Beyond Nuclear joined eight other national groups, and more than 50 state and local grassroots groups, on an environmental coalition letter to both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, expressing opposition to the permanent repository (dump-site) for irradiated nuclear fuel, long targeted at Western Shoshone Indian land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as well as opposition to so-called "consolidated interim" storage facilities (CISFs, more accurately "de facto permanent surface dumps") currently targeted at southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. See the group letter, here.
Specifically, the letter expresses opposition to: H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (NWPAA) of 2019; H.R. 2699's U.S. Senate equivalent, also entitled the NWPAA, which is a discussion draft and does not have a bill number yet; S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2019; and any appropriations for the Yucca dump and CISFs.
The letter warns that the proposed CISFs would "[trigger] double the amount of radioactive waste transport, through most states for decades. Each of the thousands of shipments would have more radioactive cesium than the Hiroshima atomic bomb released."
In fact, each irradiated nuclear fuel assembly contains about 10 times the radioactive cesium released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Holtec's latest shipping containers holds 37 pressurized water reactor irradiated nuclear fuel assemblies. So each shipping cask would hold hundreds of times the amount of radioactive cesium released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
The letter concludes:
"Not only would this pose an immediate danger to Nevadans, but the waste bound for Yucca Mountain could be transported through 44 states, putting more than 50 million people who live near potential rail, road, or barge shipping routes to Yucca in unnecessary danger. Transport to the new sites targeted for 'interim' storage would threaten even more shipments."
As you can see, when it comes to radioactive waste transportation, we all live in Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas!