Watchdogs continue to hound Entergy Pilgrim

Mother endangered Right Whale near PNPS on 1/15/13, calf is out-of-view. Images acquired under authorization of NOAA/NMFS. Credit: Rachel Karasik.Watchdog groups such as Pilgrim Watch, Cape Downwinders, Pilgrim Coalition and Cape Cod Bay Watch keep up the good fight against Entergy's Pilgrim atomic reactor in Plymouth, MA. Pilgrim is a four decade old General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor, the same age, or older, and design as the Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 reactors. 

Pilgrim Watch spearheaded a six year long intervention against the reactor's 20-year license extension, a record of resistance. But, just as it has done 72 other times across the U.S. since 2000, NRC rubberstamped the license extension in the end.

Member of Cape Downwinders, who have carried out non-violent civil disobedience actions in opposition to Pilgrim's ongoing risks, networked with Beyond Nuclear staff at a Clamshell Alliance reunion in New Hampshire last July. A key risk is that there is "No Escape from the Cap" should the worst happen at Pilgrim, as recently affirmed by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency itself.

Pilgrim Coalition is plugging Pilgrim's shutdown:

"Plug-In to Unplug Pilgrim: this is an opportunity to find your place in a growing movement to remove the risk from Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in your community.

Join us on February 6, 2013 in the Otto Fehlow Room of the Plymouth Public Library and kick off the new year by learning about the issue and ways you can help. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact Karen Vale at info@capecodbaywatch.org or (508) 951-4723."

And Cape Cod Bay Watch points out that "Plymouth Is Where NO NUKES Meets SAVE THE WHALES" (see photo, above left).

Another Pilgrim claim to infamy: every single irradiated nuclear fuel assembly ever generated there is still stored in its high-level radioactive waste storage pool. Thus, whereas the precarious Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 has some 135 tons of high-level radioactive waste stored in its pool, Pilgrim has around 600 tons of waste in its pool.

State of Vermont makes its case against Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee at 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals

Bill Sorrell and David Frederick answer questions from the press in front of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Court House, Foley Square, Manhattan. Photo by Ricard Watts. (Chris Williams of CAN and VYDA is visible, back right)The fate of the State of Vermont's long struggle to shutdown Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee (VY) atomic reactor (a General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor, identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4) now rests in the hands of a three-judge panel at the 2nd Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Manhattan. Yesterday, oral arguments were heard regarding Entergy v. Shumlin et al.Vermont is seeking to overturn a Brattleboro lower court judge's ruling a year ago that state laws had improperly strayed into radiological safety matters, the sole jurisdiction of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as settled by the 1983 PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In addition to a large turn out of journalists from Vermont and beyond, a number of long-time Vermont Yankee opponents sent representatives to witness the proceeding, including Beyond Nuclear, Conservation Law Foundation, Citizen Awareness Network (CAN), Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance (VYDA). By most accounts, the State of Vermont --represented by Attorney General William Sorrell, and David Frederick of the Washington, D.C. law firm Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, P.L.L.C. (see photo) -- more than held its own.

In March 2011, just days after the nuclear catastrophe began to unfold at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rubberstamped a 20-year license extension at VY. This came despite a Feb. 2010 vote of 26 to 4 by the State of Vermont Senate, led by Senator Pro Tem (now Governor) Peter Shumlin, that blocked VY's license extension. Costs to the State of Vermont of decommissioning and long-term high-level radioactive waste storage, if Entergy should go bankrupt and abandon the site, figured prominantly in yesterday's arguments.

Richard Watts (who took the photo above), author of Public Meltdown: The Story of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, covered the oral arguments on his blog. The Vermont Digger reported on this story, including a link to the audio of the full 37 minute long oral arguments. Vermont Public Radio filed two stories: "At Stake in Yankee Appeal: State's Rights and a Big Legal Bill," and "Appeals Judges Focus on 'Legislative Intent' in Yankee Case." The Associated Press, Burlington Free Press, Brattleboro Reformer, and Bloomberg have also reported on this story.

Update on January 16, 2013 by admin

And, as reported by the Associated Press, Entergy was back in court on Wednesday, this time before the Vermont Supreme Court. The New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution requests that the Vermont Supreme Court order Entergy Vermont Yankee to shutdown, for lack of a Certificate of Public Good (CPG). Its old CPG expired, along with its original 40 year operating license, on March 21, 2012. The State of Vermont Public Service Board has yet to approve a new CPG for VY's continued operation.

Two dozen groups rebut NEI, supplement comments to NRC on Nuke Waste Con Game

Environmental coalition attorney Diane CurranAn environmental coalition comprised of two dozen organizations, including Beyond Nuclear, today submitted supplemental public comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regarding the agency's court-vacated Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision and Rule. The supplemental comments constituted a rebuttal to comments submitted by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear power industry's lobbying arm in Washington, D.C.

The coalition held a press conference today, featuring four speakers: Arjun Makhijani, President of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, one of the coalition's expert witnesses; Diane Curran of the Washington, D.C. law firm Harmon, Curran, Spielberg + Eisenberg, LLP, a lead attorney for the coalition (see photo, left); John Runkle, an attorney with NC WARN (North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network), another coalition member; and Phillip Museegas, an attorney with Riverkeeper, and another expert witness for the coalition, of which Riverkeeper is also a member.

The coalition issued a press release; the full audio recording of the press conference is posted on-line.

The coalition's January 2nd public comments, including expert witness testimonies, are posted on-line. So are the coalition's supplemental comments submitted today, put together in rebuttal to NEI's Jan. 2nd comments.

