation, we all live in Eunice, NM.

But a parking lot dump at WCS would only increase safety risks. It would not decrease them. It would multiply transport risks, as it would only be temporary (supposedly). All that highly radioactive waste would have to move again, to a permanent burial site (yet to be identified – that’s a big IF!). And that could be back in the same direction from which it came in the first place!

WCS’s assumption that the dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada will open someday, to take the high-level radioactive waste away, is inappropriate. The vast majority of Nevadans has expressed its very adamant non-consent for 30 years now, and still vehemently oppose it. This is reflected by bipartisan resistance by elected officials, at both the state government level, as well as the congressional delegation level.

WCS’s assumption that another permanent burial dump will be opened, by someone, somewhere, someday, somehow, is also inappropriate. After all, the search for a national geologic repository has gone on since the 1950s, but has failed. And DOE’s current estimate for the opening of the U.S.’s first repository is 2048, 31 years from now. Except they have no idea where that will be. There is every likelihood that 2048 date will slip into the future as well.

The failed Private Fuel Storage, LLC parking lot dump targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, likewise assumed the Yucca dump would open. They were, of course, incorrect.

So PFS’s “Plan B” was to “return to sender.” If 40,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel – the same amount targeted to go to WCS, isn’t that curious?! – what would that “return to sender” policy have looked like?

Maine Yankee was a PFS consortium member. More than 50 rail sized containers of irradiated nuclear fuel would have traveled 5,000 miles round trip, accomplishing absolutely nothing, other than exposing millions of people in numerous states to high-risk shipments.

Another version of this is the fact that permanent burial sites could be located right back in the same direction from which the waste came in the first place. In fact, at one time, DOE was targeting two sites in Maine, seven sites in Vermont, and two sites in New Hampshire, for permanent burial dumps. (See Beyond Nuclear’s backgrounder, re: the NH targets, at: http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/24115710/1487366549330/New_Hampshire_dump_final+draft.pdf?token=ZDgyvKfq8uxG4HPqWmvVvXBuwmY%3D).

This game of high-risk, high-level radioactive waste musical chairs, or hot potato, on the roads, rails, and waterways, is unacceptable. It amounts to Radioactive Russian roulette. Multiplying transport risks for no good reason is wrong, and makes no sense.

The Nuclear Assurance Corporation’s Quality Assurance (NAC QA) failures mentioned above are very significant to shipping risks. Shipping casks would be less capable of withstanding severe accidents (such as high-speed crashes, including into immovable objects, like bridge abutments; high-temperature, long-duration fires; deep, long-lasting underwater submersions; drops from tall heights, onto unyielding surfaces, such as bridge foundations; or some combination of all those), as well as intentional attacks (such as with shaped charges, or anti-tank weapon systems – see below) or other powerful explosions (such as explosive cargoes on passing trains, including, nowadays, crude oil “Bomb Trains,” as from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota).

Adding to these shipping risks, is the potential for barge shipments on surface waters. WCS is supposed to be "mostly rail" -- which can also mean many barges (26 reactors in the U.S. lack direct rail access, meaning barges on surface waters -- the Great Lakes, rivers, seacoasts -- could be used to haul the 100+ ton, rail-sized casks to the nearest rail head). Backgrounders (including more details on the high risks) on these various barge routes (including maps) were originally written for the Yucca dump scheme; however, WCS could just as well involve such barges.

DOE’s Feb. 2002 Yucca Mountain Final Environmental Impact Statement gives a preview of barge shipments that could well be required to ship high-level radioactive waste to WCS, TX. The following barge shipment routes were proposed under the Yucca Mountain plan:

(See NIRS factsheets on barge shipments of deadly high-level radioactive waste on waterways, by state, posted online September 28, 2004):

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331033728/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/mdbargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331033736/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/vabargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331032838/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/debargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331034044/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nybargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331020332/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/mabargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160327081932/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/mibargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331080128/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/lamsbargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331063817/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/tnalbargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331020303/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nemoksbargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331030740/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/cabargefactsheet92804.pdf>

<https://web.archive.org/web/20160331035101/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/flbargefactsheet92804.pdf>

(However, with something as simple as a rushed NRC rubber-stamp amendment, WCS could apply for, and quickly get, permission to truck in smaller-sized, "Legal Weight Truck" (LWT) casks to WCS. This mix of trains/barges and trucks, would mean even more American communities would be exposed to Mobile Chernobyl risks.)

Dirty Bomb on Wheels security risks would abound. This was made clear by the test of an anti-tank missile against an (empty) irradiated nuclear fuel shipping cask at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The June 1998 test targeted a German CASTOR cask. While certified for storage-only in the U.S. (the cask model is deployed at Surry, VA), it is widely used for transport in Europe. CASTORs have thick die cast iron walls, as opposed to thin walled steel casks in the U.S. That is, CASTORs are significantly more robust, more capable to withstand such an attack. However, even the CASTOR, the Cadillac of shipping casks as some have called it, was severely breached by the anti-tank missile. A hole as big around as a grapefruit or softball was blown clean through the side wall. Had irradiated nuclear fuel been inside, the hole would have created the pathway for release of disastrous amounts of hazardous radioactivity – all the more so, if an incendiary attack were combined with the explosive attack. In short, shipping containers were not designed to withstand such attacks. See:

<https://web.archive.org/web/20150908070611/http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nirsfctshtdrycaskvulnerable.pdf>.

