Beyond Nuclear media statement re: WCS, TX request to NRC to suspend licensing for high-level radioactive waste centralized interim storage facility

News from Beyond Nuclear

For Immediate Release, April 19, 2017

Contact: Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216; kevin@beyondnuclear.org

Beyond Nuclear Media Statement

re: Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) request to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to suspend the licensing proceeding and environmental scoping on its application to open a Centralized Interim Storage Facility (CISF) for highly radioactive commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear’s Radioactive Waste Watchdog, stated:

“This latest radioactive waste Ponzi scheme has collapsed under its own weight. In its request to NRC to suspend the proceedings, WCS acknowledged ‘enormous financial challenges.’ In other words, WCS’s financial assurances for the future, and financial status at present, are little more than a wobbly house of cards, that have now come crashing down.

First and foremost, although the nuclear power industry would never admit it, this is yet another clear sign that there is no good solution for the dilemma of its forever deadly high-level radioactive waste. For this reason alone, the four new reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina should be terminated, and 100 dangerously age-degraded atomic reactors, located in 30 states across the U.S., should be permanently shut down, as soon as possible. Their electricity can be readily replaced with clean, safe, and ever more affordable energy efficiency and renewable sources, such as wind and solar power." More.

Opponents gird for nuclear waste dump battles in Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas

Political cartoon by Jim Day that appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal in 2010The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has extended the deadline for public comments on the environmental scoping of Waste Control Specialists' proposed centralized interim storage facility for commercial irradiated nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas until April 28th. Please submit comments! You can also make oral comments, on Thurs., April 6 from 7 to 10pm Eastern, during an NRC public comment teleconference/call-in meeting (Bridge Number: (800) 619-9084, Pass Code: 3009542; please register in advance by contacting Ms. Antoinette Walker-Smith at (301) 415-6957, or by email (to <antoinette.walker-smith@nrc.gov>) no later than April 3, 2017.) Please spread the word on these public comment opportunities!

NRC has also just extended the deadline for legal intervention against the WCS de facto permanent high-level radioactive waste parking lot dump, till May 31st; Beyond Nuclear fully intends to intervene, along with a coalition of environmental groups and concerned citizens, not only residing near the dump, but also along transport routes throughout the country.

The Yucca Mountain, Nevada radioactive waste dump zombie is again stirring (see political cartoon, above left; be sure to count the toes!), as: the Trump administration has budgeted $120 million to resurrect its long cancelled licensing proceeding; Energy Secretary Perry made a surprise, secret trip to the site; and congressional Republicans attempt to "Screw Nevada" (the most common name for the 1987 law that singled out Yucca Mountain, despite its already documented scientific unsuitability, and environmental injustice). However, the State of Nevada, its congressional delegation, environmental watchdogs, and the Western Shoshone Indian Nation are girding for battle -- Beyond Nuclear, and a thousand environmental/justice groups nationwide, will stand with them, as we have for three decades. See Nevada's and Beyond Nuclear's websites for more information, and ways to take action.  

(And this late breaking news: Holtec International has just applied to NRC for a Centralized Interim Storage Facility (CISF) construction and operation license in Eddy-Lea County, Southeastern New Mexico -- just like WCS, TX, and only about 50 miles away! Combined with the Louisiana Energy Services/Uranium Enrichment Corporation, immediately adjacent to WCS, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP, for military trans-uranic waste disposal), close to the Holtec/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance CISF, the nuclear establishment in government and industry is clearly attempting to turn the area into a nuclear sacrifice zone. Our coalition must rise to the challenge of resisting this latest environmental injustice. Stay tuned for updates as they come in, in the weeks and months ahead.)

Where Will The Waste From Palisades Nuclear Plant Go?

As reported by WMUK. Beyond Nuclear is quoted:

Without something like Yucca Mountain, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear worries that these dumps won’t be temporary at all:

“The current top target in the country is Andrews County in Texas which is 40 percent Latin American, a high percentage of low-income residents. So it’s a real environmental justice issue. And it could just get stuck there on the surface and this material can’t stay on the surface forever. If it ever gets out into the environment - and erosion, weatherization would do that over time - then it would be a radiological disaster.”

Moving nuclear waste across the country to these dumps could be risky too - which is why Kamps says he’s not in favor of places like Yucca Mountain either.

Spent Power Reactor Fuel: Pre-Disposal Issues

Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies has prepared a power point presentation (click here for .pptx version; click here for .pdf version) re: the many costs, risks, and liabilities of irradiated nuclear fuel "interim storage" -- most to all of which, the public will be burdened with.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has acknowledged that highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel remains hazardous for a million years. Thus, it must be kept isolated from the living environment for that entire time period. Otherwise, a catastrophe would unfold. This applies to "interim storage," whether on-site (in pools or dry casks) at the atomic reactors where it was generated in the first place, as well as to away-from-reactor storage, and even permanent disposal, sites.

WASTE: US Congress Weighs in on Canadian Great Lakes Repository Plan

A February 10, 2017 article entitled "WASTE: US Congress Weighs in on Canadian Great Lakes Repository Plan," published in Nuclear Intelligence Weekly's (NIW) Vol. 11, No. 6 by NIW reporters James Irwin in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Stephanie Cooke in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., quotes former former Ontario Power Generation (OPG) scientist and whistle-blower Dr. Frank Greening, as well as Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. See the full article, reposted here with permission from NIW.