West Lake Landfill: A Radioactive Legacy of the Nuclear Arms Race

Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy StudiesRobert Alvarez (photo, left), Senior Scholar at Institute for Policy Studies, has prepared a report entitled "The West Lake Landfill: A Radioactive Legacy of the Nuclear Arms Race."

In 1973, the West Lake Landfill, in the Missouri River floodplain, and just upstream from a drinking water supply intake for St. Louis, became the illegal dumping ground for part of the Belgian Congo uranium wastes, leftover from the Manhattan Project, the race to build the first atomic bombs, tested in New Mexico, and dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. These wastes are loaded with Thorium-230, an alpha-particle emitting radioactive substance regarded as comparable, in radiological hazard, to Plutonium-239.

On Nov. 21st, Alvarez, along with Dr. Robert Criss of Washington University and Peter Anderson (Executive Director, Center for a Competitive Waste Industry), keynoted a presentation, sponsored by Missouri Coalition for the Environment, about an underground garbage dump fire now threatening the radioactive waste buried at West Lake Landfill. (See the event announcement and action alert). St. Louis Public Radio, KSDK, KMOV, KMOX, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported on the event. A video recording of the Westlake Landfill community meeting has also been provided by Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

In his summary, Alvarez reported:

"Of significance is the fact that the largest estimated amount of thorium-230, a long-lived, highly radiotoxic element is present at West Lake -- more than any other U.S. nuclear weapons storage or disposal site. Soil concentrations of radium-226 and thorium-230 are substantially greater than uranium mill tailing waste...The waste residues generated at the Mallinckrodt site were found to contain the largest concentration of thorium-230 from any single source in the United States and possibly the world. Thorium-230 concentrations were found to be some 25,000 times greater than its natural isotopic abundance. With a half-life of 77,500 years, thorium-230 makes up more than 80% of the measured radioactivity in soil at West Lake above cleanup limits set by the Department of Energy (DOE). Moreover, as the thorium-230 decays to radium-226, it will increase the radioactivity in the landfill 10 to 100 times over a 9,100 year period.

Given these circumstances, the West Lake landfill would violate all federal legal requirements, established over 30 years ago, for licensing of a radioactive waste disposal site...".

Criss has also prepared a report, earlier this year, entitled "Risk and Character of Radioactive Waste at the West Lake Landfill, Bridgeton, Missouri."

Kay Drey, a Beyond Nuclear board member, has long watchdogged the high-risk situation at the West Lake Landfill, along with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. They have long, tirelessly led the growing call for the radioactive wastes to be removed from this site vulnerable to flooding, erosion, and now underground fire. They are calling upon Missouri's U.S. congressional delegation to lead the effort to remove the decision making from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- which has previously called for the West Lake Landfill to simply be "capped" and abandoned to its fate -- and transfer it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Rolling Stone reported on the West Lake Landfill fire earlier this year, in an article entitled "St. Louis Is Burning." The article quoted Drey, Criss, Anderson, Ed Smith of Missouri Coalition for the Environment, as well as local residents.

SAN LUIS OBISPO REJECTS FAULTY NRC “WASTE CONFIDENCE”

Press release, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace

For Immediate Release, November 21, 2013

Contacts: Jane Swanson, spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, (805) 440-1359, janeslo@me.com

Linda Seeley, spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, (850) 234-1769,lindaseeley@gmail.com

[San Luis Obispo, CA--] At least 230 people attended an important meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the evening of November 20. They came to voice their opinions on the NRC’s Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) and proposed Waste Confidence Rule.  The GEIS is an assessment of the environmental impacts associated with the continued storage of spent nuclear fuel after the closure of nuclear plants. The Waste Confidence Rule states that the NRC has confidence that, even though it has failed to figure out what to do with radioactive waste for the 60 years of commercial reactors, it will solve the problem “in time” to continue allowing the creation of more radioactive wastes.

Judging from the vast majority of the approximately 100 verbal comments delivered, this absurd assumption was the motivating force for most of the downwind residents in attendance. Some came from as far south as Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Those who arrived for the 6:00 pm Open House where they were invited to talk informally with NRC staff found the Mariotte Hotel darkened by a power outage. Those who arrived for the 7:00 pm formal meeting had to brave the rain and a lack of sufficient parking.  There was also a lack of sufficient chairs, so that as the meeting began the walls were lined with those left standing.

