Public Hearing Request and Public Comments about draft Groundwater Discharge Permit (DP-1481) for URENCO USA

Beyond Nuclear is honored and privileged to join a coalition (Alliance for Environmental Strategies, Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Action New Mexico, Citizens for Alternative to Radioactive Dumping, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Mountain View Community Action, Nuclear Free World Committee of the Dallas Peace and Justice Center, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Partnership for Earth Spirituality, We the Fourth,
Nona Lee Gregg, Jana Gunnell, MD, MPH, and Susan and Dario Rodriguez, in requesting a public hearing from, and providing comments to, the Groundwater Quality Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department, regarding the draft Groundwater Discharge Permit (DP-1481) for URENCO USA.

See the letter here.

URENCO is short for Uranium Enrichment Corporation of America. URENCO operates a uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico.

Just a couple-three miles from URENCO is the Waste Control Specialists (WCS), LLC national so-called "low-level" radioactive waste dump in Andrews County, Texas. WCS has now applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive commercial irradiated nuclear fuel.

39 miles from WCS, midway between Hobbs and Carlsbad, NM, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and Holtec International have likewise proposed a CISF, only for 173,600 MT of highly radioactive waste.

Also in southeastern NM is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the permanent dump for plutonium and other transuranic wastes from the nuclear weapons complex.

This is not even a complete list of the nuclear abuses heaped on NM (such as uranium mining in the northwest, on or near the Navajo/Diné reservation, and numerous Pueblo Indian reservations; or fallout from the Trinity atomic blast of July 16, 1945; etc.). But the environmental injustice, the radioactive racism (considering that many downwind and downstream communities are low income and/or people of color, including Hispanic Americans and Native Americans), is obvious.

draft Groundwater Discharge Permit (DP-1481) for URENCO USA