Thursday
Feb022017

SEED Coalition & Public Citizen sample comments, re: WCS, TX centralized interim storage, for submission to NRC environmental scoping proceeding

Karen Hadden of Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition and Tom "Smitty" Smity of Public Citizen's Texas Office have provided the following environmental scoping sample public comments, below, you can use to write your own, for submission to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by its March 13, 2017 deadline.

Karen adds:

Please share!

The NRC scoping letter [sample comments] is the important one to work off of right now. It can be sent as is, edited, or write your own letter [comments].

It's important to ask for a hearing [an NRC public comment meeting] -- in your area -- to address transport risks, and to say how close you are to rail lines or if you cross them daily.

Thanks! We need as many letters as possible and they need to be in by March 13th.

This is more important than travelling to the meetings here [in w. TX & s.e. NM] -- and carries as much weight with NRC.


SAMPLE COMMENTS:

 

Cindy Bladey

Office of Administration

Mail Stop: OWFN-12-HO8

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Washington, DC 20555-0001

 

RE: Docket No. 72-1050; NRC-2016-0231  Waste Control Specialists LLC’s Consolidated Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility Project

Feb. 2, 2017

Dear Cindy Bladey and NRC,

Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) application to import tons of spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste, from nuclear reactors around the country and store it in Andrews County for 40 years (or longer) should be halted in order to protect public health and safety, including the health and safety of my constituents.

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Waste Control Specialists’ license application should include a designation of transportation routes and the array of potential impacts of accidents or terrorism incidents that could occur along those routes. If the license gets approved, deadly waste would be transported through our region for 24 years. Even one small accident would be one too many. Despite assurances that accident damage would be minimal, real life disasters have been known to exceed the worst anticipated scenarios.

A 2014 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report warns of potential sabotage of radioactive waste shipments, saying that such an incident would most likely occur in a large city rather than a rural area.  Terrorist actions involving radioactive waste in the San Antonio region would be an unimaginable nightmare.

The EIS should look closely into the risk of groundwater contamination at the site, especially since the entire TCEQ Radioactive Materials Division recommended denying a license for “low-level” radioactive waste at the Waste Control Specialists site due to the proximity of groundwater.

The EIS should consider potential impacts from accidents or radioactive waste related terrorist actions along transport routes and at the site, including impacts to people, land and water. In-depth research should examine radiation monitoring and cumulative impacts of multiple facilities near the WCS site, site security, engineering adequacy of the storage pad and seismic stresses, the adequacy of the crane that would move radioactive waste.

The report should include exactly how radioactive waste from a cracked and leaking canister would be handled, as it appears there would be no wet pool or hot cell at the WCS site. It appears that no one knows yet how to transfer waste from dry cask to dry cask. WCS should have to explain how this would be accomplished and not just say they’ll figure it out when the problem arises.

Please know that we don’t consent to becoming a national radioactive waste dumping ground. We should not have to risk contamination of our land, aquifers or air or the health of plants, wildlife and livestock. Human exposure to high-level radioactive waste can lead to immediate death.

Homeowners’ insurance doesn’t cover radioactive contamination. A single rail car could haul waste containing as much plutonium as the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. We’ve had serious train accidents in our region. Two trains have collided head-on in West Texas last year at 65 mph. I understand that cask testing has been conducted for accidents up to 60 mph, but this scenario has already been exceeded. The EIS should address these risks.

The EIS should address the impacts of “interim storage” becoming dangerous permanent de facto disposal, and the waste might never be disposed of in a scientifically viable geologic repository using a reliable isolation system. With political pressure gone, the waste would likely never move again.

Above-ground casks would be exposed to the weathering effects of temperature extremes, and potential wildfires, tornadoes and earthquakes. The EIS should address these issues and answer the following questions: At what point could the waste go critical? What interactions of these circumstances and contact with other radioactive waste and hazardous materials at the WCS site could occur? What are the cumulative impacts of waste at this site and nearby sites on workers, local people and the environment, and how could natural disasters impact add to impacts?

Please host a hearing on the WCS application so that those of us who would be put at risk can address the NRC on this important issue. I would appreciate a written response.

Sincerely,

Your Name:

Your Postal Address:

Your Email:

Your Phone:

Additional Comments:

Tuesday
Jan312017

Urgent! WCS Radioactive Waste Threat Moves Forward...2 NRC meetings [in NM & TX; a 3rd to be held in Rockville, MD]

This action alert comes from Karen Hadden at SEED Coalition in Texas:
Please help spread the word! 
Hi Everyone, Federal register postings are online today - look under Nuclear Regulatory Commission for two postings about WCS at this link: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30
The WCS license application has been deemed complete, starting the clock for people to 
1) submit scoping comments on the environmental review (March 13 deadline) and to request a public hearing and 
2) to intervene in the licensing process to oppose having the nation’s deadliest radioactive waste dumped on Texas and New Mexico (March 31 deadline - with a requirement to set up a digital ID if you want to file documents electronically).
Tom “Smitty” Smith, Former State Rep. Lon Burnam, Kyle Amato and I are heading to West Texas/ NM to work with people who are concerned about this deadly threat to their backyards. The Waste Control Specialists plan unnecessarily poses risks around the state and the country from transport accidents and potential terrorist actions. 
People can speak up at two NRC meetings that are set to seek comments on the scope of the Environmental Impact Statement for Waste Control Specialists' (WCS’) proposed Consolidated Interim Storage Facility. Comments can also be submitted by mail and electronically, with a deadline of March 13, 2017.  Please come to one or both of the meetings if you can: 
February 13, 2017  Lea County Event Center, 5101 N. Lovington Highway, Hobbs, NM  88240 -  6 PM Open House, 7 PM meeting 