The NRC is traveling to twelve cities throughout the nation to hear public comment on its proposed regulations, which the Federal Court of Appeals ordered the agency to revise because the NRC had no technical basis for asserting that current on-site storage practices in fuel pools and dry casks would be safe for the indefinite future. The court ruling also forced the NRC to stop licensing or relicensing any nuclear facilities until its errors were corrected. The NRC has set a schedule to adopt its new Waste Confidence ruel within two years so that it can resume the issuing of licenses, even though its own staff declared it would take at least seven years to do an adequate job.

The vast majority of speakers shared the opinion that Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is no place to store radioactive nuclear waste for the undetermined future, in large part because of the 13 earthquake faults that surround the two reactors.

Many, including San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Adam Hill, urged the NRC to order PG&E to transfer the radioactive wastes into dry cask storage on an accelerated schedule, rather than leaving the rods in densely packed spent fuel pools. Some pointed out that the pools are vulnerable to accident or terrorist attack because they are not protected by thick concrete in the way the reactors are.  

Many speakers, including all of those who identified themselves as members of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, urged the NRC to shut down Diablo Canyon and all nuclear plants because there is nowhere to put the waste, creating an intolerable burden on future generations – all for the sake of boiling water for our needs today.

Fukushima was brought up many times as a warning and an illustration of the dangers posed by nuclear technology.  It was pointed out that the entire Pacific Ocean, and indeed the west coast of the United States, is seriously threatened by the radiation from Japan. Several also pointed out that right up until the minute before the earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima, the plant operators were fully confident that their plants were safe.

Jane Swanson, a spokesperson for San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, pointed out that in determining the risks of a spent fuel pool accident, the NRC relied on an outdated 1994 study of plants east of the Rocky Mountains. And then, in an unsupported leap of faith, it claims that the risks and consequences of an accident are the same for the west coast plants, despite their very unique geology.

Sherry Lewis of Mothers for Peace took PG&E to task for using the terms “used” and “spent” fuel to imply that the energy in the fuel rods was all consumed. On the contrary, she explained, the fuel has to be removed from the reactor core because the fission process has made it much more radioactive and unstable as elements not found in nature are created.

Among the other issues raised by the public were that California does not need the electricity from Diablo; that a combination of conservation and increased use of truly sustainable sources of energy can fill our needs. Several pointed out that nuclear power is not an answer to climate change because it produces carbon in the mining and enrichment of uranium and in the huge volumes of concrete used in construction.

Several speakers pointed out that NRC rules are useless because they are not enforced; a prime example being allowing Diablo to operate despite the fact that new information about nearby earthquake faults shows that the plant could not withstand the predicted ground motions from some of the nearest faults.

The bottom line of most of the speakers was that the NRC should be in the business of protecting public safety, rather than protecting the profits of the industry it is supposed to regulate. The new proposed GEIS and Rule were strongly rejected.

Update on November 25, 2013 by admin

The San Luis Obispo Tribune reported on this story.

U.S. Congressmen, Cities of Toronto, Kingston, and Windsor, ON, join opposition to Canada's Great Lakes radioactive waste dump

As reported by the Macomb Daily Tribune, four Democratic U.S. Congressmen from Michigan have joined the growing chorus questioning the Great Lakes radioactive waste dump:

"U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, along with several fellow Democrats in the Michigan congressional delegation --Reps. Dan Kildee of Flint, Sander Levin of Royal Oak, who represents much of Macomb County, and John Dingell of Dearbon -- sent a letter to the Canadian review panel urging it to consider the potential threat that the site could pose to the Great Lakes. They also called for an open dialogue as the process proceeds."

Here is the letter the four U.S. Congressmen wrote to the federal Canadian Joint Review Panel overseeing the environmental assessment of the proposal.

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI's 5th District) issued a press release.

Rep. Levin is the Ranking Member on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Dingell is the longest-serving Member of the U.S. House in history. Rep. Peters has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Carl Levin (Sandy's younger brother), who is retiring.

