Resisting environmental racism at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Corbin Harney (standing), Western Shoshone spiritual leader, and Raymond Yowell, then Western Shoshone Indian Nation chief, at Peace Camp, NV, Oct. 2002, leading protests against nuclear weapons testing, militarism, and radioactive waste dumping at the Nevada Test Site. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova.November 20th marked the end of a rushed, "going-through-the motions" Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a thinly veiled attempt to revive the cancelled Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump in Nevada.

NRC didn't even bother to provide advance notice to the affected Indian tribes downstream from the targeted site, let alone consult with them in a government-to-government manner, as is the agency's legal obligation. But at least NRC is consistent: it didn't provide any funding to the tribes, either, placing an extraordinary burden on the tribal nations to meet the arbitrarily-short deadline. In this regard, NRC's SDEIS public comment proceeding itself was a violation of environmental justice (EJ), not to mention the agency's biased push to bury 70,000 metric tons, or more, of high-level radioactive waste on indigenous land, guaranteed to leak into the precious, even sacred, drinking water supply.

Despite NRC's own EJ violations, the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and the Native Community Action Council met the deadline, with powerful comments. They thereby continued a tradition of protecting Yucca Mountain, and its groundwater, that dates back not just years or decades, but centuries and millenia, to time immemorial. More.

New Canadian government could derail plans for nuclear waste dump near Lake Huron

The targeted location where the DGR would be built at OPG's Bruce NGS on the Lake Huron shore in Kincardine, ONAs reported by Michigan Radio and the AP, the Liberal Party's decisive election victory on Oct. 19th gives hope to opponents of Ontario Power Generation's proposed Deep Geologic Repository for burying radioactive waste on the Great Lakes shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario (see photo, left). They hope Prime Minister Trudeau will nip the DUD in the bud (DUD, short for Deep Underground Dump, is the abbreviation coined by David Martin of Greenpeace Canada for the insane scheme). More.

Beyond Nuclear submits public comments to CEAA and the Canadian federal Environment Minister opposing the DUD

OPG wants to dump Ontario's radioactive wastes less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron!Beyond Nuclear has submitted yet another round of public comments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and Canadian federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, opposing Ontario Power Generation's Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for radioactive waste burial targeted at the Great Lakes shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario.

David Martin of Greenpeace Canada dubbed the DGR the DUD, for Deep Underground Dump.

To see what YOU can do to help stop the DUD, visit Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section!

Update on September 2, 2015 by admin

See the comments submitted by Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

DTE doesn't oppose holding Fermi 3 Nuclear Waste Confidence matters in abeyance, pending resolution of NY v. NRC II appeal

On July 31st, Detroit Edison filed a response to Beyond Nuclear et al.'s motion to hold the proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor proceeding in abeyance. The nuclear utility agreed with Beyond Nuclear that the Nuclear Waste Confidence aspects of the proceeding should be held in abeyance, pending resolution of New York v. NRC II. However, DTE emphasized its desire that the other matters on appeal -- namely, quality assurance (or lack thereof), and transmission corridor "pre-construction" National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)-compliance (or lack thereof) -- be resolved ASAP.

Detroit Edison proposes building a General Electric-Hitachi ESBWR (so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor") at its Fermi nuclear power plant site in Monroe County, MI, on the Lake Erie shoreline.

Permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste, at a geologic repository, is -- or should be -- an aspect of NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence policy, renamed Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel in 2014. In its June 2012 ruling in New York v. NRC (I), the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered NRC to analyze the impacts of a repository never being opened.

Essentially, NRC has not done so. NRC has merely expressed continued confidence that irradiated nuclear fuel can, and will, be stored safely, securely, and soundly, indefinitely into the future. This "assumed safety" applies not only at on-site storage at reactor sites, but also away from reactors, at centrailzed interim storage sites.

Beyond Nuclear's appeal against Nuclear Waste Confidence at Fermi 3 challenges this "assumption of safety." NEPA requires a "hard look," actual concerted analysis, at environmental impacts of a proposed action, such as NRC approving new reactor licenses, as at Fermi 3, which will inevitably lead to the generation, and storage, of high-level radioactive waste. And the Atomic Energy Act requires NRC establish "reasonable assurance of adequate protection" of public health and safety, which NRC has not done in its Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel GEIS (Generic Environmental Impact Statement) and Rule.

The risk of a repository never opening would exacerbate such on-site and away from reactor (centralized or consolidated interim storage) risks. However, despite the court order, NRC has not analyzed this risk of a repository never opening, nor the exacerbation of storage risks this would cause at, and away from, reactors.

Aug. 16, Rally in Port Huron, MI to stop a nuclear waste dump on Lake Huron shore!

DO sign the petition at, and the spread the word about, http://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/August 16th, 1PM at Pinegrove Park in Port Huron, Michigan (1PM - 4PM) to rally to stop a deep underground nuclear dump (referred to by dump proponents, like Ontario Power Generation, as a Deep Geologic Repository), proposed for the shores of Lake Huron in Canada.

Here's a Facebook link to the event: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/952971808088757/953145028071435/

Beyond Nuclear will be there, and hope you can too. Please spread the word!

See the flier!

More.