U.S. Senate hearing lays groundwork for latest Mobile Chernobyl legislation

The cover of Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High"

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has acknowledged that the court-ordered revision to its Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision, and preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement about the risks of at-reactor storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, will delay the issuance of new reactor construction and operating licenses, as well as old reactor 20 year license extensions, by two years. This has led to a backlash by the nuclear establishment in industry and government.

U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing on September 12th to advance his bill, S. 3469, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2012. Although Bingaman himself has acknowledged his bill will not be enacted this year, before he retires from the Senate, he has expressed hope that it will lay the groundwork for passage next year.

As reported previously by Beyond Nuclear, Bingaman's bill would largely promote the recommendations of President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu's Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America's Nuclear Future. The BRC's top priority involves launching high-level radioactive waste shipments -- by truck, train, and barge -- sooner rather than later. The first shipments would begin at permanently shutdown atomic reactors, to free up the radioactively contaminated land for "unrestricted re-use," despite the lingering hazards. Once the shipments leave the nuclear utilities' property, the title and liability for the forever deadly irradiated nuclear fuel transfers instantly, and forevermore, to American taxpayers.

The targeted destinations are called "consolidated" or "centralized interim storage sites," but should be called parking lot dumps. Given the great difficulty of locating even a single deep geologic repository at a site capable of containing the high-level radioactive wastes for a million years, chances are that "interim storage sites" will become de facto permanent surface storage for high-level radioactive waste. Locations at the top of that target list include the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Bingaman's home state of New Mexico; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; the tiny Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah; the Dresden nuclear power plant in Illinois; and others.

Beyond Nuclear will join with Nuclear Energy Information Service in Chicago to commemorate the 70th year since Enrico Fermi first split the atom during the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago in 1942, thus creating the first high-level radioactive waste on Earth. The event, "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High: Ending the Nuclear Age," will take place from December 1st to 3rd. A key goal of the gathering will be to begin pushing back against such a radioactive waste shell game on our roads, rails, and waterways, which Senator Bingaman is attempting to launch for no good reason.

For more information on radioactive waste, see the various sub-sections under Beyond Nuclear's website section on the subject, as well as its pamphlet entitled "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" (see cover, above left).

NRC's Nuke Waste Confidence EIS will delay reactor licenses for at least two years!

The cover of Beyond Nuclear's "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" pamphletThe five Commissioners who direct the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have just ordered NRC Staff to carry out an expedited, two-year long Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to revise the agency's Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision (NWCD) and Rule. Critics have charged the NWCD is a confidence game, which for decades has prevented environmental opponents of new reactor construction/operation licenses, as well as old reactor license extensions, from raising high-level radioactive waste generation/storage concerns during NRC licensing proceedings, or even in the federal courts. 

But on June 8th, the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed with a coalition of state attorneys general (from NY, CT, NJ, and VT) and environmental groups (including BREDL, NRDC, Riverkeeper and SACE) that NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence violated the National Environmental Policy Act. In effect, the court ruling, which NRC decided not to appeal, ordered the agency to carry out a decades-overdue EIS on the risks of extended (for decades, centuries, or forever) high-level radioactive waste storage at reactor sites, if a permanent repository is never opened.

This means at least a two year delay in any finalization of NRC licensing decisions for new reactors, or license extensions at old reactors, until this EIS process and NWCD revision are completed. However, all other aspects of the NRC licensing proceedings can still be finalized and dispensed with in the meantime, taking NRC rubberstamps of reactor licenses right up to the edge, just shy of finalization. Beyond Nuclear has raised Nuke Waste Con Game contentions in opposition to two proposed new reactors (Fermi 3 in MI, and Grand Gulf 2 in LA), as well as to two old reactor license extensions (Davis-Besse, OH, and Grand Gulf 1, LA). An environmental coalition has raised similar contentions against all three dozen new reactor construction/operation, and old reactor extension, licenses across the U.S.