They thus join with both of MI's Democratic U.S. Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, in expressing opposition to Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR, or Deep Geologic Repository, DUD) on the Lake Huron shore. In the Michigan State Legislature, Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood and Representative Sarah Roberts have led the opposition to the dump.

Meanwhile, Canada's largest city -- Toronto, population 2.8 million -- just passed a resolution opposing the DUD (critics' sarcastic appellation for the DGR, standing for Deep Underground Dump).

This was followed by a resolution opposing OPG's DUD on Nov. 19th by the City of Kingston, Ontario, population 123,363. Kingston is where Lake Ontario flows into the St. Lawrence River.

On Oct. 27th, USA Today reprinted a Detroit Free Press article about the DGR.

The Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump petition now has nearly 42,600 signatures. If you haven't signed yet, plesae do. And please spread the word! Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump also has a sample letter you can use to contact your elected officials about this issue.

If you live in the Great Lakes Basin -- or if you regard the Great Lakes as a precious natural resource, the irreplacable drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations -- please urge your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative to join Michigan's in expressing opposition to the OPG DUD targeted at the Lake Huron shore! You can call your Members of Congress via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Update on November 22, 2013 by admin

The City of Windsor, Ontario has also passed a resolution opposing OPG's DUD! Its population is 215,000. It is Canada's southern-most city, and the only Canadian city to look north to see the U.S. -- specifically, the City of Detroit, MI, just across the Detroit River from Windsor!

Update on November 26, 2013 by admin

The Associated Press has reported on this story. The article quotes local residents near Bruce Nuclear, Beyond Nuclear allies in the struggle against OPG's DUD:

'...Most of the waste would decay within 300 years, but the company acknowledges the intermediate waste would stay radioactive for more than 100,000 years. That's too long for Eugene Bourgeois, who has a wool yarn business near Bruce Power.

"We have only recently discovered radioactivity," he said. "It's arrogant to think we're smart enough to know what it will do to life on this planet over such a long time."

Beverly Fernandez, leader of the group that started the online petition, lives in Saugeen Shores but admits she's focusing on rally[ing] opposition outside the area because the industry is so popular in Bruce County -- which she dryly labels "the nuclear oasis."...'

The article also reports:

'...But Charles Rhodes, an engineer and physicist, contended seeping groundwater would fill the chamber in as little as a year, become contaminated and eventually reach the lake through tiny cracks in the rock.

"It's only a question of how long, and how toxic it will be when it gets there," he said in an interview...'

Update on November 28, 2013 by admin

The Town of Ajax "By the Lake" (Lake Ontario, that is), just east of Toronto, near the 8-reactor Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, has also passed a resolution against the DUD. Ajax, as of 2011, had a population of 109,600.

This takes the total population of municipalities (cities, towns, townships, counties, villages, etc.) with resolutions against the DUD to around 17.8 million.

Three hearings left: comment on NRC nuke waste con game by 12/20!

Environmental coalition members from the Crabshell Alliance, Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign, NIRS, PSR, NEIS, and Public Citizen "just say NO!" at the NRC HQ nuke waste con game public comment meeting on 11/14 in Rockville, MD. Photo credit David Martin and Erica Grey.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has concluded most of its scheduled public comment meetings on the draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) regarding the agency's "Nuclear Waste Confidence." However, there are still a few opportunities left to make in-person or via-telephone oral comments! You can also make written comments at any time up till December 20th.

The GEIS was court-ordered, by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in June 2012. A coalition of environmental groups (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Riverkeeper, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, as well as Natural Resources Defense Council) and states (CT, NJ, NY, VT, as represented by their attorneys general) won the court victory.

Oral comments can be submitted, in-person only, at two upcoming public meetings: 12/2 in Perrysburg, OH (near Toledo), and 12/4 in Minnetonka, MN (near the Twin Cities). On 12/9, you can submit oral comments to NRC via a phone-in public comment session. Please see the bottom of this post for more details on how to plug in.

