Beyond Nuclear urges U.S. Senate opposition to S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act, as well as S.___, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019

Beyond Nuclear has communicated, on behalf of its members and supporters in all 50 states, with all 100 U.S. Senate offices, expressing our opposition to both S. 1234, "The Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2019," as well as S._____, " The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019."

Among other outrages, enactment of either bill would accelerate the launch of many thousands, or even tens of thousands, of Mobile Chernobyls, Floating Fukushimas, and Dirty Bombs on Wheels, in the form of irradiated nuclear fuel truck, train, and barge shipments, bound for the Southwest, if and when any of these proposed dumps open.

See Beyond Nuclear's detailed cover letter, here.

The packet also included the following attachments:

1.) Letter from NM governor to Energy Secretary ad NRC Chairman;

2.) TX governor's veto of radioactive waste rider;

3.) Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors (Hardened On-Site Storage Principles);

4.) National map showing road and rail routes in 44 states and the District of Columbia, en route to Yucca Mountain, Nevada (see this link for additional info. re: BARGE routes, on waterways in many states, implicated in the Yucca dump scheme, as well).

5.) Beyond Nuclear letter to the editor of the L.A. Times.

We’ve been warned: Nevada is no place for nation’s radioactive waste

Las Vegas Sun editorial.

Derailment stirs fears of bringing nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain

As reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Elko train derailment offers a Yucca lesson

Updated - Thursday, June 20, 2019
KSNV News3LV - Lee, Titus: Elko train derailment offers a Yucca lesson - Jeff Gillan

House panel highlights risks over nuclear-storage stalemate

As reported by AP.

Regarding high-level radioactive waste shipping risks, Don Hancock of Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico is quoted as saying in the article:

Building a long-term storage site would lead to another question: How would the radioactive waste get there from nuclear power plants?

“There is not consensus about health and safety standards, including whether commercial spent fuel is safe where it is,” said Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit watchdog group. “If it is safe where it is, why move it? If it’s not safe where it is, how can it be safe to transport through many other communities?”

If opened, the Yucca Mountain permanent repository, on Western Shoshone Indian land in Nevada, would result in more than 12,000 road, rail, and waterway shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste through 44 states, many major cities, and 75% of U.S. congressional districts. 

So-called "consolidated interim" storage sites, as targeted at Hispanic communities of the New Mexico/Texas border area, would result in significantly more shipments than that.

Yucca's current legal limit is 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive wastes. But the CISF proposed by Holtec in NM would "store" 173,600 MT; the CISF proposed by Interim Storage Partners at Waste Control Specialists in TX would store an additional 40,000 MT. Both CISFs taken together would represent three times the amount of highly radioactive waste as at Yucca. The number of shipments would thus be three times larger, as well. And that's just to get the waste to TX/NM. If truly "temporary," the waste would have to leave again (no one knows where to), so the already high transport risks of CISFs would then be doubled.