The text of the NIRS action alert:
Thousands of shipments of deadly, cancer-causing, high-level radioactive waste could be transported on trains, trucks, and barges through major cities in your state, and across the country, if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licenses an uneccessary nuclear waste dump in West Texas.
The clock is ticking for public input!
Waste Control Specialists (WCS), in Andrews County, Texas, is seeking to expand its existing hazardous waste site to include high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across the country. If approved, 40,000 tons of irradiated fuel rods from nuclear reactors around the country could be transported through major cities and farmlands to be stored for 40 years or longer on a concrete pad, creating a de facto permanent disposal facility at a site that has not been designed or evaluated for permanent isolation.
Tell the NRC we don't want WCS's high-level radioactive waste transport!
The communities near WCS are largely Latino and lack the resources to fight off a national radioactive waste dump. WCS's unprecedented, illegal high-level radioactive Consolidated "Interim" Storage dump would be near the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides vital drinking and irrigation water to much of the Central United States.
The NRC must conduct safety and environmental reviews before it decides whether to approve the dump application. Hundreds of Texas and New Mexico residents turned out last week to tell the NRC they don’t want a radioactive dump and nuclear waste shipments in their communities—now we all need to make our voices heard.
After decades of trying to force-feed the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump down the throats of Nevadans and the Western Shoshone Nation, nuclear proponents now want to endanger us all by transporting high-level waste across our country to targeted communities in West Texas.
The NRC has given no consideration to the rights of future generations who will inevitably be affected, and the communities today who will be affected most!
The NRC and the nuclear industry are eager to volunteer communities to take the waste absolving the industry of responsibility for managing the waste it creates before there is a proven solution for its long-term isolation. However, those who live near the site do not consent!
And thanks for all you do!
Tim Judson
Executive Director