Disconcertingly, the NRC Commissioners' press release announcing this EIS launch also stated: "The Commission said the staff should draw on the agency’s 'long, rich history' with waste confidence determinations as well as work performed by other agencies, such as environmental assessments, technical studies and reports addressing the impacts of transportation and consolidated storage of spent fuel."

This seems to indicate that the NRC has joined with the likes of President Obama's and Energy Secretary Chu's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future in pushing for "consolidated interim storage" instead of "hardened on-site storage" of high-level radioactive waste. This should come as no surprise, as NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane served on the BRC.

Legislation has already been introduced on Capitol Hill that would launch and fund "consolidated interim storage." U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman will hold a hearing on such legislation on Sept. 12th. Witnesses will include two other members of the BRC -- one of its co-chairmen, General Brent Scrowcroft, and former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve -- as well as Pete Lyons, himself a former NRC Commissioner, and now director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy, mandated to promote nuclear power, and in fact host agency for the BRC. Another witness is the head of Constellation Nuclear, recently acquired by Exelon Nuclear, which would love nothing more than transferring title -- and liability -- for high-level radioactive waste to the American taxpayer, once it begins moving by road, rail, and/or barge, in unprecedented shipment numbers, toward "consolidated interim storage." The final witness is Geoff Fettus, the nuclear attorney at NRDC who helped lead the environmental coalition's victory at the DC Court of Appeals on June 8th. 

Beyond Nuclear has already issued action alerts against the juggernaut revving its engines on Capitol Hill. We have also joined with the likes of Nuclear Energy Information Service, to hold a "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" conference Dec. 1-3 in Chicago. Kevin Kamps will speak about federal legislative threats on the high-level radioactive waste front, and what you can do about them. The grassroots environmental movement has held off the "Mobile Chernobyl" for 20 years, but this may be the most challenging fight yet in 2013. The Nuke Waste Con EIS also means we have to generate large volumes of public comments, so this conference will be a a launching pad for doing so. Please consider attending, and help spread the word!

For more information on "The Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High," see our pamphlet by that title (the pamphlet's cover is reproduced above, left), as well as the rest of Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste website section.

Update on September 13, 2012 by admin

A number of news outlets have reported on this two year long EIS process, and consequent delay in issuance of reactor licenses, including: The Lacey Patch, in the shadows of the oldest operating atomic reactor in the U.S., at Oyster Creek, NJ, owned and operated by Exelon; The Pottstown Mercury, in the shadows of Exelon's Limerick nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania; the Hartford Business Journal, in Connecticut, where the State Attorney pursued this matter due to the presence of high-level radioactive wastes at the shutdown Connecticut Yankee atomic reactor in Haddam Neck, and Dominion's Millstone Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island Sound (with one shutdown reactor and two still operating); The Lymes Patch, in the shadows of Connecticut Yankee's still present high-level radioactive waste dry cask storage facility; Beaver County Times, in the shadows of FirstEnergy's Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania; and the Lower Hudson Journal News, in the shadow's of Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant near New York City (New York State's Attorney General led the four state coalition in court). Reuters and Platts also reported on this story.

Saugeen Ojibway Nations challenge the targeting of their traditional territory for a high-level radioactive waste dump

Saugeen First Nation logoThe Saugeen Ojibway Nations (SON, the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation and the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation) live on the Lake Huron shoreline of Ontario. Their Communal Lands are just 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Bruce Nuclear Complex. With a total of 9 atomic reactors (8 operable, 1 permanently shutdown), as well as "centralized interim storage" (including incineration!) for all of Ontario's 20 atomic reactors' "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, Bruce is amongst the world's single largest nuclear sites. 

But now a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for burying all of Ontario's "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes has been proposed by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), owner of Ontario's 20 atomic reactors. 