February 15, 2017  James Roberts Center 855 TX-176, Andrews TX  79714    6 PM Open House, 7 PM meeting
This is an opportunity to tell the NRC should consider in their Environmental Impact Statement, and sometimes more importantly, what has been left out that should be considered.  You can look at what they have for environmental reviews here:  https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=NRC-2016-0231-0005  
If you read this you’ll be able to think about what they’re missing and what should be considered. 
Again, comments for this scoping process are due March 13th.  Anyone can comment. 
You may want to consider requesting a public hearing and becoming an intervenor. Please be thinking about how this project threatens you and your family and why it poses risks for you. 
More news will be coming… including dates and times of local organizing meetings in the Feb. 8-11th timeframe in West Texas. 
Another way you can help is to donate money toward our organizing and legal expenses. Checks can be sent to SEED Coalition, 605 Carismatic Lane, Austin, TX  78748. 
We are happy to talk to anyone who’d like to donate in other ways or help with grant funding - Karen Hadden, 512-797-8481 
Thursday
Jan262017

In dangerous collusion with WCS, NRC sets breakneck schedule for rubber-stamping high-level radioactive waste parking lot dump

Maps showing the national and TX-specific routes for commerical irradiated nuclear fuel railway shipments to WCS.On Jan. 26, 2017, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced "NRC to Review WCS Application, Announces Hearing Opportunity and Meetings on Scope of Environmental Review."

(Actual federal register links, now posted:

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-01-30/pdf/2017-01966.pdf

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-01-30/pdf/2017-01973.pdf

Also see the WCS application and review website at NRC's website.)

The NRC will accept public comments on the Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) "centralized interim storage" site (de facto permanent parking lot dump) only until March 13, 2017.

In-person meetings will be held in Hobbs, New Mexico on Feb. 13; in Andrews, Texas on Feb. 15; and at NRC's HQ in Rockville, MD after that (supposedly the week after the NM & TX meetings, but the exact date/time has not yet been announced).

NRC has stated:

The NRC’s Jan. 26 letter to WCS sets a schedule for its safety and environmental reviews, with a target of making a licensing decision by the third quarter of fiscal year 2019, assuming WCS provides high-quality responses, on schedule, to any NRC requests for additional information. The public will have 60 days from publication of a notice of docketing in the Federal Register,which will appear shortly, to submit requests for a hearing and petition to intervene in the licensing proceeding for the proposed facility. Details on how to submit those requests and petitions will be in the Federal Register notice. (Emphasis added)

A national coalition of environmental, environmental justice (EJ), public interest and other groups is gearing up to challenge this WCS parking lot dump, just as a national coalition opposed the Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS) "centralized interim storage" parking lot dump. PFS was very actively targeted -- by the nuclear power industry and its rubber-stamp friends at NRC -- at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Despite NRC's rubber-stamp approval of the radioactively racist PFS dump, it was nonetheless stopped by the national coalition (including 437 EJ groups), led by Native Americans, including anti-dump traditional members of the Skull Valley Goshute Indian community, namely Margene Bullcreek and Sammy Blackbear. (More info. on the PFS fight is posted at the NIRS website.)

Having dodged that radioactive bullet, here comes another one (more like a radioactive cannon ball, or even nuclear attack!).

As with the Yucca dump targeted at Western Shoshone Indian land in Nevada (see Beyond Nuclear coverage; see NIRS coverage), so too is WCS an environmental injustice, radioactive racism: Andrews County, Texas is 40% Hispanic/Latin American, with a significant percentage of residents living in poverty. Neighboring communities just across the New Mexico state line (WCS is right on the border, and in fact New Mexico is downstream) have similar demographics.

And yes, as with Yucca, and PFS, WCS raises the specter of Mobile Chernobyls, Fukushima Freeways, Dirty Bombs on Wheels, and Floating Fukushimas (see NIRS coverage; see Beyond Nuclear coverage). Just as with Yucca's "When it comes to radioactive waste transportation, we all live in Nevada," so too with WCS -- "When it comes to radioactive waste transportation, we all live in Andrews, Texas." (See rail route maps, above left; click here for a larger, more legible version of the route map. See also the national railway shipping routes map WCS included in its license application Environmental Report.)

WCS is supposed to be "mostly rail" -- which can also mean many barges (26 reactors in the U.S. lack direct rail access, meaning barges on surface waters -- the Great Lakes, rivers, seacosts -- could be used to haul the 100+ ton, rail-sized casks to the nearest rail head). Backgrounders (including more details on the high risks) on these various barge routes (including maps) were originally written for the Yucca dump scheme; however, WCS could just as well involve such barges:

However, with something as simple as a rushed NRC rubber-stamp amendment, WCS could apply for, and quickly get, permission to truck in smaller-sized, "Legal Weight Truck" (LWT) casks to WCS -- something we'll also have to carefully guard against vigilantly.

For more info. on the risks of "centralized interim storage" (de facto permanent parking lot dumps), see Beyond Nuclear's relevant website section.