Note that the 12/2 meeting in Toledo marks the 71st year since Enrico Fermi first split the atom in a prototype reactor core, generating the world's first high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) on Dec. 2, 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project. Thus, the mountain of radioactive waste is now 71 years high, and we still don't even know what to do with the first cupful!

It's time to stop making it!

Re: the 12/2 Toledo-area meeting, Michael Keegan of Don't Waste MI and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes has put out a press advisory. Its headline is RALLY AGAINST NUCLEAR WASTE CONFIDENCE GAME: ‘THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.’

The co-chairs of the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3, Keith Gunter and Carol Izant, have also issued a press advisory announcing that representatives from their growing coalition of groups will speak at the 12/2 Perrysburg, OH meeting.

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 (Dec. 20th).

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

San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace also provided sample comments in advance of its NRC nuke waste con game public comment meeting, held on 11/20.

See a write-up of the Chicago NRC nuke waste con game, for more ideas on potential comments you can make.

Marilyn Elie of Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) provided Beyond Nuclear with the written statements by IPSEC members, NY AG Schneiderman, and others, from the Oct. 30th NRC public comment mtg. in Tarrytown, NY near Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant. Beyond Nuclear has posted these, so you can use them to help prepare your own.

Douglas P. Guarino, the award-winning reporter, wrote an article entitled "Legal Battle Against Rule Crucial To All U.S. Reactor Licenses Rages On" for Global Security Newswire. He quote Janice Dean, Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York, who testified at the Tarrytown, NY meeting.

Please note that NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has posted the archived webcast, as well as the audio recording, from the very first public comment meeting on Oct. 1 at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD; it has also posted the transcripts from the first five public comment meetings held around the country (see the bottom of the page). You can use the presentations made by hundreds of environmentalists and public interest advocates in these sessions to help you prepare your own comments.

At the Nov. 14th Rockville, MD NRC HQ public comment meeting, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps joined with numerous colleagues (see photo, above left) to testify.

In the short three minutes allotted for public comment, Kevin set the record straight on false statements the NRC has made in regards to its nuke waste con game policy.

At the Chicago public meeting on Nov. 12th, NRC Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate Director, Keith McConnell, responded to a question from the audience about the scope of this draft GEIS. McConnell said that it had to do with "on-site" or "at-reactor" storage of irradiated nuclear fuel. Kevin set the record straight, pointing out that there is an entire section of the GEIS document, Chapter 5, about "Environmental Impacts of Away-From-Reactor Storage." This implies high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) transportation as well, a very significant issue that has gotten very short shrift in this draft GEIS.

And of course, the heart of NRC's "Nuclear Waste Confidence" for 30 years now has been the assumption that a deep geologic repository will open someday, somewhere, somehow. The courts, however, have ordered NRC to consider the all-too-real possibility that a repository will never open, leaving HLRW risks at-reactor or away-from-reactor (as at so-called "consolidated" or "centralized interim storage" sites -- parking lot dumps -- the opening of which, by 2021, is a top priority of the Wyden-Feinstein-Murkowski-Alexander "Mobile Chernobyl" bill, S. 1240, in the U.S. Senate, now set for a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vote in December 2013).

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, despite an explicit court order for NRC to address them in the EIS.

Curran, along with Mindy Goldstein of Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, are working with a team of experts, including Dave Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists, and Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, to prepare comments, on behalf of an environmental coalition comprised of two dozen groups, including Beyond Nuclear, to be submitted by the 12/20 deadline.

If you plan to attend and make oral testimony at any of the three remaining NRC public comment meetings, NRC requests that you pre-register.

Here are the remaining three public comment meetings yet to come:

Monday, December 2	Perrysburg, Ohio Hilton Garden Inn Toledo/Perrysburg 6165 Levis Commons Blvd., Perrysburg, OH 43551 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. EST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. EST
Wednesday, December 4	Minnetonka, Minnesota Minneapolis Marriott Southwest 5801 Opus Parkway Minnetonka, MN 55343 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. CST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. CST
Monday, December 9	Public Teleconference to Receive Comments on Waste Confidence DGEIS and Proposed Rule (Teleconference only – facilitated and transcribed.) Prior to the start of the meeting, please dial 1-888-603-9749 and provide the operator with passcode 5132332 Meeting Notice	Teleconference 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST

Court rulings revive Yucca dump licensing proceeding, end collection of Nuclear Waste Fund fee

Will the Yucca dump zombie rise again? Nevada says NO! Political cartoon by Jim Day, Las Vegas Review Journal, 2010 (be sure to count the toes!)In 1987, it was "Screw Nevada." Now, it appears to be "screw the taxpayer," and "screw future generations."

