Landfill fire near radioactive waste dump raises alarm in St. Louis

Kay Drey, Beyond Nuclear board member and long-time watchdog on West Lake landfillIn early May, Rolling Stone quoted Beyond Nuclear board member Kay Drey (photo, left), regarding a municipal garbarge dump fire burning underground precariously near a radioactive waste dump near St. Louis.

Kay is a long-time watchdog on the West Lake landfill, a radioactive waste dump in the Missouri River floodplain near St. Louis.Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. processed Belgian Congo uranium during the secret Manhattan Project race to develop the atomic bomb in the 1940s. Those radioactive wastes were then dumped at the West Lake landfill in 1973. EPA wants to abandon them in place. Kay has long worked to have them removed from the Missouri River floodplain, not far upstream from St. Louis drinking water supply intakes.

Now the Associated Press/New York Times and St. Louis Magazine have reported on "the possibility of a slow-moving disaster right before our eyes," in the words of Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. The former article focuses on the health risks to nearby communities if the fire reaches the radioactive waste dump, while the latter article focuses on the health damage that the radioactive wastes may have already inflicted, especially in local children downstream.

Risk of "dirty shutdown" at Paducah gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Photo credit: USEC/U.S. Department of EnergyIn a two-part series, Geoffrey Sea of Neighbors for an Ohio Valley Alternative (NOVA) has exposed deep financial troubles which could lead to major radiological risks at the Paducah gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant in Kentucky. Mind boggling mismanagement, or worse, by U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are to blame.

Part I, entitled "Countdown to Nuclear Ruin at Paducah," was published May 22nd, and warned that there were just 9 days left to avert a "dirty shutdown" in the many miles of enrichment cells. If the uranium laden gas solidifies within the system, it will make eventual decommissioning and clean up astronomically expensive for taxpayers, and radiologically risky for workers.

Part II, "Slow Cooker at Paducah Comes to a Boil,"  was published May 28th, with only three days left to avert dirty shutdown.

Paducah has operated since the 1950s. Sea reports that Paducah, which employs the highly energy intensive gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment process, has the single biggest electric meter in the country, electrified by two dirty coal plants. It is also one of the single biggest emitters of ozone layer destroying CFC-114, which also happens to be a very potent greenhouse gas.

In September 1999, Joby Warrick of the Washington Post broke the story that post-reprocessing uranium from Hanford Nuclear Reservation, containing fission products and transuranics, had been secretively run through Paducah. Local residents, such as Ron Lamb, had already been long protesting Technetium-99 in his drinking well water, however. Paducah whistleblower Al Puckett helped expose a secret dumping ground for radioactive and hazardous wastes on site. Such revelations help to explain the high cancer rate amongst Paducah workers and area residents.

As Sea reports, USEC is still seeking a $2 billion federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration for its proposed American Centrifuge Plant at Portsmouth, Ohio. Newly confirmed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has deep ties to USEC, both during his time in the Clinton DOE, as well as afterwards, as a paid private consultant.

Update on May 31, 2013 by admin

As reported by the Times Free Press, the federal Tennessee Valley Authority has lost its single biggest electricity customer with the imminent closure of the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant. TVA is itself suffering financial woes, due in large part to problems at its Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, and a $1.5 billion cost overrun at its Watts Bar 2 atomic reactor.

Update on July 9, 2013 by admin

Despite being permanently shutdown on June 1st, the Paducah facility experienced a radioactivity contamination accident on June 28th, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) incident report dated July 2nd. The radioactivity contamination accident stemmed from a water leak. Given the mountain of radioactive materials at Paducah, such radioactive contamination risks to the facility, the environment beyond, and the people who live there (some directly across dirt roads from the fence line, in a community already showing signs of significantly elevated cancer incidence and death rates) will continue far into the future, despite the facility's welcome permanent shutdown.

States tell NRC to review storage of radioactive waste at reactors

The dry cask storage units outside of the Vermont Yankee plant. Photo by Laura Frohn, News21.orgFrom AP: Attorneys general in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut announced Thursday they are petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a more thorough environmental review of storage of highly radioactive nuclear waste at plant sites.

"Federal law requires that the NRC analyze the environmental dangers of storing spent nuclear fuel at reactors that were not designed for long-term storage,’’ said Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell.

In a landmark ruling last year, a federal appeals court in Washington said the NRC needed to do a full environmental review of the risks of storing the waste — spent nuclear fuel — in storage pools and casks made of steel and concrete on the grounds of nuclear plants while the search continues for a disposal solution.