As with Yucca, PFS, etc., it will take a determined national grassroots movement effort to stop WCS from becoming a national parking lot dump, and launching unprecedented numbers of Mobile Chernobyls. As Karen Hadden of SEED Coalition has said, this is the fight of a lifetime. [See Karen's action alert from Jan. 31, 2017.] As the saying from the Civil Rights Movement put it, if you see a good fight, jump in!

Our first major deadline is NRC's breakneck rushed deadline of mid-March for public comments on the WCS parking lot dump environmental scoping, precursor to NRC's Draft Environmental Impact Statement. (Which we will also have to comment on down the road.) Beyond Nuclear, and other groups, will circulate sample talking points in the near future, which you can use to write your own to submit to NRC. Stayed tuned!

[Here are links to sample comments, now posted, with more to follow:

Sample comments you can use to write your own:

SEED Coalition & Public Citizen's Texas Office have prepared sample comments you can use to write your own for submission to NRC by the March 13, 2017 deadline;

Public comments previously submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a proceeding re: Private Initiatives to carry out centralized interim storage can now also be used -- "recycled," so to speak! -- to prepare comments to NRC re: WCS's scheme (the comments to DOE were due Jan. 27, 2017)]

Another big showdown will be at the public meetings themselves, breakneck rushed by NRC for mid-Feb. in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

A coalition of groups will also, undoubtedly, be officially intervening against the WCS license, in NRC's rubber-stamp/kangaroo court Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board proceeding, on a large number of health, safety, and environmental contentions. Public intervenors have until the end of March to file, or forever hold their peace.

Shame on NRC for its obvious collusion, as with the breakneck deadlines, designed to overcome and overwhelm (largely volunteer) public resistance. In 2012, the Japanese Parliament concluded that just such collusion -- between regulatory agency, nuclear power industry, and elected officials -- was the root cause of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Such collusion exists in spades, re: the WCS parking lot dump -- involving NRC and DOE, WCS and the nuclear power industry, and TX politicians (including former governor Rick Perry, now poised to become Trump's Energy Secretary, despite his blatant conflict of interest, not to mention the huge costs, risks, and liabilities this would mean for U.S. taxpayers). Such collusion is how radioactive catastrophes happen, and these various "public servants" (serving the public up for dinner, that is, to WCS and the nuclear power industry!) are all too willing to play this high-risk game of radioactive Russian roulette.

[By the way, there is still time to take action against Perry's confirmation as Energy Secretary. Contact both your U.S. Senators, and urge they vote against Perry's confirmation! Do so ASAP, the Senate floor vote could happen any day now! Here is Beyond Nuclear's action alert from a week ago:

Will Rick Perry privatize America's radioactive waste storage?

As reported at Mother Jones. See Beyond Nuclear's exposé on Energy Secretary-nominee Rick Perry's blatant conflict of interest with Waste Control Specialists, LLC, published at CounterpunchTake action ASAP -- sign multiple petitions, and contact your two U.S. Senators, urging them to block Perry's confirmation! Also, submit comments to the U.S. Department of Energy, opposing private permanent parking lot dumps for high-level radioactive waste!]

A particularly egregious example of the corrupting influence of the revolving door between "public service" (government) and industry is John Kotek:

The very person who ran DOE’s “consent-based siting” proceeding, declared WCS itself “consent-based,” rejected the need to get consent from transport corridor communities, and very narrowly construed the definition of “consent” – DOE’s acting assistant secretary in the Office of Nuclear Energy since July 2015, John Kotek — has now shown his true colors. Kotek will now serve at the nuclear power industry’s lobbying and PR HQ in Washington, D.C. – the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) — as vice president for policy development and public affairs.

In fact, Kotek "served" as staff director at President Obama's and Energy Secretary Chu's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The bad faith, the collusion, and the high-speed revolving doors and rubber stamps, in the nuclear power/radioactive waste governmental-industrial complex, is embodied in people like John Kotek.

Making NRC's breakneck schedule and high-speed collusion all the more ironic is how long commercial irradiated nuclear fuel remains hazardous: a million years, EPA was forced to admit in 2008, under federal court order, hard won by an environmental coalition in the Yucca Mountain fight. In fact, even a million years is an underestimate, when you consider Iodine-129, as but one example: I-129, an artificial radioactive poison, has a half-life of 15.7 million years, so will remain hazardous (to children, and other living things) for 157 to 314 million years!

Of course, "centralized interim storage" de-linked or un-connected from permanent geologic disposal, as WCS is, makes no sense. It merely multiplies transport risks, as the wastes would have to be moved again in the future, to the permanent dump-site. In fact, that permanent dump-site could well be right back in the same direction from which the wastes came in the first place. This would create a high-stakes game of radioactive musical chairs, or radioactive hot potato, on the roads, rails, and/or waterways! 

This nearly happened at PFS in UT. The PFS scheme called for "interim" storage, for 20-40 years, until the Yucca Mountain dump opened in Nevada. But President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu wisely canceled the scientifically unsuitable, non-consent-based, environmentally unjust/radioactively racist (targeted at Western Shoshone Nation sacred treaty lands) site in 2009-2010. "Plan B" at PFS, if Yucca was not available, was simply to "return to sender."

Maine Yankee is a startling case in point. 50+ giant rail-sized containers of high-level radioactive waste would have been shipped from Wiscasset, ME, through many states, 2,500 miles out to Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah. Only to be shipped back to ME. 5,000 miles of round-trip Mobile Chernobyl risks, accomplishing absolutely nothing in the end! 