Rulings issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia have led to a partial revival of the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump's licensing proceeding before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), while ordering the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to end Nuclear Waste Fund fee collections intended to ultimately pay for HLRW disposal.

On Nov. 18th, the five NRC Commissioners issued an order to the agency's staff to complete its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) regarding DOE's cancelled plan to bury 70,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel and HLRW less than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on sacred Western Shoshone Indian Nation treaty lands. The Commission order comes in response to a 2-1 split decision at the DC Appeals Court in August. Two Republican appointees mandated NRC resume the Yucca licensing proceeding, so long as related funds remain in its coffers to do so. The dissenting Democratic appointee referred to the majority decision as the "doing of a useless act."

In fact, the Commission order admits that completing the five volume SER over the next year will likely deplete most of the $11 million in NRC's carryover funding remaining from its Nuclear Waste Fund allocations. The NRC Commissioners also requested that DOE supplement its previous Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement.

Speaking of the Nuclear Waste Fund, another DC Appeals Court ruling issued on Nov. 19th appears to have ended it. The three-judge panel (comprised exclusively of Republican appointees) has ordered DOE to stop collecting Nuclear Waste Fund fees. Since the enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 30 years ago, DOE has collected one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour of nuclear generated electricity. This surcharge on ratepayers consuming nuclear eletricity has never been adjusted for inflation since. It has generated some $30 billion. Some $8 billion of that was spent studying the Yucca site. But Yucca's total price tag, if constructed and operated, was estimated to have been around $100 billion, tens of billions of dollars more than the Nuclear Waste Fund fee would ever collect.

The open secret was that federal taxpayers would have been looked to, in order to make up the shortfall. That geologic disposal shortfall will now grow even bigger, now that no collection will take place to pay for the management of irradiated nuclear fuel. Hence, today's court ruling amounts to one big "screw the taxpayer" and "screw future generations." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was forced to admit, under court order, that HLRW will remain hazardous for a million years.

In the dwindling days of his administration -- beginning on the day Barack Obama won the presidential election, and ending two days after Obama took the oath of office -- George W. Bush's DOE very quietly signed new contracts with nuclear utilities, ultimately obligating federal taxpayers to pay for the forevermore-management of new reactor-generated HLRW. The contracts were so secretive, they were not even reported by the news media until March 2010, when Beyond Nuclear, IEER, and attorney Diane Curran publicized the news at a press conference, based on documentation obtained under FOIA. The silver lining is, though, that of the 21 new reactor HLRW management contracts hurriedly signed by DOE, only 4 of those new reactors have actually broken ground (Vogtle 3 & 4 in GA, and Summer 2 & 3 in SC). But if those 4 reactors are built and operated, taxpayers will be left holding the bag for their HLRW management costs, till the end of time (well, at least for a million years).

Of course, the only true solution to such costs and risks lasting forevermore is to not generate HLRW in the first place! But enough already existed by spring 2010 to fill the first (now cancelled) repository. This "mountain of radioactive waste" grows by 2,000 tons each year, as 100 atomic reactors are still generating irradiated nuclear fuel in the U.S. Thus, we don't need a repository -- we already need at least two!

Nevada's state and federal elected leaders have pledged vigilance against any effort to revive the Yucca dump. The Silver State never accepted the 1987 "Screw Nevada" amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which singled out Yucca as the only proposed dumpsite in the U.S. to be further considered. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has led that resistance for over 25 years. He has blocked any additional congressional appropriations for the Yucca Mountain Project since Fiscal Year 2011, and appears ready, willing, and able to continue protecting his constituents. President Obama backs Sen. Reid on this, having defunded the Yucca dump and moved to withdraw DOE's license application.