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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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Gerd Büntzly, Crime Fighter

Gerd Büntzly (right) with attorney in appeals court

By John LaForge

HAMBURG, Germany — I was with Gerd Büntzly, 69, of Herford, in a demonstration in Germany July 17, 2017. So were Steve Baggarly, Susan Crane, and Bonnie Urfer, all of the United States. Ours was a peaceful if covert, night-time occupation of a protected aircraft shelter or bomb bunker far inside the Büchel Air Force Base, near the beautiful Mosel River valley.

We were there to help prevent the unlawful use of the shelter in nuclear attacks or nuclear war preparations. Routine nuclear war planning by US and German Air Force personnel there, using US B61 nuclear bombs (NATO’s so-called “nuclear sharing”), violates the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and several other international treaties, all binding on the United States and Germany.

A rally in support of Gerd took place before the hearing.

In spite of our formal complaint to state prosecutors against “selective prosecution” of Gerd, and the violation of his “equal protection” rights, only he was charged, tried, and convicted of trespass and property damage (for clipping fences) in January last year. This Jan. 16, he was in court again appealing the conviction. Susan Crane from California and I travelled to Koblenz to speak on his behalf. Attorneys were quite sure that we two could testify, but ultimately were not allowed.

We wanted to explain that international law has the force of state and federal law in Germany and the United States, a fact recognized by Germany’s Constitution (Art. 25) and the US Constitution (Art. 6). According to Univ. of Illinois Law School Prof. Francis Boyle, writing recently for other nuclear weapons resisters, “International law is not ‘higher’ or separate law; it is part and parcel of the structure of federal law. The Supreme Court so held in the landmark decision in The Paquete Habana (1900), that was recently reaffirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in 2006.”

Contrary to modern military strategists, there is no such thing as a “limited nuclear war.” Nuclear weapons only produce massacres. Beginning with 8 to 10 million degrees at detonation, followed by indiscriminate mass destruction from blast effects, city-size mass fires (firestorms) in which nothing survives, and uncontrollable radiation poisoning that produces genetic damage unlimited by space or time, nuclear weapons are just massacre delivery systems.

Supporters hoped to testify in the hearing.

International law has prohibited the planning and not just the commission of such massacres since 1946.

Professor Boyle wrote last November 1st: “The Judgment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal meted out severe punishment in 1946 against individuals who, acting in full compliance with domestic law but in disregard of the limitations of international law, had committed war crimes and crimes against peace as defined in its Charter.”

The Nuremberg Charter and Principles apply to individual civilians like us and oblige individuals to disobey domestic laws that protect government crimes. And Nuremberg prohibits all “planning and preparation” of wars that violate international treaties.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit indiscriminate attacks on noncombatants, attacks on neutral states, and long-term damage to the environment. The 1907 Hague Conventions forbid the use of poison and poisoned weapons under any circumstances.

Under the 1970 NPT, it is prohibited for Germany to receive nuclear weapons from the United States and for the US to transfer them to Germany. Germany and the United States are both formal state parties to all of these Treaties.

“By implication,” Boyle explains, “the Nuremberg Judgment privileges all citizens of nations engaged in war crimes to act in a measured but effective way to prevent the continuing commission of those crimes. The same Nuremberg Privilege is recognized in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice which has been adopted as a Treaty (the United Nations Charter) by the United States” [and Germany]. In my opinion, such action certainly includes nonviolent exposure and inspection of sites of ongoing war crimes.”

Because nuclear weapons cannot be used without violating these binding international treaties; since Germany and United States at Büchel are planning and preparing war that violates these treaties; and because the Nuremberg Charter and Principles forbid this planning and preparation, and apply to civilians and military personnel alike, and hold citizens individually responsible; and require citizens to disobey illegal orders, to refuse participation in or ignore international crimes, civil resistance at Büchel is no offense but a civic duty, a lawful obligation, and an act of crime prevention.

Some of the German and international supporters from the Netherlands and United States await the trial.

In the courtroom, crowded with 40 people, the three-person “bench” (two lay volunteers and one criminal court judge) found Gerd guilty — but reduced his fine from 1,200 Euros to 750 — after making a few standard quips about “deterrence.” Prescient as ever, Professor Boyle’s latest book is, “The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence” (Clarity Press 2013).

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Committed Loudmouths against Nuclear Lawlessness

Homeland Security or Abbott and Costello meet the Keystone Kops?
By John LaForge

HAMBURG, Germany — You have to wonder if the Department of Homeland Security is insecure or just lame.

On Dec. 31, I was just about to board a flight to Hamburg, when a pair of its employees stopped me and asked a few questions. My mistake was to forget to ask their names, their jobs, and if I was under arrest. Instead I calmly answered their irrelevant queries. Nothing they asked related to anybody’s homeland.