Given such absurdities, the risks of a de facto permanent parking lot dump are all the greater. Once wastes are "consolidated" or "centralized" in one congressional district, good luck ever moving them out, ever again. Right now, the U.S. Representative for Andrews County, TX is blinded by dollar signs, and thinks a parking lot dump at WCS is a good idea. But if a future U.S. Rep. for that district thinks it's high time to move the wastes, as to a permanent dump-site, that would make for an uphill battle. It would be one U.S. Rep. versus 434 others, who would likely be just fine with it staying in West Texas, so long as it doesn't travel through, or get buried permanently in, their congressional district!

As you can see, we need all the help we can get, to stop all this nuclear madness, to borrow a phrase from our founding president, Helen Caldicott. Please help us! Please spread the word! See you on the front lines of the fight for environmental justice, in the battle for a nuclear-free future! Thanks!

Wednesday
Jan252017

Sample public comments you can use to write your own, for submission to NRC by March 13 deadline, based on talking points re: "Private Initiatives" (PIs) for de facto permanent high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps (submitted to DOE for already passed Jan. 27 deadline)

Please note: the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) held a public comment proceeding that ended on Jan. 27, 2017, re: Private Initiatives for centralized interim storage of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel. As Waste Control Specialists, LLC's (WCS) scheme to construct and operate a centralized interim storage facility for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas is a private initiative, the previous comments to DOE, submitted on Jan. 27, can serve as sample talking points you can use to write your own public comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) during this current environmental scoping public comment period. These public comments to NRC are due by March 13, 2017.

Here below are those comments previously submitted to DOE, that can now be used to write your own for submission to NRC (please be sure to substitute out DOE and substitute in NRC, and make any other changes to the comments below, to make them applicable to this NRC environmental scoping public comment period):

[See Beyond Nuclear's comments, as submitted to DOE on 1/23/17, in .doc format (with functional URLs embedded) and in .pdf format (embedded URLs do not work), that can now be used to prepare public comments to NRC.]

See DOE's dozen questions (in bold italics), followed by sample talking points you can now use to write your own public comments to NRC re: WCS [also see Additional sample talking points you can use to write your own public comments, below]:

As stated in its Request for Information (RFI), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had requested:

In particular, DOE seeks information in the following [dozen] areas...

1. What key factors should be considered to ensure that PIs, as part of the overall integrated nuclear waste management system, would provide a workable solution for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste?

Since a private centralized interim storage facility could easily become a de facto permanent parking lot dump, or could one day well be targeted not just for storage but also for permanent disposal (such a preference has been expressed in related legislation on Capitol Hill, that the pilot-, and full-scale, centralized interim storage site also be considered for permanent disposal), the following criteria must be met: scientific (geologic, hydrologic, etc.) site suitability; free, fully informed, consent-based siting; environmental justice, not just for current, but also for all future generations.

In addition, since consolidated interim storage would require unprecedented numbers of shipments (by road, rail, and/or waterway) of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, through many to most states, such "Mobile Chernobyl" risks must be minimized. (See, for example, projected nationwide shipping routes to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, which has been targeted for governmental (DOE) centralized interim storage in the past, and is still targeted for permanent disposal; see also projected cross-country shipping routes to the PI Waste Control Specialists, LLC facility in Andrews County, West Texas, targeted for centralized interim storage.) Long-distance shipments should only happen once, to suitable, consent-based, environmentally just permanent disposal, not to a supposedly interim storage site, from which the wastes will have to move again, multiplying transport risks. Consent should be required for transport corridor communities for such shipments, and transport container safety and security should be guaranteed, requiring significant upgrades to current shipping container integrity standards.

2. How could a PI benefit:

a. the local community and state or Tribe in which an ISF [Interim Storage Facility] is sited?

b. neighboring communities?

Certainly pro-nuclear Republican U.S. Senators, during related Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in summer 2013, have joked openly about the "incentives" (legalized bribes, and other "inducements," such as promises of jobs, for low income, often people of color communities; however, as Keith Lewis of the uranium mining and milling devastated Serpent River First Nation of Ontario put it, "There is nothing moral about tempting a starving man with money.") that cut to the heart of tempting communities to consider "consenting" to "host" de facto permanent parking lot dumps. But what about the harms to communities, states, Tribes and neighboring communities that would be caused by de facto permanent parking lot dumps? 

For starters, low income people of color communities must be taken off the target list, as a basic Environmental Justice principle. To do otherwise would mean radioactive racism. Even people of color communities which are no longer low income should not be targeted, given the historical oppression they have already endured in the United States. Neither should majority white low income communities be targeted. 

Radioactive stigma impacts should be addressed and accounted for, from the start. Even if a release of hazardous radioactivity into the environment does not occur, property values will be significantly decreased at and near a centralized interim storage site, as well as along transport corridor routes. Radioactive stigma will even mean that products from the area of the centralized interim storage facility will be avoided by a significant share of consumers, causing economic losses. So too would other economic development be deterred from the region of the de facto permanent parking lot dump. 

And if a release of hazardous radioactivity does occur, the radioactive stigma impacts to the economy will be all the worse. 

Neighboring communities can expect to get the worst of both worlds. The host community will reap the income, tax revenues, and jobs, while neighboring communities will get the short end of the stick -- which would include radioactive stigma impacts, but also the potential for hazardous radioactivity release into air, surface waters, and groundwaters if they happen to be located downwind and downstream.

