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Proposed Nuclear Waste Dump and Nationwide Shipments Called “Unlawful”

NOTE: This piece was shortened for space from for print version of Spring 2019 Nukewatch Quarterly from a Nuclear Information Resource Service press release by Diane D’Arrigo and Leona Morgan.

Ten citizens’ organizations and two industry groups have blasted an application by Holtec International, Inc. for a license to build the world’s largest radioactive waste dump—in New Mexico. If licensed, the “parking lot dump” would lead to tens of thousands of cross-country shipments of the waste—by trains, trucks, and barges—for decades.

Official waste transport routes show containers moving across nearly 90% of US congressional districts, through neighborhoods, cities, farmlands, ocean-fronts, and across major lakes and rivers. Representing seven of the groups, attorney Terry Lodge said at a recent New Mexico hearing, “The Holtec proposal is a corporate welfare trough that will make the [radioactive] waste problem worse, putting millions of people along transport routes at unnecessary risk.”

The interveners filed 40 objections, demanding that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board halt the licensing process, charging that the plan is unlawful. The federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) allows the Department of Energy (DOE) to take possession of the commercial reactor waste, but only at a permanent underground dump site. The NWPA does not permit “title and liability transfer” of the waste to a private “interim” dump site as Holtec proposes. The NWPA precaution is intended to prevent temporary storage from becoming permanent. Holtec’s proposed site in New Mexico is not suitable for long-term waste isolation, the groups argue, and not even suitable for short-term storage.

At the hearing in New Mexico, Holtec lawyer Jay Silberg admitted that under current law, DOE cannot take title to the waste at its “interim” dump site. The admission prompted Diane Curran, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear, to say, “We should not even have to argue this hypothetical case. We call on the licensing board to dismiss the application.”

Sierra Club lawyer Wallace Taylor said at the hearing, “It is irresponsible and illegal to grant a license for 20, 40 or 60 years and ignore that the waste will be dangerous for centuries longer with no plans to continue managing and isolating it.”

Among the objections are environmental racism; water contamination; inadequate waste containers; inability to inspect, monitor or repackage waste inside the casks; waste abandonment costs and funding; and needless transport endangerment.

The 3-judge NRC panel could decide in April which groups have “standing” to intervene, and which of the 40 objections will be considered.

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Allies Move to Block High-Level Radioactive Waste Targeted for New Mexico: HOLTEC Proposes World’s Largest Nuclear Dump and Nationwide Shipment of N-Waste

By Diane D’Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Leona Morgan, Nuclear Issues Study Group

In this photo from the 1970s, barges from KPS Construction help in the construction of the Kewaunee nuclear reactor on Lake Michigan. Federal plans envision the use of barges like these to move hundreds of tons of highly radioactive waste fuel rods from the now closed Kewaunee reactor to the port of Milwaukee. Photo by Power Engineering online.

[Albuquerque, NM]  Ten organizations* and two industry groups** blasted Holtec International’s application*** to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to build and operate the world’s largest nuclear waste dump in New Mexico. The waste, from commercial nuclear power is currently at the reactor sites where it was produced. Opening a high-level waste dump, if licensed, would lead to tens of thousands of ongoing high level radioactive waste shipments on rail, truck and boat for decades. Deadly containers would pass through nearly 90% of U.S. Congressional districts including neighborhoods, cities, farmlands, lakes, rivers and ocean-fronts. The waste is the hottest, most concentrated atomic waste from the nuclear fuel chain, misleadingly dubbed “spent” fuel.  This radioactive waste can cause death in minutes if unshielded, and remains radioactive for literally millions of years; it is one of the most deadly materials on Earth.

The organizations are demanding that the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board halt the Holtec licensing because it is illegal. The federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended, only allows the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to take ownership of irradiated nuclear fuel at an operating permanent geologic repository. Such a title and liability transfer to DOE at the “interim” site proposed by Holtec, is not allowed. The wise precaution was included in the law to safeguard against an “interim” surface site becoming de facto permanent in the absence of a permanent repository. The Holtec site  would not be suitable for long-term isolation and, in the view of those challenging Holtec, it is also not suitable for short-term storage.

