Guest column: New Mexico nuclear facility is bad news

By Judy Treichel of Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, published in the Las Vegas Sun.

Court rejects George Norcross challenge to EDA task-force probe

As reported by Jim Walsch of the Cherry Hill Courier-Post.

Cherry Hill, NJ has long been a Holtec International headquarters location.

George Norcross III is a Holtec International board of directors member.

Although not mentioned in the article linked above, Holtec International and its CEO, Krishna Singh, are also under criminal investigation in New Jersey re: the NJ Economic Development Authority (EDA).

As revealed last year by ProPublica and WNYC, Holtec International CEO Krishna Singh provided false information, under oath, and signed his signature onto a NJ EDA tax break application form, winning him and Holtec $260 million in tax incentives. Singh and Holtec then used the money to build its newest headquarters and fabrication plant, in Camden, NJ.

The false statement involved Singh's denial that Holtec had ever been barred from doing business with a state of federal government agency. In fact, Holtec had been barred from doing business with the Tennessee Valley Authority, after a bribery conviction of a TVA official at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant. Singh was implicated in paying the official a $55,000 bribe, to secure a radioactive waste management contract at the triple-reactor facility in Alabama.

Also not mentioned in the article linked above is the fact that a third Norcross brother serves as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Rep. Norcross (D-NJ) has voted in favor of legislation favorable to Holtec International, namely the legalization of the U.S. Department of Energy taking title (ownership) and liability for irradiated nuclear fuel at a private interim storage site, even in the absence of a licensed and operating deep geologic repository. Holtec International has applied for a license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility in New Mexico, and hopes DOE (that is, American taxpayers) will pay all the bills (including a handsome profit margin to Holtec). Never mind that the law of the land has long been that, while DOE (taxpayers) is responsible for permanent disposal, the nuclear utilities are responsible for interim storage.

The Thom Hartmann Program: 173,000 Tons of Nuclear Waste Under Your Feet! (w/Beyond Nuclear)

Thom HartmannThey want to double the amount of nuclear waste buried under your feet... Trump wants to test nuclear weapons ... you are about to be exposed to nuclear waste ... Nuclear waste is about to be buried in New Mexico. Really? A vast waste facility to be built in NM with both reprocessing and simply dumping it. How will the fresh water you drink be affected? Kevin Kamps joined Thom to discover the news of nuclear waste coming to NM.

Thom Hartmann (photo, left) hosts Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps. Watch/listen to the recording, here.

Beyond Nuclear public comments #10, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS -- re: NRC collusion with Holtec on CISF rubber-stamp is illegal, dangerous

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear NRC Staff,

NRC's collusion and complicity in rubber-stamping license application approvals for CISFs -- both Holtec/ELEA's in NM, as well as ISP/WCS's in TX -- is objectionable. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supposed to protect public health, safety, security, and the environment. As the country's nuclear safety regulatory agency, NRC is not a policy setting agency, and is not supposed to promote nuclear power industry schemes, such as these CISFs.

Yet, at its late 2015 Division of Spent Fuel Management RegCon (Regulatory Conference), NRC's Tony Hsia, Acting Director of the Division of Spent Fuel Management, in his closing remarks, concluded the two-day symposium with no less than a pep rally cry. He passionately called for industry and NRC (as well as DOE, and other nuclear establishment players) to work together ("[If we] all work together, we can make it [centralized interim storage] happen!"), to open de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dumps, such as at Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, TX, and/or Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, near WIPP in NM. He even pumped his fist in the air when he did so. Such advocacy in favor of the proposed CISFs, by a senior NRC manager, was incredibly inappropriate.

Such schizophrenic safety regulation/industry promotion imbalance is what led to the demise of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission by the mid-1970s. Stringent safety regulation and unbridled industry advocacy are mutual exclusive, of course. NRC rose from AEC's ashes with the clear mandate to "protect people and the environment," as the NRC logo puts it. DOE was given the nuclear advocacy role, embodied in its unbridled Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE). NRC has violated its mandate. It has strayed very far into the policy setting and industry advocacy arena.

NRC Staff, as well as the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, and even the NRC Commissioners, have done so ever since Tony Hsia's incredibly inappropriate pep rally cheer in favor of CISF licensing in late 2015. NRC's complicity and collusion with Holtec/ELEA and ISP/WCS is not only immoral and illegal, it is very dangerous.

The Japanese Parliament concluded that the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe was collusion between regulator, industry, and government officials. It was the reason the three reactors, that melted down and exploded, were so very vulnerable to the earthquake and tsunami that struck them on 3/11/11 in the first place. Such dangerous collusion exists in spades in the U.S., as on radioactive waste, as between NRC (Staff, Licensing Board Panel, and Commissioners) and Holtec/ELEA, re: the proposed CISF in NM.

These comments are submitted on behalf of our members and supporters in NM and TX, and across the U.S. along impacted Mobile Chernobyl transport routes.

Please acknowledge receipt of these comments. Thank you.

Beyond Nuclear public comments #9, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 -- re: Cerro Grande Fire exacerbates the environmental injustice of the Holtec CISF scheme

Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>

Dear NRC Staff,

On Sunday, May 10, 2020, the following article was published:

• Santa Fe New Mexican - Cerro Grande Fire remains burned into New Mexico's memory 20 years later - By Scott Wyland

This is yet another reason that the Holtec/ELEA CISF targeted at NM is one environmental justice burden too many. So too the WCS/ISP CISF targeted at the NM border at Eunice, just a mile or so into TX. NM has suffered enough from the nuclear industry already.

This radioactive and toxic fallout cloud plume from the Cerro Grande Fire is clearly shown on the New Mexico Hazards Map ("Water, Air and Land: A Sacred Trust") by Deborah Reade of Santa Fe, NM.

The map is posted online here:

<http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28292760/1588368272923/2020-ThreatsMap_11x17-v2.pdf?token=rKnPVLIVS7XK7el37EtcjRJ1JQM%3D>

NM has too long shouldered too many EJ burdens -- nuclear, fossil fuel, and other hazards.

For this reason alone, the Holtec/ELEA CISF is a non-starter, as yet another, major, EJ violation.

So too is the WCS/ISP CISF in TX, a mile or so from the NM border at Eunice.

These comments are submitted on behalf of our members and supporters in NM and TX, as well as across the U.S. along the impacted transport routes.

Please acknowledge the receipt of these comments. Thank you.