Native American "Tribes" -- Indigenous Nations -- should not be targeted at all for such hazardous high-level radioactive waste storage facilities. To the contrary, Indigenous Nations have been disproportionately targeted, for decades, an environmental injustice and form of radioactive racism. Beyond Nuclear and others pleaded with the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC), from its opening meeting onwards, to no longer target Indigenous Nations. President Obama's Women's History Month, 2009 proclamation honoring Grace Thorpe of the Sauk and Fox Nation in Oklahoma for her work to stop centralized interim storage sites targeted at her reservation community, and scores more, was cited to the BRC. Such comments fell on deaf ears at the BRC, and DOE is still targeting Indigenous Nations, to the present day.

3. What type of involvement if any should the Department [of Energy] or other federal agency consider having with the PI and the community regarding organizational, structural, and contractural frameworks and why?

Mention of "the Department or other federal agency" is an important reminder that  the DOE should not even be conducting this Request for Information proceeding.  The second highest recommendation by the BRC was for DOE to be removed from high-level radioactive waste management.  This is because DOE has proven, over the course of decades, its incompetence and worse -- that it cannot be trusted by the public, in such vital matters.  Such high-stakes matters as defining "consent-based siting" should be carried out by a trustworthy and competent replacement for DOE. A competent and trustworthy replacement for DOE would not have even considered PIs for centralized interim storage, since this violates the law, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as Amended. 

Re: contractual frameworks, of course the consequences of any intentional wrongdoing, or even unintentional negligence, must be the liability of the PI. Otherwise, as Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen's Texas office has warned, this would "invite disaster because the private owners will be cutting costs at every turn to maximize profits." (See below under Additional sample talking points.) For example, Waste Control Specialists (WCS) in Texas has baked-in the contractual requirement, in its application for a license to construct and operate a centralized interim storage site, that DOE would not only hold title to the irradiated nuclear fuel, but would be entirely liable should anything go wrong (such as an airborne release of hazardous radioactivity, or a leak into the groundwater below, which could contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer). This of course means U.S. taxpayers would bear ultimate liability, and pay all costs. The Price-Anderson Act already provides liability protection unique in industry -- but even that isn't good enough for WCS! To remove all liability from a PI is a moral hazard with a radioactive twist, inviting catastrophe through company short cuts on safety, to pad their own pockets. 

And of course U.S. congressional committees of jurisdiction, as well as Offices of Inspector General and Investigations, at all federal agencies with jurisdiction (DOE, NRC, EPA, etc.), should all be fully engaged, and do their jobs, to oversee and watchdog any centralized interim storage proposals, during licensing, operations, and decommissioning. Their duty, of course, is to protect public health, safety, security, and the environment, as well as taxpayer pocketbooks, not to cater to the nuclear power industry's or radioactive waste dumps' lobbyists.

4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of a PI, compared to a federally-financed capital project resulting in a government-owned contractor-operated (GOCO) interim storage facility?

As mentioned above under point #3, DOE's name is mud when it comes to radioactive waste management. This includes GOCO endeavors such as the high-level radioactive waste liquid vitrification plant at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which is many years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget; as well as the utter failure at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River Site, South Carolina, one of the worst boondoggles in DOE -- and in fact U.S. federal government -- history. As the BRC recommended as its second highest priority in its Final Report in January 2012, DOE must be replaced with a competent, trustworthy radioactive waste management federal agency. 

5. What assurances to the Government do you think would be appropriate, to ensure that SNF [Spent Nuclear Fuel] stored at a private ISF [Interim Storage Facility], would be managed effectively so as to contain costs to the Government?

An important assurance would be, that hazardous radioactivity will not be released to the environment! No current or foreseeable PI can make such an assurance. For example, at WCS, NAC [Nuclear Assurance Corporation] dual-purpose storage/transport containers would be used. But such NAC containers have exhibited major Quality Assurance [QA] violations, and other failures, both historically dating back many decades (as documented in Dr. Marvin Resnikoff's 1987 book "The Next Nuclear Gamble"), but also very recently, as revealed at Chalk River Nuclear Lab in Ontario, Canada. Similarly, Holtec transport/storage containers proposed to be used at the Eddy-Lea [Counties] Energy Alliance in Hobbs, New Mexico have long exhibited uncorrected QA violations, calling into question their structural integrity while sitting still, let alone traveling 60 miles per hour or faster on the railways, as revealed by industry and NRC whistle-blowers. 

Any contracts signed by DOE's replacement radioactive waste management agency must be strictly fixed cost. Besides the multi-billion dollar cost overruns, and years-long schedule delays, at Hanford and SRS mentioned above, there is also the multi-billion dollar cost overruns, and years-long schedule delays, at the Vogtle 3 & 4 new reactor construction project in Georgia. DOE awarded Vogtle 3 & 4 a whopping $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee, which means that U.S. taxpayers will be left holding the bag for that full amount, if and when the project defaults on its loan repayment. (In fact, such skyrocketing cost overruns and compounding schedule delays are not only a decades-old pattern with nuclear power plants and radioactive waste management facilities in the U.S., including DOE projects, but the same is also true internationally; remarkably, the public has been asked to bailout even 40+ year old, uncompetitive atomic reactors across the U.S., at ratepayer expense, in NY, IL, and perhaps even in Texas, which is quite ironic, given WCS's lead in the race to open a PI parking lot dump.) In short, any to-be-expected cost overruns should be the responsibility of the PI, not of federal taxpayers.