As the SON have submitted to the Canadian nuclear establishment, the likelihood that its traditional lands are also targeted for Canada's national HIGH-level radioactive waste dump (for all of Ontario's, Quebec's, and New Brunswick's irradiated nuclear fuel) means that OPG's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the DGR is illegally deficient, failing to consider the cumulative impacts associated with the potential for this high-level radioactive waste DGR in the immediate vicinity of Bruce.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), comprised of Canada's nuclear utilities, has been hired by OPG to represent it in the "low"/"intermediate" DGR Environmental Assessment proceeding, and is also in charge of the high-level radioactive waste dump site search in Canada. NWMO has entered into ever deepening stages of consideration for locating Canada's national high-level radioactive waste dump at any of five municipalities surrounding the site of the proposed Bruce DGR, namely: Saugeen Shores, Brockton, Huron-Kinloss, South Bruce and Arran-Elderslie.

Dr. Gordon Edwards speaks against Canadian national high-level radioactive waste dump on Great Lakes shoreline

Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of CCNRAs reported by the Saugeen Times, Dr. Gordon Edwards (pictured, left), president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, spoke at an event sponsored by Southampton Residents Association-Save Our Saugeen Shores (SRASOS) on the Ontario shoreline of Lake Huron near the Bruce Nuclear Power Complex. He was joined by John Jackson, acting Executive Director of Great Lakes United. SRASOS opposes the Canadian national high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Saugeen Shores, Ontario, as well as number of other communities nearby Bruce. In addition to the targeted communities on Ontario's Lake Huron shoreline, additional Canadian communities on Lake Superior's shoreline have also been targeted, as well as yet more in Saskatchewan. The selected high-level radioactive waste dump would then permanently host all of the irradiated nuclear fuel from all of Canada's nuclear power plants (20 reactors in Ontario, 1 in Quebec, and 1 in New Brunswick).

This proposed high-level radioactive waste dump is supposedly different than and distinct from the "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) for "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, also targeted at the Bruce Nuclear Complex itself by Ontario Power Generation, the provincial nuclear utility which owns 20 atomic reactors. But of course, how different and distinct can two such dumps be, located so close together?! And with DGR "storage space" astronomically expensive, as shown by the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, high-level radioactive waste repository and its estimated nearly $100 billion price tag, how could two DGRs located very close together, rather than just one consolidated DGR, be economically justified?!

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, a long-time member of the Great Lakes United (GLU) Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force, is serving as an expert witness for GLU in the environmental assessment proceeding regarding the proposed DGR.

To confuse the two proposals yet more, the Nuclear Waste Management Organziation (NWMO), comprised of Canadian nuclear utilities, is in charge of both the high-level and DGR dump proposals.

Government Memo Slams Bechtel for Malfeasance, Safety Violations at Hanford Nuclear Site

Hanford tanks under construction.Hanford Challenge has made public a scathing U.S. Department of Energy internal memo detailing Bechtel's long history of incompetence, misleading the government, overcharging, and unsafe designs related to the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The facility is a decade behind schedule and 250% over budget, with a current, yet still climbing, price tag of $13 billion. The WTP is supposed to vitrify (glassify) liquid high-level radioactive wastes, byproducts from reprocessing military irradiated nuclear fuel for weapons-grade plutonium extraction for use in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The memo, written by a high-ranking DOE director, urges that Bechtel be removed as the Design Authority for the WTP, warning that Bechtel “is not competent to complete their role.”

Hanford Challenge Executive Director, Tom Carpenter, posits: “the leaked memo puts the Waste Treatment Plant’s woes into sharp relief. This memo details exhaustive and disturbing evidence of why Bechtel should be terminated from this project and subject to an independent investigation. We already knew of Bechtel’s record of suppressing its own engineers’ concerns and retaliating against whistleblowers, and now we see evidence that exhibits a shocking and inexcusable lack of attention to safety for both workers and the public.”

Hanford Challenge is a member group of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), as is Beyond Nuclear.

The news comes just two weeks after Hanford Challenge revealed that the first double-shelled liquid high-level radioactive waste tank has been documented as leaking at Hanford.