Take action against DOE's radioactive metal "recycling" scheme!

NIRS asks "Will the next zipper on your pants be radioactive?"On a vital radioactive waste battlefront, NIRS has put out an alert against a scheme to "recycle" vast quantities of radioactive metal from across the nuclear weapons complex into the consumer product recycling stream. NIRS asks, "Will the next zipper on your pants be radioactive? How about your silverware?", and explains:

"The Department of Energy wants to mix radioactive metal from nuclear weapons factories with clean recycled metal and let it enter into general commerce--where it could be used for any purpose.

It's a foot in the door for revival of a vast--and discredited--radioactive waste deregulation plan defeated in 1992.

You can help stop them here."

Please take action at the NIRS links above. NIRS' Diane D'Arrigo has also posted more extensive talking points that you can use to write your own comments to DOE.

In an article entitled "Nuclear weapons waste in your hip replacement?", John LaForge of Nukewatch reports, U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) -- who is now running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry as he becomes Secretary of State -- has sent a strongly worded letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, expressing opposition to the so-called "recycling" scheme.

John LaForge has also pointed out, in an article posted at Counterpunch entitled "Women and Children First! (To Be Harmed by Radiation!"), that radiation protection regulations based on "Reference Man" are obsolete and unscientific, allowing radiation exposures under law and regulation which are having a disproportionate impact on women and children. This is spelled out in IEER's "Healthy from the Start" campaign. Thus, radioactive metal "recycling" into consumer products will add to the harmful radioative burden borne by society, including those most at risk, women and children.

Update on February 7, 2013 by admin

William Boardman's "Nuke the People?", posted at Readersupportednews, provides a good overview of this issue.

"Ski Yucca Mountain in a Hazmat suit"

That's the title for the announcement of an art exhibition in theLas Vegas Weekly. The exhibit will feature Joseph Woolfolk’s paintings on glass.

The article concludes: '“Ski Yucca,” featuring a skier hitting the slopes wearing a gas mask and orange Hazmat suit, probably best sums up the clever and well-executed Poster Power.'

But this is not the first time that the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada has brushed up against cutting edge art work, or vice versa.

Joshua Abbey's Desert Space Foundation held a "Universal Warning Sign: Yucca Mountain" competition a decade ago. The idea was to come up with the best way to warn future generations "forevermore" about what was buried below.

Speaking of "Don't Dig Here," that is the title of a song about the Yucca dump performed by David Crosby and Graham Nash.

And the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) not having done it homework was starkly revealed, when its proposed railway for delivering 70,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste to Yucca scored a direct bull's eye on one of the single largest works of art ever conceived, Michael Heizer's "City" landscape sculpture in a remote Nevada desert valley. DOE hadn't realized Heizer's art was "in the way," till the artist protested the plan! The good news is, the Obama administration's wise cancellation of the Yucca dump will spare Heizer's "City," as well as countless other cities in most states along DOE's targeted Yucca dump transport corridors by truck, train, and barge.

House Republican leaders demand Yucca dump be included in irradiated nuclear fuel centralized interim storage bill

Yucca Mountain, as framed by a Western Shoshone Indian ceremonial sweat lodge. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova.As reported by Nuclear Power International/Power Engineering, as well as the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Chairman of the Environment and the Economy Subcommittee of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, holds that the formerly proposed dumpsite targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada must be included in any irradiated nuclear fuel centralized interim storage legislation.

Shimkus, as well as U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), have long been outspoken champions pushing for the Yucca dump, as well as many other nuclear power industry "wish list" lobbying priorities. Upton, for example, sponsored "Mobile Chernobyl" bills each and every session from 1995 to 2000, which would have established centralized interim storage at Yucca, long before countless scientific studies were completed, or permanent disposal authorized at the site. Yucca is located on Western Shoshone Indian land (see photo, left), as acknowledged by the U.S. federal government when it signed the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley in 1863.

On Jan. 11th, in response to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu's "Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste," Reps. Upton and Shimkus issued a joint statement calling for the resumption of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Yucca dump licensing proceeding.

However, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), as the senior member of the united, bipartisan Nevada congressional delegation, has devoted his political career to successfully stopping the Yucca dump. President Barack Obama agrees, and DOE Secretary Chu has zeroed out the funding for the Yucca Mountain Project for several years running now. Secretary Chu has also moved to withdraw DOE's application from NRC's moribund licensing proceeding.

U.S. Rep. Markey actively exercises oversight on nuclear power and nuclear weapons

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA, pictured left), a 37-year nuclear watchdog in Congress, has been busy this year. Rep. Markey serves as Ranking Member of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, and as a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

On Jan. 11th, Markey wrote to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- and his office issued a press release -- expressing deep concerns and asking pointed questions about the U.S. Department of Energy's proposals to "recycle" large quantities of radioactive scrap metal into consumer products.

On Jan. 14th, Rep. Markey again wrote Secretary Chu, questioning the wisdom of DOE's dirty, dangerous, and expensive proposal to "recycle" surplus weapons plutonium into MOX (Mixed-Oxide, uranium-plutonium) reactor fuel.

And on Jan. 18th, Rep. Markey urged Secretary Chu to maintain the construction ban at the Hanford nuclear weapons complex in Washington State, in order to avoid hydrogen explosions and dangerous nuclear accidents.

Rep. Markey has announced his campaign for U.S. Senate, to fill the seat vacated by U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who has been nominated by President Obama for Secretary of State.

GSN: "Industry, Activists at Odds Over Security Risks of Interim Waste Storage"

TOW anti-tank missiles can be fire from vehicles, or even shoulder-fired. Large numbers of TOWs are reportedly loose and unaccounted for on the international black market.In a Global Security Newswire article entitled "Industry, Activists at Odds Over Security Risks of Interim Waste Storage," Douglas P. Guarino quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps about the risks of high-level radioactive waste, including during both on-site storage, as well as during transportation. Kevin referred to a 1998 test conducted at Aberdeen Army Proving Ground in Maryland, which showed that even the so-called "Cadillac of dry casks," the German CASTOR, could not withstand an anti-tank TOW missile attack (TOW is an acronym which stands for "Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire command data link, guided missile"). Most U.S. dry cask systems have much thinner metallic walls than the CASTOR. Kevin reiterated the call by over 150 environmental groups, for Hardened On-Site Storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, rather than a risky, rushed radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails, and waterways.