Trump administration still angling toward Yucca Mountain, Energy exec says

As reported by South Carolina's Aiken Standard.

This is a remarkably fast policy reversal-reversal (sic), even for the Trump administration!

Trump tweeted that the Yucca dump was dead on Feb. 6th; by Feb. 12th, Trump's nominee to become the #2 official at the U.S. Department of Energy contradicted that, essentially saying the Yucca dump "ain't dead YET!," to borrow a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

From pro-Yucca dump, to anti-Yucca dump, to pro-Yucca dump -- what a difference six days can make, in Trumpland!

Action urgently needed to block irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facilities!

In the decades-long "game" of radioactive waste whack-a-mole, when the Yucca dump goes down (see related entry, below), proposed consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) pop back up with a vengeance.

(Proposed CISFs are very often environmentally unjust, radioactively racist. In the past, they targeted scores of Native American reservations. This time around, they target largely Hispanic communities in the Permian Basin, along the Texas/New Mexico border. The photo, below, was taken at a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) environmental scoping public comment meeting in Andrews, TX, re: the Interim Storage Partners CISF targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC located near there, right on the New Mexico border at Eunice.) 

In fact, in response to Trump's anti-Yucca dump tweet, the politically powerful chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee, the very pro-nuclear power U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (Republican-Tennessee), despite being a long-time proponent of both the Yucca dump and CISFs, cynically responded: "President Trump's decision to embrace alternatives to storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is welcome news. If we want a future with nuclear power that produces clean, cheap, and reliable energy and creates good jobs that keep America competitive in a global economy, then we have to solve the nuclear waste stalemate. There is bipartisan support for allowing consolidated nuclear waste storage at private facilities, and I look forward to working with the president to solve this problem." (Emphasis added.)

There is the very real danger that Sen. Alexander will revise his bill, S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act (co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) and Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California)), to remove Yucca dump advocacy, but to redouble CISF advocacy. There are also multiple bills in the U.S. House (the foremost of which is the STORE Act, H.R. 3136), also advocating CISFs. And there is the distinct risk that a U.S. House equivalent of S. 1234 itself could be introduced.  

What can you do? Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. Urge them to oppose CISFs, as by blocking S. 1234, H.R. 3136, and any other congressional legislation that advocates de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps," as currently targeted at southeastern New Mexico (Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance), and western Texas (Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists). You can be patched through to your congress members' D.C. offices by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Learn more at our Centralized Storage website section. 

 

Concerns Pertaining to Gas Transmission Lines at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the Inspector General "Event Inquiry" report (Case No. 16-024), here.

Broad coalition intervenes against Holtec takeover of Indian Point for decommissioning & HLRW management

This includes the State of New York, the Town of Cortlandt, Village of Buchanan, and Hendrick Hudson School District, Riverkeeper, and Safe Energy Rights Group. These intervenors met the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Feb. 12, 2020, deadline for interventions. The NY Attorney General has issued a press release about its intervention.

A related public comment deadline has been extended until March 25, 2020. Click here to see the NRC's public comment opportunity announcement, including ways to submit your comments.

See the Riverkeeper action alert, here. It provides a way to submit e-comments.

As reported by the Patch: "[The] Westchester County Executive announced that Holtec has agreed to a public meeting in March."

Re: the NRC public comment opportunity, Manna Green at Hudson River Sloop Clearwater put out the following call:

We are requesting folk from across the country to:

1) Request a public hearing re: the Indian Point License Transfer Application (LTA);

2) File comments by March 25 to NRC on problems with Holtec at San Onofre CA, Pilgrim MA, Palisades & Big Rock Point MI, Oyster Creek NJ, etc. (You do not have to be an intervenor to file comments).

Indian Pt. LTA Docket Nos. 50-003, 50-247, 50-286, 72-051, and NRC-2020-0021.  If you do file comments, please let us know that you have done so.  Please send a copy to me: <mannajo@clearwater.org>.

These challenges to the license transfer from Entergy Nuclear to Holtec International at Indian Point near New York City, for nuclear power plant decommissioning and high-level radioactive waste management (HLRW, irradiated nuclear fuel), are very similar to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' and Pilgrim Watch's interventions against the Entergy to Holtec license transfer at Pilgrim near Boston. In that case, NRC has shown its true colors, rubber-stamping whatever the nuclear corporations ask, and attempting to ignore state government and public watchdog demands for very serious health, safety, environmental, and financial concerns and risks to be addressed.

To learn more about the many skeletons in Holtec's closet, see the annotated bibliography compiled by Beyond Nuclear. Similarly, see the skeletons-in-the-closet listing by Beyond Nuclear about Holtec's scandal-ridden Canadian partner in decommissioning and irradiated nuclear fuel management, SNC-Lavalin. And learn more about Holtec's environmentally unjust irradiated nuclear fuel consolidated interim storage facility scheme in New Mexico at our Centralized Storage website section. See also our website section about the Mobile Chernobyls, by the tens of thousands, that Holtec's CISF would launch, throughout the Lower 48, along truck, train, and/or barge routes that it has thus far kept largely to entirely secret, with NRC's complicity.

Nancy Vann, a watchdog on the Indian Point nuclear power plant, has published "rap sheets" on Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin, as well: 2/16/20 Holtec & SNC-Lavalin Profiles and "Rap Sheet".

Update on February 13, 2020 by admin

• Record Online - New York AG: Indian Point deal 'very risky,' asks feds to let state intervene - By Thomas C. Zambito, The Journal News

Update on February 14, 2020 by admin

As reported by the Patch:

The Hudson Valley's representatives in Congress announced yesterday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the comment period to March 25, and the Westchester County Executive announced that Holtec has agreed to a public meeting in March.

Saugeen Ojibwe Nation votes to block two of three radioactive waste dumps targeted at Great Lakes shoreline!

Beyond Nuclear wishes to express our heartfelt congratulations and thanks to the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation (S.O.N.) for its courage and wisdom. See the S.O.N. vote results, as well as press release. S.O.N., by an 86% margin, turned down Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) offer of $150 million, in exchange for the First Nation of less than 5,000 people agreeing to "host" a provincial dump-site. The dump would have been less than a mile from the Lake Huron shore. It would have been for so-called "low-," and highly radioactive "intermediate-," level radioactive wastes (L&ILRWs) from 20 atomic reactors. OPG proposed that 200,000 cubic meters of L&ILRW be buried at deep geologic repository #1 (DGR1), at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (BNGS) in Kincardine, on S.O.N. territory. But OPG was forced to admit that its DGR3, for another 200,000 cubic meters of L&ILRWs, from decommissioning its nuclear power plants, was also targeted at BNGS, instantly doubling the size of the dump. However, unfortunately, DGR2, for all of Canada's high-level radioactive waste (many tens of thousands of tons of irradiated nuclear fuel), is still targeted at S.O.N. country, just 20-some miles from BNGS. So the fight goes on, but the S.O.N. have shown that these dumps can, and must, be stopped.  

 

A large U.S.-Canadian coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, as well as elected officials and municipalities representing the majority of the Great Lakes Basin's population, stand ready to continue to join with S.O.N., to block DGR2 as well, and to shut down BNGS. The Great Lakes (see photo from outer space, above) need protection against a large array of reactor and radioactive waste risks -- they represent 21% of the world's surface fresh water, and 84% of North America's, and they serve as drinking water supply for 40+ million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations. After all, as Ojibwe wisdom has long taught, water is life; and S.O.N. has given us all the precious gift of showing that such daunting battles can be won. For extensive media coverage in the immediate aftermath of the S.O.N. vote, and links to other groups fighting against radioactive waste dumps on the Great Lakes shore, see this link. See updates since, as well as media coverage of the lead up to the vote (including S.O.N. anti-dump statements, and even tribal marches), at Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section. And see what you can do to help, in both the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate! Please take action, and spread the word! 

Update on February 1, 2020 by admin

See the CBC coverage.