Three pieces of paper that one officer handed me did not concern me or my international travel plans. They were sections of the United States Code regarding “subversive activities” at United States military sites. I’m in Germany to attend the appeal court hearing of a nuclear weapons abolitionist, Gerd Büntzly, whom I joined in 2017, along with three other US citizens, in a protest at the German Air Base Büchel. There are 20 US-manufactured nuclear weapons (B61-4s) at the base, but it’s a German air base. The USAF just works there (under the name 702nd Munitions Support Squadron) to guard, support and train German pilots in use of the US H-bombs.

Gerd, 68, a German language teacher, pianist, orchestral arranger and former music teacher from Herford, Germany, intends to testify at his own appeal that nonviolent resistance at the Büchel base is a lawful act of crime prevention because Germany and the United States deploy the US nuclear bombs there in violation of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The NPT prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons to or from other states that have signed it. Both the US and Germany are parties to the NPT. (What the US has said to rationalize its nuclear lawlessness is: 1. The H-bombs are under USAF control at the base until war starts; and 2. The NPT doesn’t apply in wartime when the bombs would be transferred to German Tornado fighter jets.) Now that’s subversive activity at a military base!

One inquiring officer wanted a look inside my cornet case even though it had already passed two sets of airport security. (Of course, you never know about cornet players!) The other officer asked if I knew it was unlawful to enter a military installation without permission. I should know after having done so in at least two dozen protests. I said Yes.

After skimming the badly copied sections of the US Code, I asked why the officer was giving them to me. One said, “So you can’t say you haven’t been warned.” But none of the text I was given involved warnings, just federal statutory facts. The US Code is addressed to the US population as a whole. The material was neither addressed to me, nor had a date or the name of an issuing officer. Two pages had a DHS seal shabbily stamped in red. The pages were just photocopies or web page print-outs, complete with comical errors: One elaborately defined federal misdemeanor was said to have a penalty upon conviction of “a fine not to exceed ,000.” Wow, some warning.

The airport interruption was perhaps a sort of “proof of surveillance” demonstration by the cops — a useless and absurd one. One officer then felt the need to inform me that, “‘No trespassing’ signs at military bases are written in English.” I thought, What would become of the nation without the stern Dept. of Homeland Security!  I walked down the causeway to my seat.

Regular readers know that your Nukewatch reporter has protested and engaged in civil resistance against nuclear weapons and war since long before the advent of the Dept. of Homeland Security. Perhaps the attempted scare tactic was actually a message meant for everyone else. By reporting on the airport delay, maybe I only help the DHS put on notice those readers who may be considering opposition to US militarism.

What the DHS hasn’t figured out is that hokey theatrics used to shoo people away from political dissent only succeed against those few activists who were born yesterday. There are just too many time-honored, practical, hard-headed, ethical and strategic reasons for nonviolent political action (against the tyranny of the war system, misogyny, homophobia, racism, sexism and human exploitation) to ever intimidate committed loudmouths.

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Update on the Kings Bay Plowshares

from the Kings Bay Plowshares Support Group

December 22, 2018

Friends,

We are waiting for the decision on the Religious Freedom motions, fitting in this Advent season of waiting. A decision is expected by the end of January and then a trial date may be set. A memo from lead attorney Bill Quigley follows, explaining in more detail how he expects the legal process to proceed. There is also a note about Mark Colville’s decision to go back to jail after his successful cancer surgery.  As the season of giving comes upon us, we also come to you to ask for more donations.  

Mark Colville Returns to Jail

As you may know, Mark bonded out of the Glynn county jail in September to get surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his nose. He chose to go back to jail on December 11 after successful surgery and recovery. With the oppressive curfew restrictions and ankle monitor he felt that he was halfway in jail and getting no credit for it. So after some confusion as to how to proceed, as defendants rarely return voluntarily to custody after getting out on bail, he reentered the jail to join Steve Kelly and Liz McAlister and has the same address and number as previously. He wrote a moving letter before going in which is posted on the website in the Jail Addresses section.

LEGAL UPDATE

from Bill Quigley, November 19, 2018

Since the last update on 9.26.18, there have been two pre-trial hearings in federal court to allow the Kings Bay Plowshares to put on evidence about why their religious beliefs led them to take their actions and why this prosecution should be dismissed.  One hearing was on November 7, 2018 and the second was on November 19, 2018.

