Urgent sign-on to Senate, need your action today

[Guest guest]

June 29, 2006

Michael Mariotte

Wednesday, June 28, 2006 12:47 PM

Urgent sign-on to Senate, need your action today

 

Dear Friends

 

The Senate Appropriations Committee is set to vote tomorrow (Thursday) on a new

radioactive waste plan that would give the Department of Energy authority to put

an " interim " high-level radioactive waste dump anywhere it wants, including your

state, and to do so even over the objections of the state and local government.

 

Below is a letter being sent to the Committee tomorrow morning. Organizations,

please sign on by sending your name, organization, city and state to

mboyd by the end of today!

 

Individuals, please call your Senators today, at 202-224-3121, and urge them to

oppose this dangerous plan.

 

It would also be helpful for you to call your governors, attorneys general, and

state legislators and let them know this is happening-it has so far been done

behind closed doors, and most state officials don't even know their states and

their powers are in jeopardy!

 

Thanks!

 

Michael Mariotte

 

Executive Director

 

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

 

nirsnet

 

__

 

June 29, 2006

 

Re: Oppose " interim " surface storage for commercial nuclear waste at federal or

private sites in FY 2007 Energy and Water Appropriations bill

 

Dear Senate Appropriations Committee Member:

 

As national and local public interest organizations, we are writing to urge you

to oppose the provision in the FY 2007 Energy & Water Appropriations bill that

would rush the transport of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel onto roads,

rails, and waterways across the U.S. in order to store these highly radioactive

wastes at " interim " surface storage sites. Creating centralized surface storage

would not solve our country's commercial irradiated nuclear fuel problem. In

fact, centralized " interim " storage is a worse option than leaving most of the

waste stored at the reactor sites for the time being.

 

This proposal would give the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) authority to site

a waste dump within a state over the objections of the state and local

governments. As we understand the provision, DOE sites that could be targeted

for centralized surface storage include facilities in California, Illinois, New

York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington (see full list

below). In addition, private sites could be purchased for a storage facility in

any state with nuclear reactors.

 

� Creating surface storage sites would not meaningfully reduce the number of

locations where high-level radioactive waste is stored, as long as most

commercial nuclear power plants remain in operation for decades to come. Nuclear

waste generated at nuclear power plants must be stored on site for at least five

years to thermally cool and radioactively decay before it can be transported off

site. Thus, any operating reactor will inevitably have at least five years'

worth of irradiated nuclear fuel - approximately 100 tons - stored on site.

 

� Rather than reduce risks, centralized " interim " storage would increase

transport risks to public health, safety, and security. " Interim " storage would

double the number of waste shipments required, and greatly increase the number

of shipment miles to be driven, because the waste would eventually need to be

transported from the interim site to a permanent site. According to a February

2006 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study on the transport of nuclear waste,

" an independent examination of the security of spent fuel and high-level waste "

needs to be performed " prior to the commencement of large-quantity shipments. "

[emphasis added] The NAS report also concluded that " extreme accident conditions

involving very-long-duration fires could compromise " waste shipping containers

and advised that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) do additional

analyses of such accident scenarios.

 

� Interim storage at DOE sites is contrary to legal agreements made with

States and tribes. DOE has committed to cleaning up these sites, not adding more

pollution to them. In addition, DOE sites are not licensed by the NRC for

commercial nuclear waste storage. The Idaho National Laboratory license is for

nuclear fuel debris from the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident.

 

� " Interim " storage would likely become indefinite storage. Despite the claim

that the 25 year licenses could not be extended, there is no viable plan for

moving the waste somewhere else. Thus, " interim " storage sites at DOE facilities

or elsewhere would become long-term " overflow parking " for high-level

radioactive wastes with nowhere else to go. By the year 2010, the amount of

commercial waste generated in the U.S. would fill the capacity of Yucca

Mountain, if it ever opens. Given the extreme difficulty faced in opening this

country's first permanent repository, it is highly unlikely additional

repository space will be available soon. Reprocessing technologies are more than

25 years away from commercialization, if they are ever developed. Energy

Secretary Samuel Bodman and other DOE officials have been very clear in their

testimony to Congress that DOE does not know whether the full complement of

necessary technologies, including reprocessing, fast reactors, and fuel

fabrication, would ever work or be economically competitive.

 

� Centralized " interim " storage would be extremely expensive. According to

Allison Macfarlane, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

the waste storage casks alone that would be required at these sites currently

cost between $90 and $210 per kilogram (or $41 to $95 per pound) of waste

stored. In other words, to create enough " interim " storage for the more than

50,000 metric tons of commercial nuclear waste currently in the U.S. would cost

between $4.5 billion and $10.5 billion, not including licensing, transportation,

and other expenses.

 

Moving commercial irradiated nuclear fuel to indefinite " interim " surface

storage at DOE or other sites would simply create the illusion of a waste

solution. Instead, the safety and security of waste storage at reactor sites

across the U.S. should be improved.

 

If you have any questions or need further information, please contact Kevin

Kamps at Nuclear Information and Resource Service (301-270-6477, ext 14) or

Michele Boyd at Public Citizen (202-454-5134).

 

Sincerely,

 

Susan Gordon, Director

 

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

 

Peggy Maze Johnson, Executive Director

 

Citizen Alert

 

Daniel Hirsch, President

 

Committee to Bridge the Gap

 

Jim Riccio, Nuclear Policy Analyst

 

Greenpeace

 

Jaya Tiwari

 

Physicians for Social Responsibility

 

Tyson Slocum, Director, Energy Program

 

Public Citizen

 

Dave Hamilton, Director, Global Warming and Energy Program

 

Sierra Club

 

Jeremy Maxand, Executive Director

 

Snake River Alliance

 

Michael Mariotte, Executive Director

 

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

 

The list of DOE sites that could be targeted for indefinite surface storages

includes: Argonne National Lab, Illinois; Brookhaven National Lab, New York;

Fernald, Ohio; Hanford Reservation, Washington; Knolls Atomic Power Lab, New

York; Lawrence Livermore National Lab, California; Mound Lab, Ohio; Oak Ridge

Reservation, Tennessee; Pantex Plant, Texas; Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant,

Ohio; and Savannah River Site, South Carolina.

 

 

" To be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to

make me everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being

can fight, and never stop fighting. " -e.e. cummings-

 

 

 

 

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