Three hearings left: comment on NRC nuke waste con game by 12/20!

Environmental coalition members from the Crabshell Alliance, Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign, NIRS, PSR, NEIS, and Public Citizen "just say NO!" at the NRC HQ nuke waste con game public comment meeting on 11/14 in Rockville, MD. Photo credit David Martin and Erica Grey.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has concluded most of its scheduled public comment meetings on the draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) regarding the agency's "Nuclear Waste Confidence." However, there are still a few opportunities left to make in-person or via-telephone oral comments! You can also make written comments at any time up till December 20th.

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.

Oral comments can be submitted, in-person only, at two upcoming public meetings: 12/2 in Perrysburg, OH (near Toledo), and 12/4 in Minnetonka, MN (near the Twin Cities). On 12/9, you can submit oral comments to NRC via a phone-in public comment session. Please see the bottom of this post for more details on how to plug in.

Note that the 12/2 meeting in Toledo marks the 71st year since Enrico Fermi first split the atom in a prototype reactor core, generating the world's first high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) on Dec. 2, 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project. Thus, the mountain of radioactive waste is now 71 years high, and we still don't even know what to do with the first cupful!

It's time to stop making it!

Re: the 12/2 Toledo-area meeting, Michael Keegan of Don't Waste MI and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes has put out a press advisory. Its headline is RALLY AGAINST NUCLEAR WASTE CONFIDENCE GAME: ‘THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.’

The co-chairs of the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3, Keith Gunter and Carol Izant, have also issued a press advisory announcing that representatives from their growing coalition of groups will speak at the 12/2 Perrysburg, OH meeting.

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, as well as NEIS.

San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace also provided sample comments in advance of its NRC nuke waste con game public comment meeting, held on 11/20.

See a write-up of the Chicago NRC nuke waste con game, for more ideas on potential comments you can make.

Marilyn Elie of Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) provided Beyond Nuclear with the written statements by IPSEC members, NY AG Schneiderman, and others, from the Oct. 30th NRC public comment mtg. in Tarrytown, NY near Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant. Beyond Nuclear has posted these, so you can use them to help prepare your own.

Douglas P. Guarino, the award-winning reporter, wrote an article entitled "Legal Battle Against Rule Crucial To All U.S. Reactor Licenses Rages On" for Global Security Newswire. He quote Janice Dean, Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York, who testified at the Tarrytown, NY meeting.

Please note that NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has posted the archived webcast, as well as the audio recording, from the very first public comment meeting on Oct. 1 at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD; it has also posted the transcripts from the first five public comment meetings held around the country (see the bottom of the page). You can use the presentations made by hundreds of environmentalists and public interest advocates in these sessions to help you prepare your own comments.

At the Nov. 14th Rockville, MD NRC HQ public comment meeting, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps joined with numerous colleagues (see photo, above left) to testify.

In the short three minutes allotted for public comment, Kevin set the record straight on false statements the NRC has made in regards to its nuke waste con game policy.

At the Chicago public meeting on Nov. 12th, NRC Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate Director, Keith McConnell, responded to a question from the audience about the scope of this draft GEIS. McConnell said that it had to do with "on-site" or "at-reactor" storage of irradiated nuclear fuel. Kevin set the record straight, pointing out that there is an entire section of the GEIS document, Chapter 5, about "Environmental Impacts of Away-From-Reactor Storage." This implies high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) transportation as well, a very significant issue that has gotten very short shrift in this draft GEIS.

And of course, the heart of NRC's "Nuclear Waste Confidence" for 30 years now has been the assumption that a deep geologic repository will open someday, somewhere, somehow. The courts, however, have ordered NRC to consider the all-too-real possibility that a repository will never open, leaving HLRW risks at-reactor or away-from-reactor (as at so-called "consolidated" or "centralized interim storage" sites -- parking lot dumps -- the opening of which, by 2021, is a top priority of the Wyden-Feinstein-Murkowski-Alexander "Mobile Chernobyl" bill, S. 1240, in the U.S. Senate, now set for a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vote in December 2013).

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, despite an explicit court order for NRC to address them in the EIS.

Curran, along with Mindy Goldstein of Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, are working with a team of experts, including Dave Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists, and Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, to prepare comments, on behalf of an environmental coalition comprised of two dozen groups, including Beyond Nuclear, to be submitted by the 12/20 deadline.

If you plan to attend and make oral testimony at any of the three remaining NRC public comment meetings, NRC requests that you pre-register.