Activists in Vermont have come to mistrust the NRC "dog and pony" shows that show up in their state. Now four attorneys general are demanding some meaningful accountability from the agency on prolonged on-site storage of high-level radioactive waste. The position of Beyond Nuclear is that this waste must not be moved to so-called "interim" sites but properly stored in hardened, protected casks - a process known as Hardened On-Site Storage.

‘‘NRC staff is continuing to ignore serious public health, safety and environmental risks related to long-term, on-site storage,’’ New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a news release. ‘‘The communities that serve as de facto long-term radioactive waste repositories deserve a full and detailed accounting of the risks.’’ More.

Update on May 27, 2013 by admin

Vermont Digger has also reported on this story, including a link to the multi-state coalition filing with the NRC itself.

Beyond Nuclear's responses, and additional thoughts, to questions from Senate ENR Committee on its "discussion draft" of CIS/Mobile Chernobyl legislation

An infrared photo of a high-level radioactive waste rail shipment. The high temperature of such shipments, however, is the least of our worries. A severe accident, or attack, involving such a shipment could breach the container, leading to disastrous releases of hazardous radioactivityBeyond Nuclear has submitted the following responses, and additional thoughts, to the U.S. Senate's Energy and Natural Resource (ENR) Committee, regarding its list of questions about its proposed "discussion draft" of legislation that would rush centralized interim storage sites into operation. If enacted, this legislation would launch unprecedented numbers of high-level radioactive waste shipments by truck, train, and barge -- a risky radioactive waste shell game on our roads, rails and waterways! (see web site postings below for more detailed information) The Senate ENR Committee had set 5 PM today, Friday, May 24th (close of business on the Memorial Day holiday weekend) as the deadline for responses to its bill, which was unveiled on April 25th, ironically on the eve of the 27th anniversary of the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

Be sure to scroll down to the second page, in order to see the Beyond Nuclear Responses to the various questions (#2 to 8).

Executive Summary (referred to as "Question #1"); Response to Question #2; Response to Question #3; Response to Question #4 [correction: the casualty figure on page 4 of 9, first full paragraph, should be over 30,000 latent cancer fatalities, not 13,000; to see the cited reference, go to http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11459.htm, page 13 of 31, Table 1]; Response to Question #5; Response to Question #6; Response to Question #7; Response to Question #8; Additional Thoughts.

In addition, Beyond Nuclear signed onto an environmental coalition statement spearheaded by NIRS.

A group of 7 Ph.D.'s also submitted comments. The authors included: Dr. Seth Tuler, a Research Fellow at the Social and Environmental Research Institute in Greenfield, MA who serves on the Board of Directors of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA; Beyond Nuclear is a proud member group); and Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette at Notre Dame University, who wrote the 1993 book Burying Uncertainty: Risk and the Case Against Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste.

Dave Kraft, Director of Nuclear Energy Information Service of IL, a 32-year-old watchdog group in Chicago, also submitted comments. On the weekend of Dec. 2, 2012, Dave coordinated the conference entitled "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High: Ending the Nuclear Age," at the U. of Chicago were Enrico Fermi fired up the first nuclear chain reaction, generating the world's first cupful of high-level radioactive waste, for which we still have no solution. The conference, which brought together hundreds, was devoted in large part to not only looking back, but countering the present Mobile Chernobyl bill. Beyond Nuclear was a proud co-sponsor of the event, as was Friends of the Earth (which also submitted comments today).

Bob Alvarez, a former senior advisor the the Secretary of Energy, and now a senior scholar at Institute for Policy Studies, also submitted comments. Beyond Nuclear often cites Bob's work on the risk of catastrophic fires in high-level radioactive waste storage pools, including in its comments to the Senate ENR Committee today.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) also submitted comments. NRDC's comments included two attachments: written testimony by NRDC Senior Attorney, Geoff Fettus, presented to the U.S. Senate ENR Committee on 9/12/12, at a hearing on closely related legislation introduced by now-retired ENR Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM); and a 3/27/13 letter, signed by Fettus, as well as Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge and Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center, sent to Energy Secretary Chu, re: DOE proposals to ship Hanford's high-level radioactive wastes to WIPP in New Mexico.  

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), of which Beyond Nuclear is a member group, also submitted comments.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to our action alerts going back weeks and months, urging action be taken to stop this latest Mobile Chernobyl bill dead in its tracks.