The Holtec license application says the lethal waste at the site would be owned by either the Department of Energy (DOE) or the nuclear utility companies that made it. But at the hearing, Holtec’s lawyer, Jay Silberg, admitted that under current law DOE cannot take title and ownership of the waste at an “interim” centralized storage site. This makes the proposal unrealistic.

Diane Curran, attorney for Beyond Nuclear, said “We should not even have to argue this hypothetical case. We call on the licensing board to dismiss the application.”

Attorney Terry Lodge, representing seven organizations from California to New York and Michigan to New Mexico charged that, “The Holtec proposal is a corporate welfare trough that will make the nuclear waste problem in this country worse, putting millions of people along transport routes at unnecessary risk.”

Sierra Club lawyer Wallace Taylor, argued against the segmented licensing stating that, “It is irresponsible and illegal to grant a license for 20, 40 or 60 years and ignore that the waste will be dangerous for centuries longer with no plans to continue managing and isolating it.”

Holtec admitted they do not have a way to repair cracked storage and transport canisters but stated that since they are not expecting cracked canisters they don’t have to prepare to deal with them.

Major questions were raised about how waste would get to New Mexico (which has no commercial nuclear power reactors); how long it would stay (forever?); who would pay; and who would be liable for the statistically-inevitable accidents and radioactive releases, both in transit and at the site.

Alliance For Environmental Strategies (AFES), based in southeastern New Mexico, is charging that the siting violates principles of environmental justice and that Holtec’s Environmental Report is totally inadequate in this regard.

Given admissions by Holtec, it seems that nuclear power companies would have to keep title, pay to transport the waste and remain economically and legally liable, which they will not be willing to do. This makes funding for the Holtec dump operation and eventual closure highly questionable.

Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said “New Mexico could end up holding the bag, threatening the thriving industries already in the region including dairy, pecan farming and ranching. Mixing high-level radioactive waste with the booming Permian Basin oil and gas industry is a recipe for disaster. Everyone along the transport routes would be at personal and economic risk because all insurance policies expressly state they will not cover radioactive accidents or incidents. Check your own auto, renters and homeowners policies,” she advised.

Approximately 40 objections were filed, including environmental racism/injustice; danger of contaminating water; inadequate radioactive waste containers and storage systems; no ability to inspect, monitor or repackage damaged fuel and containers; condition of the waste after extended storage; eventual decommissioning costs and funding; next destination of the waste when the temporary storage license expires and unnecessary transport dangers.

Curran stated that “Holtec’s environmentally reckless, poorly conceived dump proposal is an environmental, economic fiasco for the State of New Mexico and for communities all across the country from nuclear power reactors to the Holtec site.”

The 3 judge panel will decide in about 45 days, mid-March to early April, 2019, who will have standing and which objections will be considered.

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*Organizations: Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear, Alliance for Environmental Strategies (NM), Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (MI), Citizens Environmental Coalition (NY), Don’t Waste Michigan (MI), Mothers for Peace (CA), Nuclear Energy Information Service (IL), Nuclear Issues Study Group (NM)

**Industries: Faskin Oil, NAC International

*** Holtec International’s HI–STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) Project, NRC Docket No. 72-1051; Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 95 / Wednesday, May 16, 2018

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England Dumps Rad Sludge in Welsh Waters

By Kelly Lundeen

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

A plan to continue dumping some 330,000 tons of contaminated mud was approved by the Welsh Assembly on Oct. 10, 2018 following its inadequate testing for radioactivity. The sludge is being dredged from England’s Hinkley Point C reactor construction site, loaded onto a barge, often at night, and taken across the Bristol Channel into Welsh waters, where it is dumped. The first round of dumping ended in October, and will resume in January 2019. The Welsh Assembly’s decision relied on data from a study verified by Natural Resources Wales that stated, “The material tested did not have unacceptable levels of chemicals or [radioactive] materials and was suitable for disposal at sea.”

However the material tested was only skimmed from the top two inches of sediments. Past discharges of radionuclides (radioactive materials) from Hinkley Point would have been found in higher concentrations at deeper levels. Moreover, the tests did not look for uranium, plutonium or about 90% of other radionuclides potentially present. Not surprisingly, the tests found that the mud “poses no threat to human health or the environment,” and therefore was not classified as radioactive and not subject to international treaties prohibiting such dumping. The question is begged: If the mud poses no threat, why don’t the English dump it in their waters?