Here are the remaining three public comment meetings yet to come:

Monday, December 2	Perrysburg, Ohio Hilton Garden Inn Toledo/Perrysburg 6165 Levis Commons Blvd., Perrysburg, OH 43551 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. EST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. EST
Wednesday, December 4	Minnetonka, Minnesota Minneapolis Marriott Southwest 5801 Opus Parkway Minnetonka, MN 55343 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	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 (Teleconference only – facilitated and transcribed.) Prior to the start of the meeting, please dial 1-888-603-9749 and provide the operator with passcode 5132332 Meeting Notice	Teleconference 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST

Court rulings revive Yucca dump licensing proceeding, end collection of Nuclear Waste Fund fee

Will the Yucca dump zombie rise again? Nevada says NO! Political cartoon by Jim Day, Las Vegas Review Journal, 2010 (be sure to count the toes!)In 1987, it was "Screw Nevada." Now, it appears to be "screw the taxpayer," and "screw future generations."

Rulings issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia have led to a partial revival of the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump's licensing proceeding before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), while ordering the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to end Nuclear Waste Fund fee collections intended to ultimately pay for HLRW disposal.

On Nov. 18th, the five NRC Commissioners issued an order to the agency's staff to complete its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) regarding DOE's cancelled plan to bury 70,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel and HLRW less than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on sacred Western Shoshone Indian Nation treaty lands. The Commission order comes in response to a 2-1 split decision at the DC Appeals Court in August. Two Republican appointees mandated NRC resume the Yucca licensing proceeding, so long as related funds remain in its coffers to do so. The dissenting Democratic appointee referred to the majority decision as the "doing of a useless act."

In fact, the Commission order admits that completing the five volume SER over the next year will likely deplete most of the $11 million in NRC's carryover funding remaining from its Nuclear Waste Fund allocations. The NRC Commissioners also requested that DOE supplement its previous Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement.

Speaking of the Nuclear Waste Fund, another DC Appeals Court ruling issued on Nov. 19th appears to have ended it. The three-judge panel (comprised exclusively of Republican appointees) has ordered DOE to stop collecting Nuclear Waste Fund fees. Since the enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 30 years ago, DOE has collected one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour of nuclear generated electricity. This surcharge on ratepayers consuming nuclear eletricity has never been adjusted for inflation since. It has generated some $30 billion. Some $8 billion of that was spent studying the Yucca site. But Yucca's total price tag, if constructed and operated, was estimated to have been around $100 billion, tens of billions of dollars more than the Nuclear Waste Fund fee would ever collect.

The open secret was that federal taxpayers would have been looked to, in order to make up the shortfall. That geologic disposal shortfall will now grow even bigger, now that no collection will take place to pay for the management of irradiated nuclear fuel. Hence, today's court ruling amounts to one big "screw the taxpayer" and "screw future generations." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was forced to admit, under court order, that HLRW will remain hazardous for a million years.

In the dwindling days of his administration -- beginning on the day Barack Obama won the presidential election, and ending two days after Obama took the oath of office -- George W. Bush's DOE very quietly signed new contracts with nuclear utilities, ultimately obligating federal taxpayers to pay for the forevermore-management of new reactor-generated HLRW. The contracts were so secretive, they were not even reported by the news media until March 2010, when Beyond Nuclear, IEER, and attorney Diane Curran publicized the news at a press conference, based on documentation obtained under FOIA. The silver lining is, though, that of the 21 new reactor HLRW management contracts hurriedly signed by DOE, only 4 of those new reactors have actually broken ground (Vogtle 3 & 4 in GA, and Summer 2 & 3 in SC). But if those 4 reactors are built and operated, taxpayers will be left holding the bag for their HLRW management costs, till the end of time (well, at least for a million years).

Of course, the only true solution to such costs and risks lasting forevermore is to not generate HLRW in the first place! But enough already existed by spring 2010 to fill the first (now cancelled) repository. This "mountain of radioactive waste" grows by 2,000 tons each year, as 100 atomic reactors are still generating irradiated nuclear fuel in the U.S. Thus, we don't need a repository -- we already need at least two!

Nevada's state and federal elected leaders have pledged vigilance against any effort to revive the Yucca dump. The Silver State never accepted the 1987 "Screw Nevada" amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which singled out Yucca as the only proposed dumpsite in the U.S. to be further considered. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has led that resistance for over 25 years. He has blocked any additional congressional appropriations for the Yucca Mountain Project since Fiscal Year 2011, and appears ready, willing, and able to continue protecting his constituents. President Obama backs Sen. Reid on this, having defunded the Yucca dump and moved to withdraw DOE's license application.

NRC Region 3 Webinar on dry cask storage issues

No: III-13-042 November 7, 2013

CONTACT: Viktoria Mitlyng 630-829-9662

Prema Chandrathil 630-829-9663

NRC Regional Office to Discuss Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation Basics; Webinar to be Held November 14

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Region III office will hold a webinar Nov. 14th to discuss how dry spent fuel storage is regulated and inspected to ensure the public and environment are protected.

