Will America’s Nuclear Waste Problem Be Passing through MO, KS, and NE?
Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, is on a speaking tour in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, addressing the risks of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) transportation. (See links to his presentations, media interviews, etc., below.)
Centralized interim storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas propose commencing large-scale HLRW shipments (by road, rail, and/or waterway) in the early 2020s; the permanent dump targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada is still coveted by U.S. House Republicans like John Shimkus (IL) and Fred Upton (MI). Any one or more of these dumps opening would launch unprecedented thousands of truck, train, and/or barge shipments of HLRW across most states. Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska would be hard hit, as mostly Eastern HLRWs would travel through, for dumping in the Southwest. (90% of reactors, and HLRW, are in the eastern half of the U.S.; 75% are east of the Mississippi River.)
As March 28, 2019 marks the 40th annual commemoration of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 meltdown near Harrisburg, PA, it is especially important to learn the lessons, and hear the cautionary tales, from survivors of that disaster -- including what they have to say about the risks of high-level radioactive waste transportation.
See the following three videos/animations, prepared as part of a press conference held in the PA state capitol builiding, conducted by Beyond Nuclear and Three Mile Island Alert on 10/2/2018 (an earlier HLRW transport risk speaking tour stop, which also addressed reactor safety issues):
See a 2.5 minute video entitled "Radioactive Waste Transport Risks in Pennsylvania," showing transport road and rail routes for irradiated nuclear fuel shipments by heavy-haul truck and train, from the Peach Bottom and Three Mile Island nuclear power plants. The video was captured by drone, and shows an aerial perspective on the shipment routes. (As shown in the aerial imagery, and as documented in the 2008 U.S. Department of Energy Yucca Mountain, Nevada High-Level Radioactive Waste Repository Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement map in Appendix G, Figure G-36, Page G-128, as compared to a GIS rail and road network, the heavy-haul truck road route from Peach Bottom is on State Route 74, from Lower Chanceford, to Red Lion, to Dallastown, to York, where the irradiated nuclear fuel shipping containers would be loaded onto the Norfolk Southern railway; in the case of TMI, the irradiated nuclear fuel would use the Norfolk Southern railroad. A special thank you to Dr. Fred Dilger for documenting and confirming all of this in his 2017 documents, posted at the very top of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's web site.)
Watch "Eye-Witness to Rule-Breaking," a 2-minute video prepared by Scott Portzline, documenting both low-level and high-level radioactive waste transport incidents he observed with his own eyes, in and around his home in Harrisburg, PA.
Watch a 1-mintue animation entitled "Nuclear Waste Transport," also prepared by Portzline.
And along those lines, read an article, "Mobile Meltdown: TMI Train Troubles," written by Kay Drey and Kevin Kamps (currently serving as Beyond Nuclear's board president, and radioactive waste specialist, respectively), which was published in the NIRS/WISE Nuclear Monitor at the time of the TMI Unit 2 meltdown's 25th annual commemoration in 2004.
All of these lessons learned from TMI, and PA, can and should be applied elsewhere, as in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and beyond.
Kevin was interviewed on Columbia's community radio station, KOPN, on March 19th, from 6-7pm, on the program "Evening Edition."
Here is the link to the KOPN "Evening Edition" recording of the interview.
Kevin presented to a peace studies class at UM in Columbia on March 20th.
On Friday, March 22nd, Kevin will be in Lawrence, KS. The presentation will be from 5-7pm, at the First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, Lawrence, KS 66047. This event is sponsored by LETUS (Lawrence Ecology Teams United in Sustainability), the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice (LCPJ), and Sustainability Action Network.
The next events will be in Nebraska, in Lincoln on Monday, March 25th (at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A Street), and in Omaha on Tuesday, March 26th (at UNO - Community Engagement Center, Rooms 201/205, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha NE; Free parking is available in Lot E - between the clock tower and library - and in all other parking lots on campus).
The final event will be in St. Louis, MO on Monday, April 1st. The event will begin at 7pm. It will be held at Schlafly's Tap Room. For more info., see links below:
Blog post on Great River Environmental Law Center website: https://greatriverslaw.org/2019/03/17/join-us-for-nuclear-fools-day-on-april-1st
RSVP Form: https://goo.gl/forms/RmnFWUlW3bImULex1
March 20, 2019