—Beyond Nuclear International, Oct. 15, 2018; Natural Resources Wales, Updated Oct. 9, 2018; Wales Online, Aug. 16, 2018.

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Parking Lot Radioactive Waste Dumps

Cross-country transport of the high level radioactive waste would be mostly by rail along with some highway and barge shipments.

By Leona Morgan, Nuclear Issues Study Group
Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

Plans for so-called Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) in the desert Southwest are a threat to anyone living, working, or traveling near HLRW casks being transported, and that could mean most of the US population. HLRW is the most radioactive and long-lived waste left by nuclear reactors and must be containerized for over 1-million years.

Two firms, Holtec International and Waste Control Specialists (WCS), have each proposed building and operating “temporary” parking lot storage facilities with enough space for more than two times the volume of all the waste (“spent”) nuclear reactor fuel currently in the United States. Holtec plans a site in Southeast New Mexico near Hobbs; WCS plans a site in Andrews County in far west Texas. Cross-country transport of the waste would be mostly by rail along with some highway and barge shipments.

According to the national Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as amended, temporary CIS sites are not legally allowed unless a permanent waste repository is already operating. A June 2017 House Resolution (HR 3053) introduced by Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill, was aimed at allowing CIS facilities to be built; it passed the House in May 2018, but is expected to die this year without a corresponding senate bill. Despite the question of legality, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is still considering the two CIS license applications and has been moving forward with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) processes.

Holtec’s NEPA scoping period ended July 30, and garnered 30,000 public comments. The NRC has announced that a Draft Environmental Impact Statement can be expected in June of 2019. WCS’s initial application process started and was paused last year due to the company’s financial issues. The NRC began a second scoping period this year. As of the mid-November deadline, it is estimated that 40,000 total comments were sent.

WCS’s financial problems were resolved enough to move forward when it was acquired by J.F. Lehman & Company. (Lehman’s chairman and founding partner John Francis Lehman, Jr. was allowed to go un-prosecuted for his involvement in the 1991 Tailhook Scandal where at least 83 women and 7 men were sexually assaulted by more than 100 US military officers in Las Vegas, Nevada.)

Legal challenges opposing both Holtec’s and WCS’s plans have been filed, and pre-hearing oral arguments for Holtec are scheduled for January 23 and 24, 2019 in Albuquerque, NM.

With all these events taking place, local communities in both New Mexico and Texas are actively working to inform the public and to build awareness regarding HLRW moving through their regions. Awareness has created both opposition, and support for the projects, but public opposition is much stronger than support. However, the strength of the opposition seemed to be trumped by big industry and government, especially in the current national administration.

The public has spoken out with the passage of 18 resolutions opposing CIS and related transport from counties and municipalities in New Mexico and Texas. There is only one resolution from a local community in support of CIS.

With the introduction of H.R. 3053 and NRC processing CIS applications, we have learned that the cancelled Yucca Mt. waste site is still being supported by some Congress and the nuclear industry. While government and industry have kept the public out of the debate as much as possible, people are becoming more aware and actively engaged in speaking out against both CIS proposals.

Although there is no current public comment period, the public can always send letters to the NRC and is strongly encouraged to educate local officials about CIS—and to encourage any type of official public opposition to these temporary “Band-Aid” storage sites and the deadly transport of waste reactor fuel through your community.

—Leona Morgan works with the Nuclear Issues Study Group in New Mexico

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The White House Vs. Radiation Science & Health: Expanding Exposures Would Save Industry Billions

Radiation Can Smash Apart DNA

Experts at the US National Academies of Science settled a big question in 2005, and the president’s business friends don’t like the answer. Is there a dose of radiation so low that it is harmless? (Ionizing radiation is the alpha and beta particles, and the neutron, gamma and X-rays given off by radioactive materials in medicine, the military, industry, and reactor operations.) The NAS published its answer in its seventh edition of “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation” (BEIR-VII), where it emphatically said: “No.” As they had done many times before, the NAS concluded that any radiation exposure, no matter how slight, carries a risk of causing cancer or other illnesses.

The NAS panel that produced BEIR-VII “could not ignore the current body of scientific studies that are now recognizing harmful and hitherto unpredicted effects at very low doses of radiation,” said Cindy Folkers at Nuclear Information & Resource Service in Takoma Park, MD.