U.S. Senators introduce Mobile Chernobyl bill on eve of Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe anniversary

An infrared photo of a high-level radioactive waste rail shipment. The high temperature of such shipments, however, is the least of our worries. A severe accident, or attack, involving such a shipment could breach the container, leading to disastrous releases of hazardous radioactivity

{Directions for Submissions

Please submit comments electronically to: Nwaste_feedback@energy.senate.gov 

Submission due date: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5:00pm (EST)

The documents attached below can be used as a template for submitting comments.  We request that you submit your comments in the template format, but will accept comments in other formats.  Please feel free to respond to as many or as few of the questions as you like.

Please provide your name and affiliation in the header of your comments.

The committee may post the comments, including any personal identifying information you provide (street or e-mail addresses, or phone numbers) it receives on its website.  If you would like your personal identifying information withheld, please indicate that.

The comment period will close on Friday, May 24, 2013.

Please find the submission documents below [linked here] and the link to the discussion draft, summaries and questions here.}

For the second year in a row, U.S. Senators have introduced the latest Mobile Chernobyl bill on the eve of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe anniversary. On April 25, 2013 -- the eve of the 27th anniversary of the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe -- U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the Chair and Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the Chair and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, published a "Discussion Draft" of proposed legislation on high-level radioactive waste management. They issued a press release, one page summary, section-by-section summary, and the full text of the 58-page bill. 

In essence, if enacted, the proposal would launch shipments of high-level radioactive waste onto the roads, rails, and waterways in unprecedented numbers, bound for "consolidated interim storage sites," from which they would have to be removed someday, to permanent dumpsites. Unless, that is, they never are transferred -- which would lead to de facto permanent surface storage, parking lot dumps for high-level radioactive waste.

Last year, on April 26, 2012 -- the actual 26th anniversary of Chernobyl, to the day -- Sens. Feinstein and Alexander led the passage of a Mobile Chernobyl bill through not only their Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, but through the full Senate Appropriations Committee. Their bill, however, was never considered by the full Senate last year.

Now, Sens. Feinstein and Alexander have -- simultaneously to the "Discussion Draft" rollout -- proposed alternative legislative language. It would further expedite the shipment of high-level radioactive waste on our roads, rails, and waterways to "consolidated interim storage sites." Their alternative proposal, and its summary, are also available.

As this is a "Discussion Draft" of the proposed bill, the Senators state in their press release:

"The members are seeking comment on the discussion draft and a number of policy and technical questions from experts and stakeholders, including utilities, conservation groups, Blue Ribbon Commission members and others, by May 24."

Perhaps the single most important question involves "linkage" -- or lack thereof -- between "consolidated interim storage sites" and permanent dumpsites. As stated in the Senators' list of "Nuclear Waste Questions":

"Linkage between storage and repository

Should the bill establish a linkage between progress on development of a repository and progress on development of a storage facility?  If so, is the linkage proposed in section 306 of the bill appropriate, too strong, or too loose?  If a linkage is needed, should it be determined as part of the negotiations between the state and federal governments and included in the consent agreement rather than in the bill?"

Currently, as stated in the one page summary section entitled "Linkage Between Storage Facilities and a Repository," there is no linkage:

"The bill authorizes the Administrator [of a newly established Nuclear Waste Administration, outside of the Department of Energy, DOE] to begin siting consolidated storage facilities immediately, and does not set waste volumes [sic] restrictions on storage."

In this regard, the currently proposed legislation is significantly worse than the bill proposed last September by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the now-retired former chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Although Bingaman unaccetably "gave away" the first 10,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel for "centralized interim storage" as a political compromise (a "pilot" parking lot dump, strongly advocated by Sen. Feinstein, with no strings attached to permanent disposal), his bill would have required linkage between permanent disposal and any further "centralized interim storage." He did this in order to guard against "interim" storage sites -- including one threatened in his own state of New Mexico, at WIPP -- from becoming de facto permanent surface storage, if a geologic repository is never pursued, developed, and operated.

The most likely targets for "consolidated interim storage sites" are at DOE facilities, including the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, the Idaho National Lab, and as previously mentioned, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. In fact, SRS hopes to reprocess the irradiated nuclear fuel moved there for "consolidated interim storage." This would be not only a serious nuclear weapons proliferation risk, but also a risk of widespread radioactive contamination of the environment downwind and downstream. It would also cost taxpayers and/or ratepayers many tens of billions of dollars.

Other likely targets for "consolidated interim storage sites" are Native American reservations, as well as nuclear power plants themselves. Over the course of decades, scores of Native American reservations have been targeted for high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps, a shameful history of environmental racism. And, as but one of numerous such examples, Illinois' three-reactor Dresden nuclear power plant, and immediately adjacent General Electric-Morris reprocessing facility, already "host" around 3,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel on a single site. There is a high risk that this bill, if enacted, would increase the pressure to import and "consolidate" yet more waste there, as documented in an Oak Ridge study.