Along similar lines, any PI should be required to be entirely privately financed, not government financed, to protect federal taxpayers' pocketbooks. 

6. What possibilities are there with respect to business models for a PI, and what are the benefits and disadvantages of those models?

A prior PI that should serve as a cautionary tale was the Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS) targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah. In addition to being a flagrant radioactive racism violation of environmental justice principles, PFS also serves as a warning about how so-called interim surface storage facilities can turn into de facto permanent parking lot dumps. PFS was proposed to have stored 40,000 metric tons of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel (the same amount as is proposed at WCS, TX), in Holtec containers (the same model as proposed by the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance in NM). After 20 to 40 years of so-called "interim" storage (which is itself a very long time to refer to as temporary or interim -- in fact, 40 years is 1/6th as long as the entire history of the United States thus far!), the proposal was to then move the highly radioactive wastes to the permanent burial dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. However, President Obama wisely canceled the unsuitable, anti-consent-based, radioactively racist and illegal (it is Western Shoshone Indian land by "peace and friendship" treaty rights) Yucca dump in 2009-2010. Thus, if PFS had opened, and irradiated fuel would have been moved there, there would have been no Yucca dump to send it to after 20-40 years. PFS's Plan B was "return to sender." Thus, 50+ Holtec casks from Maine Yankee would have traveled 5,000-miles round-trip, accomplishing absolutely nothing -- but putting countless millions in transport corridor communities across the country at risk of "Mobile Chernobyls" and "Mobile X-ray Machines That Can't Be Turned Off." Fortunately, despite NRC's high-risk rubber-stamp of the PFS construction and operation license, resistance (including that by the nationwide environmental justice movement, led by Native Americans) was strong enough to stop the parking lot dump from being built and opened. 

7. How could a PI manage liabilities that might arise during the storage period?

As mentioned in response to DOE questions #s 3. and 5. above, all costs, liabilities, and risks should be borne by the PI companies involved, not by the public. If the PI companies are not willing to bear the burden of all liabilities involved in the centralized interim storage scheme, this is a clear sign that the proposal is too risky to undertake. To undertake it nonetheless, at taxpayer liability (such as called for by WCS in TX), would create a moral hazard with a highly radioactive twist! 

8. What state/local/tribal authorizations/approvals would be needed?

As mentioned at point #2. above, Native American -- and other low income and people of color communities -- must be taken off the target list to begin with, as a basic matter of environmental justice principles.

But in addition, any targeted so-called "Interim Storage Facility" [ISF] location (including the transport corridor communities involved nationwide) must incorporate free-, fully informed consent-based principles, in addition to being scientifically suitable (geologically, hydrologically, etc.) and geographically sensible (such as re: transport risks; an example of regional inequity is the pattern of East dumping on West -- 90% of the atomic reactors in the U.S. are in the eastern half of the country, and yet all proposed parking lot dumps are in the western half of the country). Such consent-based siting must extend from the local level, to the county, regional, state, and national levels, including all impacted residents and their elected officials at all levels.

Any ISF PI must agree to bear the burden of full liability if anything goes wrong, and must agree to pay all costs associated with the facility -- not to burden the public (whether ratepayer or taxpayer) with any of this.

9. How can the Government continue to explore or implement the PI concept in a fair, open and transparent manner going forward?

As mentioned in our response to DOE question #12. below, PI centralized interim storage is illegal under the terms of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as Amended. Thus, DOE should not go forward with this private initiative proceeding, or any other, as to do so would violate its legal authority. DOE should cease and desist from any further exploration of the PI concept, and should certainly not enter into PI contracts, as at WCS, TX.

Besides that, any undertaking of this significance should only happen under the strictest terms of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and also in compliance with the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and Administrative Procedures Act (APA). This current Request for Information proceeding, by contrast, does not formally comply with NEPA, just as DOE's 2016 "consent-based siting" public comment proceeding did not comply with NEPA. This is unacceptable, and in fact illegal.

10. What, if any, supporting agreements might be expected between the Government and the host state/tribe/local community associated with a PI?

As mentioned in response to DOE's questions #3. and 7. above, all liability must remain with the PI companies, not with the federal taxpayer. And as mentioned in response to DOE's question #5. above, the PI companies must meet fixed costs commitments; any cost overruns would then be the private companies' problem, not DOE's (that is, not taxpayers'). And again, DOE and its replacement radioactive waste management agency must agree, once and for all, to stop targeting Native American communities, as well as any other low income and/or people of color community, for de facto permanent parking lot dumps. 

11. What other considerations should be taken into account?

Re: DOE's question #8. above, there is also the issue raised by Allison Fisher of Public Citizen at DOE's "kick off" meeting for defining "consent-based siting," held in Washington, D.C. in January 2016. What about future generations? How can current generations of decision makers doom all future generations to radioactive risks, by agreeing to "host" storage and/or disposal (as EPA has acknowledged in its Yucca Mountain regulations, irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste has a million-year hazard, which happens to be three times longer than Homo sapiens sapiens has even been a distinct species!). To this important question on intergenerational equity and environmental justice, DOE gave no adequate answer that day, nor has it since.

