Is The Company Poised To Dismantle Indian Point Too Radioactive?

As reported by WNYC.

For additional background information about Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin, see Beyond Nuclear's respective "skeletons in the closet" annotated bibliographies, provided at the hot links.

Holtec has applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct and operate a consolidated interim storage facility for 173,600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico. This would involve thousands of road, rail, and/or waterway shipments of high risk, high-level radioactive waste, through most states, over the course of decades.

Update on January 16, 2020 by admin

See also:

• USA Today Network - Holtec faces tough questions about Indian Point teardown at first public meeting in Buchanan - Thomas C. Zambito, Rockland/Westchester Journal News
• TheExaminerNews.com, Officials, Residents Grill Company Chosen to Decommission Indian Pt. - Rick Pezzullo

Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman: The Threat of Nuclear Waste

Beyond Nuclear board of directors member Karl Grossman is the host of Enviro Close-Up, a television show produced by EnviroVideo for decades. The latest episode, "The Threat of Nuclear Waste," is an interview between Karl and Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps. The interview focuses on the resistance to proposed high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, and Ontario's Great Lakes shoreline. Watch the 30 minute program, here.

(Please note a couple of needed corrections. At the 9 minute 58 second mark, Kevin misspoke -- the Ontario Power Generation radioactive waste dumps are targeted at the Lake Huron shoreline, not the Lake Michigan shoreline. And the full name of the Democratic New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands is Stephanie Garcia Richard. Also, the interview was recorded in September 2019, hence the discussion of Trump's Energy Secretary, Rick Perry. Perry resigned December 1st.)

Former SNC-Lavalin executive Sami Bebawi sentenced to 8½ years in prison for fraud, corruption

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.

Trump proposes change to environmental rules to speed up highway projects, pipelines and more

As reported by the Washington Post.

The New York Times has also reported on this story.

The gutting of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would impact anti-nuclear activism is a very significant way. For example, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff is scheduled to publish Draft Environmental Impact Statements re: the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas, respectively. The DEISs are due out in March and May, respectively. The resistance is gearing up to provide extensive, quality public comments on the dangerous schemes.

In the earlier NEPA stage -- environmental scoping -- opponents to the two de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps" broke the record for the number of comments submitted on these high-level radioactive waste issues. In the Holtec proceeding, more than 40,000 public comments were submitted to NRC. In the Interim Storage Partners proceeding, more than 50,000 public comments were submitted to NRC.

Based on Trump's stated policy to gut NEPA, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff may now attempt to ignore climate chaos in both the Holtec NM and Interim Storage Partners TX Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) DEISs. NRC staff may attempt to ignore the risks of extreme weather-related impacts on both CISFs -- tornadoes, extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, etc. -- many major and ever more likely risks, that will just get worse over time if climate destabilization is not stopped.

It must also be pointed out that the largest high-level radioactive waste dump schemes in history cannot be arbitrarily and capriciously limited to a certain small page-length environmental impact statement. Holtec proposes to ship and "temporarily store" 173,600 metric tons (MT) of irradiated nuclear fuel. ISP proposes to ship and "temporarily store" 40,000 MT. Those 213,600 MT are three times more than the Yucca Mountain dump's 70,000 MT. Yet the Yucca dump's 2002 Final EIS and 2008 Supplemental EIS are voluminous, stretching to many thousands of pages.

Environmental groups can be expected to challenge Trump's gutting of NEPA. But tragically, Trump and the Republican U.S. Senate are loading the courts with like-minded anti-environment judges and justices.

Linked here is the Trump Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) attack on NEPA.

Orwell-style, the Trump White House Council on Environmental Quality calls this gutting of NEPA "Modernization."

What YOU can do to help block de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps"!

What can you do?

Contact your U.S. Representative, and urge opposition to the dangerously bad bill, H.R. 2699!

You can also contact both your U.S. Senators. Urge them to oppose S. 2917, H.R. 2699's companion bill.

You can also reach your Congress Members' D.C. offices by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

The bill's title is the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019.

 

The environmentally racist legislation would restart the Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste dump licensing proceeding. Yucca is Western Shoshone Indian land.

The bill would also authorize so-called "consolidated interim storage facilites" in a Hispanic region of the Permian Basin, on either side of the New Mexico/Texas border, on traditional Comanche and Pueblo lands near the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation.

If enacted, H.R. 2699/S. 2917 would launch tens of thousands of Mobile Chernobyls, Dirty Bombs on Wheels, Floating Fukushimas, and Mobile X-ray Machines That Can't Be Turned Off (irradiated nuclear fuel trucks, trains, and barges) through most states, over not years but decades.

Also urge your Members of Congress to block any funding for the Yucca dump, as well as for consolidated interim storage facilities!

Please take urgent action, and spread the word!

Learn more about the latest on H.R. 2699, here. And learn more about centralized storage, Yucca Mountain, and waste transportation, at our website.