But like the handful of scientists who stand against the 98% and say climate change is not caused by industrialism, there are a couple of nuclear-happy quacks who say radiation exposure is good for us. The President wants us to believe them. (Time: “Trump Administration Moving to Weaken EPA Radiation Regulations”)

Like scientists in the tobacco industry who conned millions and even got company CEOs to lie to Congress about their knowledge of cigarette hazards, some nuclear industry-sponsored researchers claim that low doses of radiation are harmless and could even act like inoculations. This “hormesis” theory was explicitly rejected in BEIR-VII. Dr. Peter Crane, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission attorney told the New York Times in Sept. 2015, “[T]he National Academies of Science, along with the rest of mainstream scientific authority, regard hormesis as wholly without merit.” A separate study published in Radiation Research in 2005 and reported in the journal Science was said to be “the latest blow to the [hormesis] notion that there is a threshold of exposure to radiation below which there is no health threat (and there might even be a benefit).”

Trying to Save the Industry Billions

In 2002, Roger Clark, President of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), warned in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that “Some people think that too much money is being spent to achieve low levels of residual contamination.” They want, “a threshold in the dose-response relationship in order to reduce expenditure,” Clark said.

As Science reported in 1999, “Billions of dollars are at stake. Stricter standards could increase the amount that agencies and industries must spend to clean up radioactive waste and protect workers.” In June 2015, a landmark international study reported in The Lancet Haematology presented “strong evidence of positive associations between protracted low-dose radiation exposure and leukemia.” The journal Nature said of the study: “The finding … scuppers the popular idea that there might be a threshold dose below which radiation is harmless — and provides scientists with some hard numbers to quantify the risks of everyday exposures.”

Now, as with climate change deniers and tobacco hucksters, fringe scientists are singing the de-regulation song that Trump’s industrialists wants to hear. If weakened radiation exposure limits are approved by Congress, the nuclear industry will save billions and its profit margins could grow as fast as lung tumors.

The public and the scientific community must fight back. There is no safe level of exposure to ionizing radiation. Even the smallest radiation exposures have cellular-level effects. The EPA website has said for years: “Based on current scientific evidence, any exposure to radiation can be harmful (or can increase the risk of cancer)… In other words, it is assumed that no radiation exposure is completely risk free.” Every US government agency that regulates radiation releases or its medical use makes the same warning — based on BEIR-VII (BEIR-VI, BEIR-V, etc.) In 1989, the National Academy’s BEIR-V quadrupled the risk of cancer from low-dose radiation exposures, and warned explicitly about “a much greater danger” of mental retardation among babies exposed in the womb to radiation.

An under-reported concern about radiation is the fact that internal contamination is far more dangerous than the same exposure outside the body.

In Oct. 2004, the British government’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters reported that low-level radiation from nuclear reactors may be up to 10 times more hazardous when ingested or inhaled than previously estimated. Dr. Chris Busby, the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, compares the two harms this way: “Externally, think of exposure like being warmed before a glowing fireplace. Internally, think of taking a hot coal from that fire and popping it into your mouth.”

When radioactive materials are vented, dumped or leaked, they contaminate soil, water, rainfall and food, and they can then be inhaled or ingested. Some persist in the environment for centuries. Tritium (radioactive hydrogen) is released to the air and to bodies of water by reactors and nuclear wastes. It persists for 120 years. Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility wrote Sept. 30 that, “Tritium gets built right into the body’s organic molecules, including DNA molecules. Precisely because tritium is so difficult to control, and so easily dispersed into the air and the water around nuclear facilities, industry experts advocate for lax standards and permissive practices regarding release.”

Dozens of studies indicate that low doses of radiation given over long periods of time are far more dangerous than the industry and the government claim. Infant mortality rates and childhood leukemia rates both increase in areas downwind from operating reactors. By 1999, the government finally admitted that radiation exposures endured for years by nuclear weapons workers had made them sick, contrary to decades of repeated assurances that the doses were harmless.

We all have a responsibility to reject Trump’s nuclear bailout which would expose everyone to more radiation, and instead to demand a robust strengthening of radiation protection regulations particularly with respect to infants and children.     — John LaForge

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