The office, located in Lisle, Ill., will explain our regulations, how dry casks are designed and the inspections performed to ensure the fuel is stored safely and securely.

“We remain committed to having discussions about the NRC’s oversight of nuclear power plants,” said NRC Region III Administrator Cynthia D. Pederson. “This webinar will give us an opportunity to continue the conversation with the public about issues of interest to them.”

The webinar will be held from 5:30-6:30 p.m. EST (4:30-5:30 p.m. CST). Participants will be able to view presentation slides prepared by NRC staff and submit questions in writing over the Internet. Interested members of the public must register online or follow the instructions on the meeting notice in order to participate.

[The online registration link can be accessed at this link.]

Showdown on NRC nuke waste con game in Chicago: "This member of the public does not share your confidence!"

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.On Nov. 12th in Oak Brook, IL outside Chicago, Beyond Nuclear joined with environmental and public interest colleagues at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) public comment meeting on the agency's court-ordered draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) on so-called "Nuclear Waste Confidence." The multi-state coalition included representatives from, and affiliated with, the following groups: Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS); Stand Up, Save Lives!; Nuclear Free Illinois; Global Warming Solutions Group of Central IL; Sierra Club Illinois Nuclear Free Committee; Michigan Safe Energy Future--South Haven Chapter; Missouri Coalition for the Environment; IL Families Against Toxic Wastes; Chicago Media Watch; League of Women Voters; Rainforest Action Network; Ministry for a Sustainable Earth; West Suburban Coalition for Peace and Justice, Citizens Acting to Protect Our Water (CAPOW!); Chicago Indy Media; and Multikulti.  Concerned citizens, as from the communities around Exelon Nuclear's Byron, Dresden, Braidwood, and Zion nuclear power plants, also spoke out. 

By a nearly 3 to 1 margin, public interest and environmental advocates expressed a resounding "no confidence in NRC nuke waste CON-fidence" at the public comment microphone. 38 "no confidence votes" were cast, as compared to 14 supporting NRC's nuke waste con game -- mostly representing Exelon Nuclear itself, or those directly under its direct financial influence. So many spoke out against NRC's nuke waste con job that the meeting went for around an hour longer than originally planned. The shellacking took place, interestingly enough, just 9 miles or so from NRC's Region 3 headquarters office in Lisle, IL. The meeting took place just 13 miles or so from Exelon Nuclear's world HQ in Warrenville, IL (where the Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp took place in August 2001, including a non-violent civil disobedience action resulting in a dozen arrests that disrupted Exelon's ribbon-cutting ceremony).

NEIS, Sierra Club Illinois Nuclear Free Committee, Stand Up, Save Lives!, Nuclear Free Illinois, and Michigan Safe Energy Future (MSEF)--South Haven Chapter put out a press release.

Bette Pierman of MSEF stated: 

“While reviewing the documents for comment, the term “adequate” repeatedly appears regarding the steps currently used to store toxic nuclear waste.  Whenever I hear the term used by NRC staff to describe any of the nuclear plants across the country, but in particular Entergy’s Palisades Nuclear Plant, I cringe.  I am not sure how the use of this term is supposed to be reassuring to the public since it means “good enough.”   The connotation connected with “good enough” is mediocre.  So, I ask you, how safe would you feel with an “adequate” pilot on a turbulent transcontinental flight?  Or, how quickly would you employ an “adequate” heart surgeon if you required surgery?  Yet, you throw the word “adequate” around to the public like that is supposed to reassure us about the safety of these aging, decrepit nuclear power plants around this country and what you propose as the generic treatment of waste storage for a number of years far into the future. This member of the public does not share your confidence!”

Read Bette Pierman's full comment to NRC here.

NEIS printed a series of signs, which supporters held up when they heard "waste confidence," or "safe storage," etc. Thus, this was a version of playing "Nukespeak Bingo"!

NEIS also distributed "ESSENTIAL POINTS TO MAKE IN YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT NRC'S WASTE CONFIDENCE RULE," as well as “IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO – DO WE TRUST THE NRC?”

Beyond Nuclear had an information table, displaying its banner and pamphlets, including its "Catastrophic Risks of GE BWR Mark I High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Pools" fact sheet.

During NRC's "open house" session, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, donned a mock radiation protection suit and handed out "chunks of radioactive waste" ("Atomic Fireball" candies), affixed to NEIS info. cards, to passersby. This street theater action was to counter the Nuclear Energy Insitute and Exelon Nuclear's misleading info. table handout -- mock nuclear fuel pellets, which failed to mention how deadly irradiated nuclear fuel pellets are in the absence of radiation shielding.

Update on November 17, 2013 by admin

Kari Lydersen at Midwest Energy News has reported on this story.

Mike Kalas of the Multi Kulti Center and Chicago Indy Media filmed, and has posted the video of, the three and a half hour long public comment meeting.