Rushing into high-level radioactive waste shipments on the roads, rails, and waterways makes no sense. Risks of Mobile Chernobyls, Dirty Bombs on Wheels, and Floating Fukushimas include severe accidents (high-speed crashes; high-temperature, long-duration fires; underwater submersions; etc.) or even intentional attacks. Such shipments to parking lot dumps would merely launch a radioactive waste shell game, as the wastes would have to be moved again someday, this time to permanent disposal sites. Thus, high-level radioactive waste transport risks would be multiplied, for no good reason.

Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS) makes a lot more sense than this bad bill. HOSS calls for emptying vulnerable high-level radioactive waste storage pools into on-site dry cask storage, but would require significant upgrades to the safety, security, and environmental protections associated with dry cask storage: safeguards against accidents and natural disasters; concealment, distancing between casks, and fortification against attacks; and quality assurance on cask design and fabrication to ensure they will last not decades, but centuries, without leaking radioactivity into the environment. Nearly 200 environmental groups, representing all 50 states, have endorsed HOSS. They've been calling for it for well over a decade now.

Contact not only Sen. Wyden, but also your own two U.S. Senators, and urge that a strong linkage between "consolidated interim storage" and permanent disposal be re-established in this proposed legislation! Warn them that the risk of de facto permanent parking lot dumps for high-level radioactive waste is unacceptable! Let them know that rushing into Mobile Chernobyl shipments, and playing a radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails, and waterways, makes no sense and takes unnecessary risks. Urge that Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS) be required instead, as a common sense interim alternative to this bill's bad ideas.

Contact Sen. Wyden at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee he chairs {per their instructions immediately below, as posted on their website}:

{Directions for Submissions

Please submit comments electronically to: Nwaste_feedback@energy.senate.gov 

Submission due date: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5:00pm (EST)

The documents attached below can be used as a template for submitting comments.  We request that you submit your comments in the template format, but will accept comments in other formats.  Please feel free to respond to as many or as few of the questions as you like.

Please provide your name and affiliation in the header of your comments.

The committee may post the comments, including any personal identifying information you provide (street or e-mail addresses, or phone numbers) it receives on its website.  If you would like your personal identifying information withheld, please indicate that.

The comment period will close on Friday, May 24, 2013.

Please find the submission documents below [linked here] and the link to the discussion draft, summaries and questions here.}

You can contact your own two U.S. Senators at their websites, or via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge your Senators to oppose de-linking "consolidated interim storage" and permanent disposal. Urge them to block a rush into Mobile Chernobyl risks merely to play a radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails, and waterways. Urge them to weigh in with Chairman Wyden and other members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.

Update on May 16, 2013 by admin

On May 2nd, at the invitation of Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) in IL, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps presented via Skype to a "Night with the Experts" gathering at the NEIS office in Chicago on this proposed centralized interim storage and irradiated nuclear fuel transport legislation.

Reporter Kari Lydersen was in attendance, and published an article in Midwest Energy News entitled "Senate plan could make Illinois 'bullseye' for nuclear waste."

Update on May 16, 2013 by admin

ACTION ALERT

 Illinois candidate for national de facto permanent "centralized interim storage" radwaste dump

Greetings All:

Below and attached I provide a letter we just sent off to the Illinois Delegation to Congress and to select members of the Illinois Legislature, as well as the Governor's and AG's office.  It alerts them -- and now you -- to the potential for Illinois to be "selected" as a "voluntary" candidate to site a "centralized interim storage" facility which would store thousands of additional tons of hazardous high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) -- the so-called "spent" fuel rods from reactors.

We are alerting you to this possibility, and to the fact that both Sen. Wyden and his committee, and the Administration seem to be on a "fast track" to get this deal done.  This leaves little time for equivocation:  the question before us is simply -- does your organization favor storing an additional 3,000 to 4,000+ tons of HLRW in Illinois indefinitely (which is what "interim" usually means in Federalese)?

Our organization does not.

Since more than one site is envisioned, even if Illinois does not actually host such a facility, our excellent transportation net will probably see as much as 75% of all HLRW shipments made go into, through, and out of the state.  If we get the site, all arrows point to Illinois. (for more details about this, see the Oak Ridge National Lab report referenced by Kari Lydersen in her article; it's a chunky 17 MB file).

