Risk of Transporting High-Level Radioactive Waste is a Real Halloween Nightmare: SEED Coalition Files New Legal Contention to Halt Dangerous, Unnecessary Transport

NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR For immediate release: October 31, 2019 Contact:  Tom “Smitty” Smith, Former Director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, 512-797-8468

Risk of Transporting High-Level Radioactive Waste is a Real Halloween Nightmare

SEED Coalition Files New Legal Contention to Halt Dangerous, Unnecessary Transport AUSTIN, TX -- An alarming recent federal report has prompted a new legal challenge to the licensing of a high-level radioactive waste dump in Texas. [Beyond Nuclear is forwarding this press release on to the media as a courtesy to the SEED Coalition.] The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board’s “Preparing for Nuclear Waste Transportation” report released in September details thirty safety challenges related to transporting spent nuclear fuel across the country, including travel through major U.S. cities. Private companies have applied for licenses to store the nation’s deadly high-level radioactive waste for decades at sites in Texas and New Mexico. Texas and New Mexico residents have raised concerns about the transport risks of this radioactive waste in public forums and in legal opposition to the proposed consolidated interim storage applications.  “The potential for disaster in transporting and storing the nation’s radioactive waste is worse than any Halloween nightmare,” said Karen Hadden, Executive Director of the SEED Coalition. “The SEED Coalition filed a new legal challenge based on a recent report to Congress that lays out significant issues that need to be resolved. Transport of high-level radioactive waste is too risky and current plans to haul thousands of tons of deadly waste across the country must be halted.”  The new report to Congress by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board confirms that stored spent nuclear fuel can go critical.   “The report confirms that the massive transport of thousands of tons of dangerous spent nuclear fuel across the country is unprecedented,” Hadden said. “The nuclear industry wants us to believe that such transport is routine, but never has so much dangerous nuclear waste been moved on the vast scale proposed, an undertaking that would involve thousands of shipments over many decades. In fact, the report indicates that transport could require 80 years or more, double the time that WCS has suggested in their license application.” “Significant infrastructure improvements would be needed, and technological challenges are numerous,” Hadden added. Concerns about the radioactive transport include: - Some existing radioactive waste can’t be shipped without being put into new containers, and new container designs are needed that haven’t been developed yet.  - There is no technology in place to fully inspect existing spent nuclear fuel containers and the impacts of shaking and bumping of radioactive materials on railways are not yet fully known. - Cracked or leaking containers would have to be repackaged but the report points out that cost for even one repackaging facility would be a whopping $1-2 billion. “The NRC is considering licensing sites in Texas and New Mexico to store the nation’s high-level radioactive waste for decades, which could lead to unsafe de-facto permanent dumps,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, former Director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. “The need for extensive research and the technical hurdles are among many reasons that licensing of centralized storage sites should be halted.” Current plans would move tons of deadly waste to Texas and/or New Mexico, just to store it in a in a different location, needlessly creating risks from transportation accidents, leaks and potential sabotage. No progress would be made toward permanent waste isolation with this band-aid approach.  In fact, spending billions of dollars this way could stall the development of more robust storage systems and progress toward viable permanent disposal.  “The focus should be on isolating this waste for the long-term in order to protect all living things, our planet and our economy,” Smith said. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board report, the SEED Coalition legal filing and expert witness testimony by Bob Alvarez are available at www.NoNuclearWaste.org Another resource - https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cities_Affected.pdf - has maps of 20 of the many major cities that high-level radioactive waste could travel through if this plan is approved [Attorney Wally Taylor, on behalf of Sierra Club's Rio Grand Chapter, has filed a similar motion in opposition to the Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, targeted at southeastern New Mexico, 39 miles from the Waste Control Specialists site in western Texas. See the contention posted here.] Karen Hadden Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition  605 Carismatic Lane, Austin, TX 78748 karendhadden@gmail.com 512-797-8481 -30- Beyond Nuclear is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear. Beyond Nuclear: 7304 Carroll Avenue, #182, Takoma Park, MD 20912. Info@beyondnuclear.org. www.beyondnuclear.org.

All Pueblo Council of Governors Opposes Largest Nuclear Waste Transport Campaign in Nation’s History

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 21st, 2019
Contact: Alicia Ortega, APCG@indianpueblo.org

Permalink: https://www.apcg.org/uncategorized/all-pueblo-council-of-governors-opposes-largest-nuclear-waste-transport-and-storage-campaign-in-nations-history/


All Pueblo Council of Governors Opposes Largest Nuclear Waste Transport Campaign in Nation’s History

Pueblo leaders voice opposition to license applications to transport and store high level radioactive nuclear waste in New Mexico and Texas

Santa Fe, NM – The All Pueblo Council of Governors, representing the collective voice of the member 20 sovereign Pueblo nations of New Mexico and Texas, convened Thursday affirming commitment to protect Pueblo natural and cultural resources from risks associated with transport of the nation’s growing inventory of high level nuclear waste from sites across the country to proposed semi-permanent sites in southeastern New Mexico and mid western Texas. The Council adopted a resolution expressing opposition to the license applications by private companies, Holtec International and Interim Storage Partners LLC, authorizing transport nuclear material, construction, and operation of a proposed multi-billion dollar consolidated interim storage facilities in Lea County, NM and Andrews County, TX.