In addition, DOE must address the risk of so-called interim storage becoming permanent parking lot-like surface storage. In its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, published in February 2002, DOE warned that permanent abandonment of irradiated nuclear fuel on-site at the reactors where it was generated would result in catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity into the local environment, as dry casks failed over time. DOE must admit, clearly and publicly, as in a PI centralized interim storage EIS, that abandonment of irradiated nuclear fuel at a so-called ISF (Interim Storage Facility) would likewise result, over long enough periods of time, in dry cask failure, and catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.

Along those lines, this Request for Information proceeding is not compliant with NEPA. DOE must publish a Draft EIS, allow for public comment over an adequate period of time (we suggest a nine-month public comment period), and hold multiple public hearings around the country for the collection of public comment. Public meetings must be held by the replacement agency for DOE in all proposed PI ISF "host communities" -- such as Andrews County, TX; Culberson County, TX; Loving County, TX; and Eddy-Lea Counties/Hobbs, New Mexico. So too must the state capitals of states targeted for PI ISFs, including Austin, TX and Santa Fe, NM, be granted an in-person meeting for public comments. And also the biggest cities in each targeted state, including Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, etc. in TX, and Albuquerque in NM, be granted public comment meetings. So too must public comment meetings be held in transportation corridor communities across the country.

12. Are there any alternative approaches to developing non-federally-owned facilities that might be proposed (e.g. how projects would be financed, anticipated regulatory and legal issues, etc.). If so, what are they, are there proposed solution [sic., solutions], and how would the above questions be answered with respect to such approaches?

PI centralized interim storage is illegal under the terms of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as Amended. [See the letter sent by Diane Curran, legal counsel for an environmental coalition, to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; see the coalition's press release; see additional information, including extensive media coverage.] No alternative approaches rectify this fatal flaw. For this reason alone, DOE should cease and desist from pushing it!

Additional sample talking points you can use to write your own public comments:

 1. As Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen's Texas office has said, "Texans do not consent to the risky plan to store high-level radioactive waste at private sites on an open pad above ground in Texas. Another company near Hobbs, New Mexico -- less than 50 miles away -- is expected to file an application to open a storage site that would accept the rest of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. These twin 'storage sites' likely would create a de facto high-level national waste sacrifice zone. This proposal invites disaster because the private owners will be cutting costs at every turn to maximize profits. If there was radioactive contamination our land, air, water, and human health could be harmed for millennia." (emphasis added; see press release here)

2. Private permanent parking lot dumps are high-risk, not only radiologically but also to U.S. taxpayers' pocketbooks. As Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear has said: "By requiring a permanent deep geological repository to be operating before centralized interim storage [whether private or federal government owned/operated], Congress wanted to prevent the very real danger of a de facto permanent parking lot dump -- a high-level radioactive waste storage site that would be designed for the short-term but be there forever. WCS, for example, is a cynical shell game and taxpayers are sure to lose. Congress was right that liability for the costs for storing commercial irradiated nuclear fuel belong with the generators and should not be shifted onto the backs of the American public." (see press release)

3. Regarding the transportation costs and risks of centralized interim storage (whether private or federal government owned/operated):

As Diane D'Arrigo, radioactive waste project director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service, has said, "Moving irradiated nuclear fuel over roads, rails, and waterways to a supposedly temporary site puts us all at risk and creates only the illusion of a solution."

And as Karen Hadden, executive director of the Texas-based SEED (Sustainable Energy & Economic Development) Coalition, has said, "Due to risks of radioactive contamination from leaks or accidents or potential terrorist actions, nuclear waste should only be moved once, and only when a deep underground permanent repository is in place that could safely isolate the dangerous waste for the million years [see immediately below] that it will remain hazardous." (see the press release)

In fact, a coalition of environmental groups, including NRDC, NIRS, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, and Public Citizen, won a major court victory on July 9, 2004, which ordered EPA back to the drawing board on its proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump regulatory cut-off at 10,000 years post waste burial. In 2008, EPA's revised regulations acknowledged a one million year hazard associated with irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. (Truth be told, there are radioactive poisons in high-level radioactive waste that will remain hazardous far longer than even a million years. Iodine-129, as but one example, has a 15.7 million year half-life. This means it will remain hazardous for 157 to 314 million years!)

4. As the lead proposals for centralized interim storage (de facto permanent parking lot dumps) are private initiatives (in fact, there are no proposed federal government owned/operated parking lot dumps), all of the public comments submitted to DOE during its so-called "consent-based siting" public comment period in 2016 still apply. (The lead private initiative is by Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, West Texas, followed by the Eddy-Lea [Counties] Energy Alliance in Hobbs, New Mexico (less than 50 miles from WCS); AFCI in Loving County, TX; and Culberson County, TX. Note that not only WCS, but also AFCI, have close connections to Trump's pick for Energy Secretary, former TX governor Rick Perry, representing a blatant conflict of interest and ethical violation.) Comments submitted by environmental, public interest, and other NGOs can and should be submitted again during this current comment period (especially considering the fact that DOE largely to entirely ignored these comments when it issued its draft and final reports on defining "consent-based siting"!). See those comments by the following groups, and use them to write your own: several sets of comprehensive Beyond Nuclear comments, covering various subject matter, including Environmental Justice; Beyond Nuclear's Top 10 List, as well as its more detailed 2-page, and even more detailed 13-page, versions of sample comments;  Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA); Fairewinds Energy Education; Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER); Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS); Public Citizen; and a collection of comments from groups such as SEED Coalition, NAWO, Pilgrim Watch, and others.