North Anna watchdog Erica Grey, and Diane D'Arrigo of NIRS, unfurl a banner at NRC's first Nuke Waste Con Game meeting, held Oct. 1st in the NRC Commissioners conference room at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. Photo by Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has held about half of its scheduled public comment meetings on the draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS). The GEIS was court-ordered, by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in June 2012. A coalition of environmental groups (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Riverkeeper, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, as well as Natural Resources Defense Council) and states (CT, NJ, NY, VT, as represented by their attorneys general) won the court victory.
In the meantime, please continue to submit your public comments to NRC via email, webform, fax, and/or snail mail.
You can submit as many public comments as you want, between now and the final public comment deadline (Dec. 20th).
Sample comments, which you can use to help you write your own, have been provided by Beyond Nuclear and NIRS.
At a press conference on Oct. 2nd, D.C. attorney Diane Curran, and experts Dr. Gordon Thompson (President of Institute for Resource and Security Studies) and Bob Alvarez (Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies), also provided insights into the potentially catastrophic risks of high-level radioactive waste storage pool fires, which NRC is currently ignoring. Curran and the experts are preparing sample comments, on behalf of an environmental coalition comprised of two dozen groups, including Beyond Nuclear, so watch for those in weeks ahead, as well.
Here are the remaining public comment meetings yet to come:
| Tuesday, November 12 |
Oak Brook, Illinois |
Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. CST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. CST |
| Thursday, November 14 |
Rockville, Maryland (webcast/teleconference) To listen to the meeting or provide comments by telephone, please dial |
Open House 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST Meeting 2:00-5:00 p.m. EST |
| Monday, November 18 |
Carlsbad, California |
Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. PST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. PST |
| Wednesday, November 20 |
San Luis Obispo, California |
Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. PST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. PST |
| Monday, December 2 |
Perrysburg, Ohio |
Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. EST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. EST |
| Wednesday, December 4 |
Minnetonka, Minnesota |
Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. CST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. CST |
| Monday, December 9 |
Public Teleconference to Receive Comments on Waste Confidence DGEIS and Proposed Rule Prior to the start of the meeting, please dial |
Teleconference 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST |