URGENT! Tell the NRC to Halt Dangerous Nuclear Waste Licensing Tomorrow! OCT 1st 5-8 PM CENTRAL - Your voice is needed!! PLEASE send notice to your lists... we need everyone! THANKS!

Thank you to Karen Hadden of SEED Coalition (Sustainable Energy & Economic Development) in Austin, TX for this comprehensive action alert:

Hi Everyone,  YOUR VOICE IS URGENTLY NEEDED!     

Thursday, OCT. 1st  5-8 pm Central/6-9pm Eastern

NRC Public Meeting (Online) - Friends in Texas, New Mexico and around the country are urged to join in and speak out! We urgently need everyone’s voices… 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must hear our voices, loud and clear... That we don't want the nation's deadliest nuclear reactor waste dumped on Texas! ...Or transported needlessly throughout the country, creating risks of disaster from accidents, leaks or sabotage. The dangerous proposal by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) / Interim Storage Partners would accomplish nothing. Deadly nuclear waste would be stored above-ground for decades in the desert, not go into a permanent repository. Extreme temperatures, flooding, wildfires and strong winds would likely lead to cracked, eroding containers - at WCS' site near the nation's largest aquifer, the Ogallala. Water contamination could impact millions of people, wildlife and businesses. The region has earthquakes as well. Andrews County, where the waste would go, was the epicenter of a 4.7 earthquake in 1992. Earthquakes and radioactive waste are a bad combination. 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE… Please call in, and use a computer to see the slides*. No audio is available online, only by phone. 

OCT 1st at 5 PM Central - NRC public meeting:  

Teleconference: Bridge Number  (888) 989-9268  Pass Code 5300047   

Press *1 [star-one] as soon as you get through, which allows you to talk when it's your turn. Speakers typically get 3 minutes. 

Webinar: https://usnrc.webex.com/    Meeting number 199 125 5213   Password ISPDEIS

[*It is actually much easier to simply advance the slides of the slideshow oneself, while listening to the audio portion of slideshow presentation via telephone connection. Here are links to the slideshow presentation:

Regarding the presentation slides the NRC staff will use in this Thursday’s meeting, the slides are available in ADAMS and through the NRC’s public website for its review of the Interim Storage Partners license application.  You can find them using these links: in ADAMS and the NRC public website.]

Talking Points / Risks / Key issues   

• HALT LICENSING NOW! 
• This deadly waste shouldn’t be shipped across the country to be dumped in the Southwest for decades... perhaps forever.
• Fails to get the waste into a permanent repository
• Could hamper efforts to develop less risky storage systems and permanent disposal 
• This waste must be isolated from living things for a million years. Consolidated Interim Storage is a band-aid approach that makes matters worse, not better. 
• It would be massive environmental injustice 
• Health and safety risks from potential contamination 
• Transportation risks - accidents, leaks, sabotage, and even routine transport emissions, which the NRC calls "less than a chest X-ray" 
• Impacts to water, air, soil - WCS site is near the Ogallala Aquifer - the nation's largest aquifer 
• Financial risks - could cost billions of dollars to remediate contamination 
• Lack of a dry cask transfer facility - so there would be no way to repackage cracked or leaking canisters
• The region has temperature extremes, wildfires, intense winds, flooding - not safe for radioactive waste.
• Earthquakes and radioactive waste don't mix
• Impacts to businesses - the Permian Basin region is the largest oil-producing region in the world. 
• Heavy trains, train traffic, lack of safety training and equipment, Lack of full-time paid fire departments in many areas. 
• Consolidated Interim Storage is ILLEGAL under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.... NRC has no business processing this license application by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) / Interim Storage Partners (ISP) for Texas - or the Holtec application for nearby New Mexico. 
• Resolutions opposing nuclear waste dumping and transport have been passed by Dallas, Bexar, Nueces, Midland and El Paso Counties, and the cities of San Antonio, Midland and Denton, plus the Midland Chamber of Commerce. This represents the voices of 5.4 million Texans. 
• These inadequate webinars make a mockery of "public meetings". The NRC must schedule real, in-person public meetings after Covid risks are over - in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Midland and Andrews in Texas and along transport routes across the country. The comment period should remain open until this is accomplished.  

Resources: [Linked below] you’ll find a press release about the NRC meetings, a fact sheet, City rail maps for Texas - radioactive waste could travel on any commercial rail line, and comments submitted to NRC previously by SEED Coalition and Public Citizen. Lastly, there is a slide presentation that was used previously for the scoping part of this EIS process. 

LINKS:

(1.) Press Release about the NRC Meetings;

(2.) Fact Sheet;

(3.) City Rail Maps for Texas;

(4.) Public Comments by Public Citizen Texas Office & SEED Coalition, during NRC's 2018 ISP/WCS CISF Environmental Scoping Stage Public Comment Proceeding.

The NRC had failed to post or email the slides to be used for Oct. 1 - despite repeated requests to do so -- [for days and weeks on end. At long last, just a day before the Oct. 1st meeting, NRC finally made the slideshow available, as mentioned above:

Here are links to the slideshow presentation:

Regarding the presentation slides the NRC staff will use in this Thursday’s meeting, the slides are available in ADAMS and through the NRC’s public website for its review of the Interim Storage Partners license application.  You can find them using these links: in ADAMS and the NRC public website.]

[Please note that in the NRC DEIS all of the risks are considered SMALL, or on occasion MODERATE. (Pseudoscience…)]

Thanks, Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481 

www.NoNuclearWaste.org

Update on October 1, 2020 by admin

Here are links to the NRC ISP/WCS CISF DEIS, as well as the related Federal Register Notice:

Environmental Impact Statement

• Draft Report for Comment
• Reader's Guide to the EIS
• Reader's Guide to the EIS (Spanish Language Version)
• Federal Register Notice (Includes directions on How to Comment on Draft EIS)

Update on October 1, 2020 by admin

Also see Beyond Nuclear's

WCS/ISP DEIS: Ideas for comments you can use to write your own for submission to NRC

posted here:

<http://archive.beyondnuclear.org/centralized-storage/2020/5/27/wcsisp-deis-ideas-for-comments-you-can-use-to-write-your-own.html?SSScrollPosition=0>

Update on October 1, 2020 by admin

And here is another idea for what more you can do:

Speak out against Mobile Chernobyls in your community! Sample script for contacting your Members of Congress to urge they demand public comment meetings in your state/district re: NRC Draft EIS on WCS/ISP, TX nuke waste Consolidated Interim Storage Facility

<http://archive.beyondnuclear.org/centralized-storage/2020/5/27/speak-out-against-mobile-chernobyls-in-your-community-sample.html>

Texas Governor Abbott writes President Trump, expressing opposition to both CISFs, in TX and NM

TX Gov. Greg Abbott, with TX state capital in backgroundSee the text of the Sept. 30, 2020 letter, here.

Abbott is a Republican.

On July 28, 2020, New Mexico's Democratic Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, similarly wrote President Trump, expressing opposition to both Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities (CISFs). You can find a link to that letter, here.

The proposed dump in Texas, Interim Storage Partners, wants to set up shop at the Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS), national "low" level radioactive waste dump in Andrews County, west Texas. WCS is immediately upon the New Mexico border. In fact, the nearest town to WCS is Eunice, NM, less than five miles away.

Remarkably, the NRC ISP/WCS CISF DEIS reveals that the de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dump would be just 0.37 miles from the New Mexico state line. And surface water flow pathways go from Texas into New Mexico at and near this location.

The proposed dump in New Mexico, Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, would be located about midway between Hobbs and Carlsbad, NM, in the southeastern corner of the Land of Enchantment. Holtec/ELEA's CISF would be only 40 miles from the ISP CISF at WCS, TX.

Update on October 1, 2020 by admin

E&E has reported on this story (but the article is behind a pay wall).

Press Conference and demonstration at the regional office of the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) in Arlington Tx to oppose the proposed high level radioactive waste dump and transport through Dallas/Fort Worth

From: Lon Burnam <lonburnam@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 4:07 PM
Subject: Media Advisory Sept 28 2020

Who: State and local public interest groups - Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, SEED, Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness, Dallas Peace and Justice Center Nuclear Free World Committee, the Peace Farm

What: Press Conference and demonstration at the regional office of the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) in Arlington Tx to oppose the proposed high level radioactive waste dump and transport through DFW

When: 5:00 pm Thursday Oct 1 2020

Where: Nuclear Regulatory Commission regional office    

            1600 East Lamar

            Arlington, Tx 76011

For more info contact:

Hon Lon Burnam, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter  817-721-5846

Susybelle Gooslee, Tx League of Women Voters  214-732-8610

Karen Hadden SEED (Sustainable Energy and Economic Development) 512-797-8481

Please join us at the media conference and demonstration to denounce the fraudulent and first of four farcical pseudo public meetings at 5pm this Thursday Oct 1.

To add insult to injury an NRC official has asked that you not park in their empty parking lot for this "public meeting". 

 

Despite previous promises by Waste Control Specialists to the Texas legislature that they would never pursue bringing virtually all of  the nation's high level commercial radioactive waste to Texas that is exactly what this illegal application is about!

North Texans have a right to know and oppose this act of corporate greed. Expenses will be transferred to the taxpayers.

FASKEN LAND AND MINERALS, LTD.'S AND PERMIAN BASIN LAND AND ROYALTY OWNERS' COMBINED NOTICE OF APPEAL AND PETITION FOR REVIEW OF ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD'S DENIAL OF MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMENDED CONTENTION AND MOTION TO REOPEN THE RECORD

In the Matter of Holtec International (Consolidated Interim Storage Facility)

FASKEN LAND AND MINERALS, LTD.'S AND PERMIAN BASIN LAND AND ROYALTY OWNERS' COMBINED NOTICE OF APPEAL AND PETITION FOR REVIEW OF ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD'S DENIAL OF MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMENDED CONTENTION AND MOTION TO REOPEN THE RECORD

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

HOLTEC CISF DEADLINE: State of NM, Enviros Speak Out!

Public comments were due Sept. 22 on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on Holtec's proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for irradiated nuclear fuel, targeting New Mexico. Many thousands of individuals nationwide expressed resistance, and 113 organizations opposed to the dump signed a coalition letter. Our extensive comments, and those submitted by many other groups, are posted at our Centralized Storage website section. And, as reported by AP, the New Mexico Environment Department submitted strongly worded comments to NRC, on behalf of NM Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration. In addition, 19 NM State Senators and Representatives spoke out, reminding NRC of dozens of tribal and municipal resolutions opposing Holtec.