Thank you to Karen Hadden of SEED Coalition (Sustainable Energy & Economic Development) in Austin, TX for this comprehensive action alert:
Hi Everyone, YOUR VOICE IS URGENTLY NEEDED!
Thursday, OCT. 1st 5-8 pm Central/6-9pm Eastern
NRC Public Meeting (Online) - Friends in Texas, New Mexico and around the country are urged to join in and speak out! We urgently need everyone’s voices…
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must hear our voices, loud and clear... That we don't want the nation's deadliest nuclear reactor waste dumped on Texas! ...Or transported needlessly throughout the country, creating risks of disaster from accidents, leaks or sabotage. The dangerous proposal by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) / Interim Storage Partners would accomplish nothing. Deadly nuclear waste would be stored above-ground for decades in the desert, not go into a permanent repository. Extreme temperatures, flooding, wildfires and strong winds would likely lead to cracked, eroding containers - at WCS' site near the nation's largest aquifer, the Ogallala. Water contamination could impact millions of people, wildlife and businesses. The region has earthquakes as well. Andrews County, where the waste would go, was the epicenter of a 4.7 earthquake in 1992. Earthquakes and radioactive waste are a bad combination.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE… Please call in, and use a computer to see the slides*. No audio is available online, only by phone.
OCT 1st at 5 PM Central - NRC public meeting:
Teleconference: Bridge Number (888) 989-9268 Pass Code 5300047
Press *1 [star-one] as soon as you get through, which allows you to talk when it's your turn. Speakers typically get 3 minutes.
Webinar: https://usnrc.webex.com/ Meeting number 199 125 5213 Password ISPDEIS
[*It is actually much easier to simply advance the slides of the slideshow oneself, while listening to the audio portion of slideshow presentation via telephone connection. Here are links to the slideshow presentation:
Regarding the presentation slides the NRC staff will use in this Thursday’s meeting, the slides are available in ADAMS and through the NRC’s public website for its review of the Interim Storage Partners license application. You can find them using these links: in ADAMS and the NRC public website.]
Talking Points / Risks / Key issues
- HALT LICENSING NOW!
- This deadly waste shouldn’t be shipped across the country to be dumped in the Southwest for decades... perhaps forever.
- Fails to get the waste into a permanent repository
- Could hamper efforts to develop less risky storage systems and permanent disposal
- This waste must be isolated from living things for a million years. Consolidated Interim Storage is a band-aid approach that makes matters worse, not better.
- It would be massive environmental injustice
- Health and safety risks from potential contamination
- Transportation risks - accidents, leaks, sabotage, and even routine transport emissions, which the NRC calls "less than a chest X-ray"
- Impacts to water, air, soil - WCS site is near the Ogallala Aquifer - the nation's largest aquifer
- Financial risks - could cost billions of dollars to remediate contamination
- Lack of a dry cask transfer facility - so there would be no way to repackage cracked or leaking canisters
- The region has temperature extremes, wildfires, intense winds, flooding - not safe for radioactive waste.
- Earthquakes and radioactive waste don't mix
- Impacts to businesses - the Permian Basin region is the largest oil-producing region in the world.
- Heavy trains, train traffic, lack of safety training and equipment, Lack of full-time paid fire departments in many areas.
- Consolidated Interim Storage is ILLEGAL under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.... NRC has no business processing this license application by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) / Interim Storage Partners (ISP) for Texas - or the Holtec application for nearby New Mexico.
- Resolutions opposing nuclear waste dumping and transport have been passed by Dallas, Bexar, Nueces, Midland and El Paso Counties, and the cities of San Antonio, Midland and Denton, plus the Midland Chamber of Commerce. This represents the voices of 5.4 million Texans.
- These inadequate webinars make a mockery of "public meetings". The NRC must schedule real, in-person public meetings after Covid risks are over - in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Midland and Andrews in Texas and along transport routes across the country. The comment period should remain open until this is accomplished.
Resources: [Linked below] you’ll find a press release about the NRC meetings, a fact sheet, City rail maps for Texas - radioactive waste could travel on any commercial rail line, and comments submitted to NRC previously by SEED Coalition and Public Citizen. Lastly, there is a slide presentation that was used previously for the scoping part of this EIS process.
LINKS:
(2.) Fact Sheet;
(3.) City Rail Maps for Texas;
The NRC had failed to post or email the slides to be used for Oct. 1 - despite repeated requests to do so -- [for days and weeks on end. At long last, just a day before the Oct. 1st meeting, NRC finally made the slideshow available, as mentioned above:
Here are links to the slideshow presentation:
Regarding the presentation slides the NRC staff will use in this Thursday’s meeting, the slides are available in ADAMS and through the NRC’s public website for its review of the Interim Storage Partners license application. You can find them using these links: in ADAMS and the NRC public website.]
[Please note that in the NRC DEIS all of the risks are considered SMALL, or on occasion MODERATE. (Pseudoscience…)]
Thanks, Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481
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