The Kings Bay Plowshares asked the court to dismiss these prosecutions for several reasons.  Nuclear weapons are illegal under US law.  Nuclear weapons are illegal under US Treaty Law.  Nuclear weapons are illegal under international law.  And prosecuting peace activists for taking action based on their religious beliefs violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The court heard arguments on the motion to dismiss and then asked for more briefing on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Additional briefs and affidavits on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act were submitted and are set out in the 9.26.18 legal update.  As part of those pleadings, the Kings Bay Plowshares asked for an opportunity to tell the court what their religious beliefs are and why those beliefs led them to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons at Kings Bay.

The court heard their testimony at the two November hearings. During those hearings each of the Kings Bay Plowshares took the stand and told the court why they took the actions they did.  The government put on a few witnesses as well arguing that there was no way the government could be expected to accommodate these actions by religious people.

At this time, the US Magistrate has not ruled on the pre-trial motions.  Once the hearings are transcribed both the prosecution and defense will be given 20 days to submit short memos.  Then the Magistrate will issue his report and recommendations on the various motions to dismiss filed by the defendants.

After the Magistrate issues his report and recommendations, those will be sent to US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood for her decision.  The Kings Bay Plowshares and the government will be given another opportunity to respond in writing and likely have oral argument on the pretrial motions to dismiss at that time.

Complicating all this is the fact that there is a new US Magistrate presiding over preliminary matters in the Kings Bay Plowshares federal prosecution.  Benjamin Cheesbro replaced Stan Baker as Magistrate after Baker was nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the US Senate to become a new District Court Judge.  Baker presided over the bond hearings and the first argument on the motion to dismiss.  Cheesbro took over and presided over the last two hearings.

Support the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven

You’re reading this because you are part of the Plowshares movement. You wonder and are concerned and pray around what will happen to our friends for their witness and sacrifice. You want to make the most of what they have given. Thank you.

You may have donated already. We ask you to give again. And ask one friend or several to join you. It will give you a chance to deepen their involvement for peace.

As you read herein, in November the seven had their hearing on their motion for dismissal under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and they are expecting to go to trial early next year. There are a lot of expenses involved around their witness and the trial and support. Almost everything, including their excellent legal defense team, is being done by volunteers. We have a budget of $50,000. We have raised about 70 percent of that goal so far. We need to cover upcoming housing, travel, and related expenses which will help with our efforts to maximize publicity and awareness.

Our friends have met the epic threat of omnicide with epic action and sacrifice. Let us support our sisters and brothers who put their lives and freedom on the line to shake our culture from its slumber, to witness us awake. Their action is necessary to our times. Please join this effort to support them and to amplify their call to action. You will be supporting local organizing in the community around the base as well as the trial costs.

Now we need your support to get us to our goal. Please give until it hur… feels really warm and fuzzy!

You can donate online at kingsbayplowshares7.org and click the donate button or send a check payable to Plowshares to PO Box 3087, Washington, DC 20010.

We can’t thank you enough for your support, for your being a part of the Plowshares support community, and helping to make the most of our friends’ witness and sacrifice.

Peace and blessings upon you this Christmas season!

 Steve Dear

 

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Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Gains Strength

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2018-19

On Nov. 1, 2018 the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of welcoming the adoption of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and calling on UN member states to join the treaty. The TPNW could come into force by the end of 2019, according to a report from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

So far, 60 states have signed the treaty and 19 have ratified. It will enter into force and become international law after 50 states ratify. Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, told Reuters in October, “We have about 25 or 30 countries that say they will be ready [to ratify] by the end of 2019, so it’s definitely possible” to pass the 50-country mark in 2019. The TPNW puts nuclear weapons in the same outlaw category as biological weapons, poison gas, land minds and cluster munitions, all of which are banned by treaties.

A newly launched watchdog publication, the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor will now measure progress related to signing, ratification, and entry into force of the TPNW.

Beatrice Fihn at Peace Prize Forum

“We started asking the people in power, ‘What’s your plan?’ …The serious hypocrisy at the heart of the [nuclear] doctrine was very conveniently ignored. Hypocrisy like the belief that increasing fear and uncertainty is the key to provide security. Hypocrisy like claiming, “Nuclear weapons mean power and security and stability, but weak and fragile states will not pursue them, that’s dangerous!’ Hypocrisy like asserting nuclear weapons prevent war, while going to war based on the real or made-up threat of states developing nuclear weapons. Hypocrisy like threatening to mass murder civilians as a means to promote peace….

“The real power of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the creation of the conditions for all states to reject nuclear weapons. Because it has become clear that they are heinous and shameful and have no place in a modern democracy that adheres to international norms of human rights, and the moral and legal prohibitions against targeting civilians in war.”—Augsburg Peace Prize Forum, Minneapolis, MN, Sept. 15, 2018

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