Much more
https://www.apcg.org/uncategorized/all-pueblo-council-of-governors-opposes-largest-nuclear-waste-transport-and-storage-campaign-in-nations-history/

Update on October 24, 2019 by admin

Oil and Gas 360 has reported on this news:

https://www.oilandgas360.com/native-american-pueblo-leaders-oppose-nuclear-facility-near-carlsbad-hobbs-2/
Native American Pueblo leaders oppose nuclear facility near Carlsbad, Hobbs - Oil & Gas 360 - oilandgas360.com

Oct. 24-- Oct. 24--A group of Native American leaders opposed a plan to temporarily store nuclear waste at proposed facilities in southeast New Mexico and West Texas before a permanent repository ...

www.oilandgas360.com

Update on October 26, 2019 by admin

Here are links to related subject matter documents, posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects website's Nuclear Waste Transport <http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans.htm> scholarship depository; the 2005 document has to do with irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste transport risks, while the 2006 and 2007 documents have to do with transuranic waste transport risks; the former is broader in scope, while the latter two are focused on New Mexico Pueblos and Tribes):

Updated - Wednesday, January 31, 2007

• ESRA Consulting Corporation - After September 11th: Risk Assessment of Native American Pueblos and Tribes of New Mexico on the Impacts of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and its Transuranic Nuclear Waste Transportation Routes - Presentation to the Transportation Research Board of The National Academy of Sciences, TRB 86th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.,23 January 2007 - Sandy H. Straus (pdf-2.90M)

Updated - Thursday, November 16, 2006

• NAS:Transportation Research Board - 86th Annual Meeting - January 21-25, 2007: After September 11, 2001: Risk Perception and Risk Assessment of American Indian Pueblos and Tribes of New Mexico on the Impacts of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Its Transuranic Nuclear Waste Transportation Routes (07-3268) - Sandy H. Straus, ESRA Consulting Corporation

Updated - Friday, May 20, 2005

State of Nevada - Measures of Community Impact for The Transportation of Hazardous Materials: The Case of Indian Tribes and High-Level Nuclear Waste -- Conference Paper - Waste Management 2005 - Fred Dilger, Robert Halstead, James David Ballard (pdf-1.24M)

Radioactive racism is not progressive! Urge your Congress Members to oppose dangerously bad high-level nuke waste dumps!

 

Even though "Nevada Is Not a Radioactive Wasteland!" (see photo, left, showing Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, and Native Community Action Council's Ian Zabarte, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2018 at the "Zero Hour" youth climate rally), U.S. House bill H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, was nonetheless recently rammed through the Environment and Climate Subcommittee on a voice vote, without so much as a peep of opposition. (See Oct. 1st Western Shoshone letter to U.S. House, opposing H.R. 2699, here.) Democrats hold the majority in the U.S. House, and thus are in charge of this subcommittee. Subcommittee Democrats include several members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But H.R. 2699 would rush the opening of the Yucca Mountain dump in Nevada, targeting Western Shoshone Indian land, where decades of nuclear weapons testing already caused fallout of hazardous radioactivity over a very large region. It would even significantly increase the amount of high-level radioactive waste that could be buried there, thus increasing the number of Mobile Chernobyl and Floating Fukushima shipments, by truck, train, and/or barge, through most states, scores of major urban centers, and the vast majority of U.S. congressional districts, bound for the dump (see 2017 documents here for road and rail route maps). The Timbisha Band of Western Shoshone in Death Valley are directly downstream of Yucca, and would suffer the very worst contamination consequences from the leaking dump. H.R. 2699 would also authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to take ownership of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel at private, consolidated interim storage facilities (CISF). This radical change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended, would risk "interim" becoming de facto permanent surface storage, meaning loss of institutional control over time would guarantee large-scale releases of hazardous radioactivity directly into the environment.   

The current targets for CISFs are two sites in the Permian Basin, just 39 miles apart across the New Mexico/Texas border, in a Hispanic region not far from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation (itself previously targeted for a CISF). New Mexico ranks towards the bottom of states on numerous major socio-economic indicators (even though some 40% of gargantuan U.S. nuclear weapons complex spending takes place within its borders!), and already suffers from intense fossil fuel and nuclear industry pollution. Just this week, a report found that shockingly high percentages of Navajo/Diné women and infants tested positive for uranium exposure; even though mining in the Four Corners (including on Pueblo Indian land) largely ended decades ago, cleanup of contamination at countless sites has gone largely to entirely undone. A U.S. Senate field hearing in Albuquerque just addressed this environmental injustice, and also the unacknowledged and uncompensated suffering of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders, victims and survivors of the "Trinity" open air plutonium bomb detonation on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico, the world's first atomic test blast. To now target New Mexico with high-level radioactive waste de facto permanent surface storage dumps adds insult to injury. The two CISFs would hold 213,600 metric tons of nuclear power waste, more than three times the amount currently targeted at Yucca (70,000 MT). As the former head of Environmental Justice at the U.S. EPA, Mustafa Ali, said on Democracy Now! on September 5, the countless high risk shipments themselves, bound for such dumps, would burden low income, people of color communities, along transport routes across the country, with yet another major environmental injustice.

 

Despite all this inherent environmental racism, H.R. 2699's identical predecessor bill last year, H.R. 3053, passed the U.S. House floor by a whopping 340 to 72 vote on May 10, 2018. (Luckily, the U.S. Senate did not take up H.R. 3053 last year, so the bill died. However, the Republican majority U.S. Senate has already taken up a discussion draft of legislation very similar or even identical to H.R. 2699 this year, in the Environment and Public Works Committee. This makes our action to stop it dead in its tracks all the more vital, because another blowout vote in favor of H.R. 2699 on the House floor this year or next, could tee up consideration of identical legislation in the U.S. Senate, bringing it that much closer to President Donald J. Trump's desk, and enactment!) Inexplicably, nearly half the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) voted in favor of this radioactively racist bill! But it goes without saying that environmental injustice is not a progressive value! Of course, such a bad vote is unacceptable, even if Congress Members do not belong to the CPC. Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. You can be patched through to your Congress Members' D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge your Congress Members to oppose H.R. 2699, now headed to the full U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee. Also urge them to oppose any funding in Fiscal Year 2020 for either the Yucca dump, or for CISFs. And urge them to oppose S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2019, which also advocates for non-consent based siting of the dump in Nevada, and greases the skids for CISFs in New Mexico and Texas. Urge your Congress Members to support the Nevada congressional delegation's Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act of 2019 (S. 649), as well as to advocate for the very long overdue, common sense interim alternative of Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS). 

Urgent citizen resistance needed against Mobile Chernobyl bill

This rail route past the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C. would be used to ship high-level radioactive waste to the Southwest for "interim storage" and/or permanent dumping.They're back. On September 26, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate, by voice vote, approved H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, sponsored by U.S. Representatives Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and John Shimkus (R-IL). That is, not one peep of opposition, not a single question expressing concern, was uttered, not even by several Democratic members on the subcommittee who courageously and wisely voted against an earlier incarnation of this same legislation, H.R. 3053, just last year. Last year's version was ultimately passed on the House floor on May 10, 2018 by a whopping 340 to 72 vote; thankfully, though, the bill was stopped dead in its tracks, when the U.S. Senate did not act upon it. However, this year, the Republican majority U.S. Senate has already taken up its own "Discussion Draft" version of H.R. 2699 (and there is other dangerously bad nuclear waste legislation before the U.S. Senate right now as well, such as S. 1234, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act, sponsored by U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).). H.R. 2699 would speed the opening of the Yucca dump, by gutting its Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceeding. It would also significantly increase the quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste that could be dumped there, from 70,000 metric tons to 110,000 MT. And it would authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to take ownership of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel even at consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs), de-linked from development of a permanent repository, thus risking de facto permanent, surface storage, "parking lot dumps." With loss of institutional control over long enough time periods, failed containers at CISFs would release catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity directly into the environment. 

More than a thousand environmental, environmental justice, and anti-nuclear groups, along with the State of Nevada, its congressional delegation, the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, and other allies, have fended off such "Screw Nevada" attacks for a generation. So too have countless hundreds of grassroots organizations successfully blocked CISFs (previously called Monitored Retrievable Storage sites, Away-from-Reactor Storage, etc.), such as those targeted at scores of Native American reservations, like the Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah, time and time again over the course of decades. These little celebrated, grassroots victories, very hard won against all odds, have spared the country thousands, to tens of thousands, of high risk, irradiated nuclear fuel shipments, by truck, train, and/or barge, through scores of major urban population centers (including Washington, D.C. -- see photo, above). Whether bound for Yucca, or for Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance's 173,600 MT CISF in New Mexico, and/or Interim Storage Partners' 40,000 MT CISF at Waste Control Specialists, Texas, the Floating Fukushimas, Dirty Bombs on Wheels, and Mobile X-ray Machines That Can't Be Turned Off, would continue not for years, but decades. As the vast majority of U.S. congressional districts would be directly crossed by such shipments, you would think Congress would put the brakes on. But the nuclear industry's very large-scale campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures have blinded many with radioactive dollar signs. 

We must now rise to the challenge of H.R. 2699. Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators. Given that Members of the U.S. House are back in their home districts for the next ten days, this would be an excellent opportunity to get together with other concerned friends, colleagues, and neighbors of yours, to even request a face-to-face meeting with your U.S. Representative, to discuss these issues. You can phone your Congress Members' schedulers in their D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge them to oppose funding for the Yucca dump, and to oppose funding for CISFs, in Fiscal Year 2020 Appropriations. And urge them to oppose H.R. 2699, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019. To learn more about this bill, go here.