States tell NRC to review nuclear waste storage at reactors

From AP: Attorneys general in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut announced Thursday they are petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a more thorough environmental review of storage of highly radioactive nuclear waste at plant sites.

"Federal law requires that the NRC analyze the environmental dangers of storing spent nuclear fuel at reactors that were not designed for long-term storage,’’ said Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell.

In a landmark ruling last year, a federal appeals court in Washington said the NRC needed to do a full environmental review of the risks of storing the waste — spent nuclear fuel — in storage pools and casks made of steel and concrete on the grounds of nuclear plants while the search continues for a disposal solution.

Activists in Vermont have come to mistrust the NRC "dog and pony" shows that show up in their state. Now four attorneys general are demanding some meaningful accountability from the agency on prolonged on-site storage of high-level radioactive waste. The position of Beyond Nuclear is that this waste must not be moved to so-called "interim" sites but properly stored in hardened, protected casks - a process known as Hardened On-Site Storage.

‘‘NRC staff is continuing to ignore serious public health, safety and environmental risks related to long-term, on-site storage,’’ New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a news release. ‘‘The communities that serve as de facto long-term radioactive waste repositories deserve a full and detailed accounting of the risks.’’ More.

Help support this important documentary about Erwin, TN

Acceptable Limits, in production since early February 2011, is a documentary feature film about the devastating health and environmental effects that a dilapidated, 54 year old nuclear fuel processing plant has had on a small Appalachian community in East Tennessee. Visit the film's website to donate and help the filmmakers complete this important documentary. 

Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) has been the main employer in the rural valley town of Erwin, Tennessee for decades. On the edge of the Appalachian Trail, the facility sits on the Nolichucky River. Initially, NFS brought much needed jobs to the area, hiring those with little education at pay rates far exceeding any of the factory jobs in the area. For 54 years the neighborhood factory has accepted weapons grade plutonium and uranium from around the world to create fissionable nuclear fuel for our Navy’s fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers.

When tests of the water in the area showed rampant contamination, Michael Abbott Jr., an East Tennessee native, and his best friend Cosmo Pfeil decided to investigate how this pollution could be allowed to happen. They ended up embarking on an exploration of what the word “community” means to citizens of an Appalachian town dealing with the devastating effects of 54 years of nuclear contamination. Through interviews with former employees (some who were there as long as 30 years) now dealing with serious health issues, neighbors of the facility who watch white smoke billow from the stacks in the early hours of the morning and blow towards their homes, it became clear that there was a problem and that people in this town were sick and dying.

Sign on to stop nuclear exports from Japan to India!

We stand in complete opposition to the India-Japan nuclear cooperation agreement that is currently under intense negotiation. The governments of both countries must refrain from promoting nuclear commerce, jeopardising the health and safety of their people and environments.

The Fukushima accident in Japan should provide an eye-opener to the Indian government and it must realise that cooperation in/supply of nuclear technology comes with insurmountable safety risks. Nuclear accidents result in totally unacceptable damages to people and the environment. Even more than two years after the accident in Fukushima the reactors are far from being under control and massive radioactive releases have contaminated the ground, air and water, contaminations that coming generations will have to endure even after it has taken its toll on the current generation. The criminal nexus of the nuclear Industry and policy makers now stands exposed.

For the poor villagers in India, this would mean more displacement, land-grabbing, radiation and loss of livelihood. They are already under siege from their own government at the Koodankulam and Jaitapur nuclear sites.  

Support the people of India and Japan by signing the petition today!

Michigan State Senate passes resolution critical of proposed Canadian radioactive waste dump targeted at Great Lakes shore

MI State Senator HopwoodMichigan State Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood has issued a press release announcing this environmental victory. Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps testified at the MI State Senate Energy and Technology hearing yesterday, alongside Sen. Hopgood's constituent Ed McArdle of Melvindale, MI (and the Sierra Club South East MI Group's Conservation chair). They rebutted pro-dump testimony by proponent Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) chief of government and regulatory affairs, Kevin Powers. OPG wants to bury all of Ontario's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive waste (L&ILRW), from 20 reactors, in a "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) within 440 yards of the waters of Lake Huron. The proposed DGR would be located at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (one of the largest in the world, with a total of 9 reactors), just 50 miles to the east of Michigan, across Lake Huron.

Here is a link to Sen. Hopgood's press release, released May 22nd. The resolution passed by an 8 to 0 unanimous, bipartisan vote in committee, and a 26 to 0 unanimous, bipartisan vote before the full Senate.

Michigan State Representative Roberts is expected to introduce a similar resolution for consideration in the Michigan House of Representatives next week.

The Joint Review Panel, conducting the Canadian federal Environmental Assessement of OPG's proposed L&ILRW DGR, has announced that May 24th closes the public comment period regarding the sufficiency of documentation prior to moving into the full blown hearings. Kevin serves on Great Lakes United's (GLU) team in opposition to the DUD (critics' tongue-in-cheek acronym for the DGR). Kevin has been a member of the GLU Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force for over a decade.

Kevin emphasized during his testimony yesterday that the L&ILRW DUD could easily lead to a national Canadian high-level radioactive waste DUD in the same vicinity. Numerous municipalities, largely populated by Bruce Nuclear workers, have "volunteered" to be considered for this dubious distinction. Opposition is growing to these proposed DUDs, both locally, and regionally throughout the Great Lakes basin.

UCS charges NRC with "enabling unsafe and illegal operations" for non-enforcement of reactor coolant pressure boundary leakage

David Lochbaum (photo, left), the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), has written the five U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioners, and others at the agency responsible for enforcement of safety regulations. His letter is entitled "NRC's Enabling Unsafe and Illegal Operations." He criticizes the NRC for its routine "forgiveness" granted to nuclear utilities when safety-significant pressure boundary leakage occurs. Not only does NRC not revoke or suspend reactor operating licenses, it also does not issue fines, and often just treats the mishaps as non-cited violations, or as if no violation has even occurred. This is in direct contradiction of NRC safety regulations regarding such serious reactor risks.

Lochbaum describes a case of pressure boundary leakage at Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in southwest Michigan last summer. Whereas NRC regulations required reactor shutdown within six hours of discovery of the leakage, Entergy actually operated the reactor for a month. Despite dispatching a Special Inspection Team, NRC later reported "no findings of significance were identified." Lochbaum points out that NRC could fine Entergy $140,000 per day for the violation, or around $4 million all told, for this month-long pressure boundary leak. Yet NRC has fined Entergy not one penny.

Lochbaum included this near-miss in his annual report on nuclear safety at U.S. reactors. As he documents, Palisades has had three near-misses in two years, vying for the most of any reactor in the country.