We will be providing you soon with a fact sheet on this issue.  We're happy to come discuss this legislative proposal with your staff and Board.  We will be scheduling a briefing on this proposed legislation within the next month, and would hope your organization could send a representative.  We urge you to provide comments on the webpage provided by Sen Wyden (see the link in the letter below).  And finally, we hope that your organization would oppose this ill-conceived, ineffective and unnecessary plan.  The only good it does is free up more space for the nuclear industry to make even more waste indefinitely.

Feel free to contact us if you have questions, or require additional information or resources.

Stay well, keep on doing,

 --Dave Kraft, Director--


LETTER TO LEGISLATORS AND OFFICIALS:

May 9, 2013

TO:      Illinois governmental contacts

FR:       Dave Kraft, Director

RE:       Illinois candidate for becoming national radioactive waste dumpsite

Greetings All:

I forward to you an article done yesterday, May 8, by journalist Kari Lydersen of  Midwest Energy News of great importance to Illinois:

Senate plan could make Illinois ‘bullseye’ for nuclear waste

http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/08/senate-plan-could-make-illinois-bullseye-for-nuclear-waste/

The gist of the article is that the new legislation being formulated by Sen. Ron Wyden’s Senate committee makes the likelihood quite high that Illinois will become a candidate to host one of the nation’s first de facto permanent high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage sites.

Although the process is planned to be “voluntary,” there is no doubt that the despicable practice of “incentivizing” accepting lasting environmental abuse for temporary jobs will be at play in the call for volunteers, especially in a state (and some would observe, sizeable portions of the Legislature) owned by Exelon Corporation.  Witness what is taking place already around the fracking issue.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory report referenced by Ms. Lydersen in her article makes this abundantly clear:

“As a totally separate analysis, the consolidated ISFSI site in Illinois is the single optimized2 site for an ISFSI solution when only SNF at orphaned reactors is considered relative to siting a consolidated ISFSI. Base case five-site ISFSI solution showing transport routes to each storage location. Green background depicts ISFSI available siting.”  (p. xviii, ORNL/TM-2012-237 )

Translated into English, the proposed Congressional legislation intends to move HLRW from closed reactors all over the nation like Zion and Dresden-1 to what they call a “centralized interim storage” (CIS) facility, as yet unidentified, designed or constructed.  One or more of these facilities are contemplated; and the HLRW wastes from closed reactors will be given first priority for movement to a CIS.  The Oak Ridge report identified Illinois as THE best candidate site for these wastes from closed reactors, based on location and transportation routes.  Should this occur Illinois could receive an additional 3,000+ tons of HLRW from the currently closed reactors beyond the 8,600 tons we already host; and possibly more, since several reactors have been identified for closure since the 2012 report was done.

We have warned members of the Illinois Delegation to Congress of this possibility for the past two years.  Our warnings were met repeatedly with a  thunderous round of indifference.  Well, now it’s showtime, and there’s no place left to hide.  Officials are going to have to take a public stance on whether they favor the possibility of bringing an additional 3,000+  tons of hazardous spent-reactor fuel to Illinois for “temporary” storage.  With the Federal Government, temporary can mean a very long, long time, as witnessed by the fact that the Federal Government has been trying to site its first HLRW disposal site since 1982.

Sen. Wyden’s office is taking public comments on the proposed draft legislation until May 24^th.  The link for making comments is:

http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/nuclear-waste-bill-feedback

It will now be up to you, our elected officials, to defend Illinois from further radiation abuse.  We ask you to comment on the draft legislation, and let us know your position on this matter.  We are available to answer questions or provide resources to you to help inform your decision.

Thanks for your consideration in this matter.  We eagerly await your response to this letter.

Stay well,

David A. Kraft

Director

For Immediate Release: May 1, 2013

Contact: Keith Chu (Wyden), 202.224.0537

Robert Dillon (Murkowski), 202.224.6977

Committee Launches Webpage for Nuclear Waste Bill Feedback

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee launched a webpage where the public and interested parties can submit comments on a discussion draft of comprehensive nuclear waste management legislation released by a bipartisan group of senators last week.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. – the leaders of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development – and Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, sponsored the draft bill, which implements recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

The webpage and instructions on how to submit comments on the draft bill can be found on the committee’s website here. The discussion draft, a one-page summary, section-by-section analysis, list of questions, and alternative policy options offered by Senators Alexander and Feinstein can be found here.

###

-- 

David A. Kraft,

Director

NEIS

3411 W. Diversey #16

Chicago, IL  60647

(773)342-7650

neis@neis.orgwww.neis.org

SKYPE address:  davekhamburg

No more Chornobyls!  No more Fukushimas!

Invest  in a nuclear-free world -- today!