Media statement re: today's Obama administration delivery to Capitol Hill of its “Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste”

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps released the following media statement regarding today's Obama administration delivery to Capitol Hill of its “Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste”:

“Today’s Obama administration policy statement merely parrots the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future final report from a year ago, in putting top priority on establishing so-called ‘centralized interim storage’ away from reactors for highly radioactive wastes.

If enacted, this would launch unprecedented numbers of risky high-level radioactive waste shipments, by truck, train, and barge, onto our country’s roads, rails, and waterways. These risks could well turn out to be in vain, if the ultimate final disposal site ends up being located far away. This amounts to launching a risky radioactive waste shell game, all for naught.

Take the nuclear power industry’s recently cancelled Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS) parking lot dump targeted at the tiny Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rubberstamped a construction and operations license for the facility in 2006, over the objections of tribal traditionals, the State of Utah, and nearly 500 environmental and environmental justice organizations across the country.

The plan at PFS was to store the irradiated nuclear fuel for 20 to 40 years, then transfer it to a permanent dumpsite at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. However, the Obama administration has wisely cancelled the Yucca dump proposal. 'Plan B' at PFS would then have been ‘return to sender.’ Wastes from the Maine Yankee atomic reactor, as but one example, would have traveled 2,000 miles out to Utah, and then returned 2,000 miles right back to where they came from in the first place. Maine Yankee’s 540 tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, in dozens of transport containers, would have traveled 4,000 miles round trip, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

The risks of accidents, attacks, and externally radioactively contaminated shipments means high-level radioactive waste transportation cannot be entered into for no good reason, such as nuclear industry lobbyists' pressure to transfer title and liability for the wastes from the utilities that profited from its generation onto the American taxpayer.

Delivering wastes to de facto permanent parking lot dumps would take decades. This means on-site pool and dry cask storage risks at the reactor sites would persist that whole time. For this reason, hundreds of environmental groups have long called for hardened on-site storage at reactor sites, to defend against attacks, safeguard against accidents, and prevent leaks into the environment during that inevitable waiting period.”

The Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors, endorsed by over 150 organizations representing all 50 states, is posted at:

 http://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/HOSS_PRINCIPLES_3-23-10x.pdf

Update on January 16, 2013 by admin

Beyond Nuclear board chairman, Lou Friedman, has penned a letter to President Obama, expressing opposition to a rush to centralized interim storage and the unprecedented radioactive waste shipments that would launch, as well as expressing concern about President Obama's pro-nuclear power statements.

Update on January 16, 2013 by admin

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, has praised the Obama administration's call for centralized interim storage. Revealingly, she expressed her support in the context of a pro-nuclear expansion agenda: "Delaying the creation of a long-term policy on nuclear waste would simply make the problems more complex and dangerous -- particularly with the development of a generation of new small modular reactors."

Last year, Sen. Feinstein introduced legislation that would have funded an expedicted "pilot" centralized interim storage site, but the bill died in committee. Sen. Feinstein's proposals were also included in the U.S. Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee "Mark" for its Fiscal Year 2013 funding bill (see Section 312, beginning on page 58). Ironically, Feinstein's "Mark" was dated April 26, 2012 -- the 26th anniversary of the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. However, this very provision is included in the Obama/Chu policy statement just delivered to Capitol Hill last Friday.

Please contact your two U.S. Senators, and your U.S. Representative. You can be patched through to your Members of Congress by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge them to oppose a risky radioactive waste shell game on the roads, rails, and waterways!

Also contact President Obama at the White House, and urge him not to rush into Mobile Chernobyls by truck and train, or Floating Fukushimas by barge! Urge them to support hardened on-site storage, and to stop allowing high-level radioactive waste to be generated in the first place -- the only true solution to the problem.

Update & Alert: Nuke Waste Con Game, Radioactive Metal "Recycling"

Critics have long dubbed NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence a Con GameThanks to everyone who submitted comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by its absurdly short Jan. 2nd deadline regarding the scoping for the court-ordered environmental impact statement on the agency's Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision and Rule. Beyond Nuclear joined a coalition of environmental groups and states in submitting comments to NRC. The environmental coalition's comments were buttressed by expert testimony from Dr. Arjun Makhijani (IEER), Dr. Gordon Thompson (IRSS), and Phillip Museegas (Riverkeeper).

As a next step on NRC's Nuke Waste Con Game, please consider attending an NRC monthly update conference call, to be held on Wed., Jan. 16 from 1:30-2:30 PM Eastern. The toll-free number is 1-800-857-2553, passcode 3682386.

On another vital radioactive waste battlefront, NIRS has put out an alert against radioactive metal "recycling." NIRS asks, "Will the next zipper on your pants be radioactive? How about your silverware?", and explains:

"The Department of Energy wants to mix radioactive metal from nuclear weapons factories with clean recycled metal and let it enter into general commerce--where it could be used for any purpose.

It's a foot in the door for revival of a vast--and discredited--radioactive waste deregulation plan defeated in 1992.

You can help stop them here."

On the good news front, showing that citizen action does make a difference, a quarter-century of DOE and nuclear power industry targeting of the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah for a high-level radioactive waste parking lot dump has ended with the utility consortium Private Fuel Storage LLC pulling the plug on the proposal, despite having an NRC license in hand. Nearly 450 groups opposed PFS's radioactively racist plan.

Also, despite more than a quarter-century of its being targeted for the national dumpsite for high-level radioactive waste, President Obama and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) -- backed by the support of more than 1,000 environmental groups -- still stand strong against the Yucca Mountain dump proposal. The Obama administration has zeroed out funding for the project; Sen. Reid stands ready to nip in the bud any attempts to restore funding on Capitol Hill.