Mike Kalas's valuable documentation of the entire proceeding thus makes it possible for you to watch the 38 speakers who expressed concerns about and opposition to NRC's blank check to industry for the creation of forever deadly high-level radioactive waste, the Nuclear Waste Confidence policy.

Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear's testimony, for example, begins at 1:09:00 and concludes at 1:13:15.

Kevin testified about site-specific issues in NRC's Region 3, also known as the Great Lakes Basin.

He discussed the high-level radioactive waste storage pool risks at GE Mark Is -- identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi -- as at Dresden (Units 2 & 3) and Quad Cities (Units 1 & 2) in IL, and Fermi 2 in MI. (Additional Mark Is in Region 3 include Duane Arnold in IA, Monticello 1 in MN; Mark IIs in Region 3 include LaSalle Units 1 & 2 in IL). Beyond Nuclear's "Freeze Our Fukushimas" pamphlet and campaign addresses not only these high-level radioactive waste storage risks at GE Mark Is and IIs in the U.S., but also the reactor risks at these too small, too weak containments.

Kevin also discussed dry cask storage risks, as revealed by NRC Region 3 dry cask storage inspector, Dr. Ross Landsman (now retired), at Palisades on the Lake Michigan shore in MI, and Commonwealth Edison/Exelon whistleblower Oscar Shirani (who passed on in late 2008).

Landsman first warned about seismic risks to Palisades' dry cask storage in Feb., 1994. He served as an expert witness, providing a declaration for an environmental coalition regarding these same risks as recently as 2007, even after his retirement from NRC. The environmental coalition filed an emergency enforcement petition at NRC, as part of its attempt to block Entergy's bid for a 20-year license extension at Palisades. Blown off in the end by NRC, the environmental coalition turned to the second highest court in the land, the federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. But just as happened when the "Eternal General" of the State of Michigan, Frank Kelley, fought against the loading of Palisades' dry casks on the beach at Lake Michigan beginning in 1993, the courts deferred to NRC (Kelley, who served as MI AG for 37 years, is the longest serving State Attorney General in U.S. history). Meaning, the risks remain, even now, unaddressed.

Shirani (backed by Landsman, as it turned out) revealed major quality assurance violations with the Holtec dry cask dating back to the year 2000, implicating both design and fabrication. Shirani questioned the structural integrity of Holtecs sitting still at reactor sites, let alone travelling at high speeds down U.S. railways. Despite this, NRC ignored Shirani's revelations, and did not protect him as a whistleblower. Shirani was made to pay a very high price for his truth telling -- harrassed and run out of Exelon, and then blacklisted for the last 8 years of his life by the U.S. nuclear power industry.

Frighteningly, Holtec dry casks are now deployed at 33 U.S. reactor sites (not to mention at Chernobyl in Ukraine, as well as Spain), including at Dresden in IL. Holtecs account for nearly half of the 1,700 U.S. dry casks currently deployed across the country.

Half of NRC Nuke Waste Con Game public comment meetings yet to go

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.

If you plan to attend and make oral testimony at NRC public comment meetings, NRC requests that you pre-register.

Here are the remaining public comment meetings yet to come:

Tuesday, November 12	Oak Brook, Illinois Chicago Marriott Oak Brook 1401 West 22nd Street Oak Brook, IL 60523 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. CST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. CST
Thursday, November 14	Rockville, Maryland (webcast/teleconference) U.S. NRC Headquarters Commission Hearing Room 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD  20852 To listen to the meeting or provide comments by telephone, please dial 1-888-603-9749 and provide the operator with passcode 5132332. To view the webcast, please go to http://video.nrc.gov Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST Meeting 2:00-5:00 p.m. EST
Monday, November 18	Carlsbad, California Sheraton Carlsbad Resort & Spa 5480 Grand Pacific Drive Carlsbad, CA 92008 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. PST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. PST
Wednesday, November 20	San Luis Obispo, California Courtyard by Marriott San Luis Obispo 1605 Calle Joaquin Road San Luis Obispo, CA  93405 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. PST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. PST
Monday, December 2	Perrysburg, Ohio Hilton Garden Inn Toledo/Perrysburg 6165 Levis Commons Blvd., Perrysburg, OH 43551 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	Open House 6:00-7:00 p.m. EST Meeting 7:00-10:00 p.m. EST
Wednesday, December 4	Minnetonka, Minnesota Minneapolis Marriott Southwest 5801 Opus Parkway Minnetonka, MN 55343 Presentation Open House Posters Meeting Notice	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 (Teleconference only – facilitated and transcribed.) Prior to the start of the meeting, please dial 1-888-603-9749 and provide the operator with passcode 5132332 Meeting Notice	Teleconference 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST