North Anna watchdog Erica Grey, and Diane D'Arrigo of NIRS, unfurl a banner at NRC's first Nuke Waste Con Game meeting, held Oct. 1st in the NRC Commissioners conference room at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. Photo by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps.Today, NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate spokesperson, Sarah Lopas, confirmed in an email to NIRS that the Chelmsford, MA, Tarrytown, NY, Charlotte, NC, Orlando, FL, and Rockville, MD public comment meetings, scheduled between Oct. 28th and Nov. 14th, are again "a go" now that the federal government is no longer shutdown.

The meetings are for the public to comment on NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS).

In June, 2012, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ordered NRC to undertake an EIS on the risks of high-level radioactive waste storage. This hard-won victory for public health, safety, and the environment is due to a successful legal challenge brought by a coalition of environmental groups and states.

If you plan to attend these public comment meetings, NRC requests that you pre-register if you plan to make oral public comments. Only the NRC HQ public comment meeting in Rockville, MD on Nov. 14th will provide online, webcast coverage, and the option of phoning-in to make oral public comment; all other public comment meetings must be attend in-person.

Sarah Lopas also indicated that the public meetings previously scheduled between Oct. 7th and 24th for CA, MN, OH, and IL -- all postponed due to the government shutdown -- will now be re-scheduled, at the same previously announced locations. The new dates and times will be announced at a later point by NRC, perhaps as early as next week.

The NRC Nuclear Waste Confidence Diretorate plans to extend the public comment deadline beyond Nov. 27th, provided the NRC Commission approves the extension. The new deadline will be announced by NRC at a later point, likely next week.

NRC's announcements re: rescheduled public comment meetings and the new deadline for written public comments will likely crystallize next week. NRC will communicate these updates via its website, as well as via emailed announcements, and the publication of revised Federal Register notices. As soon as Beyond Nuclear obtains these updates, we too will publicize them.

In the meantime, please continue to submit your public comments to NRC via email, webform, fax, and/or snail mail.

You can submit as many public comments as you want, between now and the final public comment deadline.

Sample comments, which you can use to help you write your own, have been provided by Beyond Nuclear and NIRS.

At a press conference on Oct. 2nd, D.C. attorney Diane Curran, and experts Dr. Gordon Thompson (President of Institute for Resource and Security Studies) and Bob Alvarez (Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies), also provided insights into the potentially catastrophic risks of high-level radioactive waste storage pool fires, which NRC is currently ignoring. Curran and the experts are preparing sample comments, on behalf of an environmental coalition comprised of two dozen groups, including Beyond Nuclear, so watch for those in weeks ahead, as well.