Great Lakes United

June 2004

Prohibition of Barge Shipments of High-Level Radioactive Waste on the Great Lakes

WHEREAS in its February 2002 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed national high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump-site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposed up to 453 barge shipments (Appendix J: Transportation, Table J-27) of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel waste upon the waters of Lake Michigan from commercial nuclear reactors in Wisconsin and Michigan to the ports of Milwaukee and Muskegon and

WHEREAS DOE reaffirmed its proposal to barge highly radioactive wastes on U.S. waterways in its Federal Register announcement and Record of  Decision in April 2004 to use mostly rail shipments to Yucca Mountain via the Caliente, Nevada rail corridor and

WHEREAS DOE's decision to use "mostly rail" shipments means that nuclear reactors lacking direct rail access, such as Point Beach, Kewaunee, and  Palisades on the Lake Michigan shoreline, are now more likely to use barges to ship irradiated nuclear fuel to the nearest rail head and

WHEREAS the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) design criteria for HLRW transportation casks only account for accidental underwater submersions to a depth of 200 meters (656 feet), while Lake Michigan is more than 200 meters deep in locations near DOE's proposed barge routes (DOE FEIS, Figure J-9) and

WHEREAS NRC does not require full-scale physical safety testing of HLRW shipping containers and

WHEREAS each barge would carry a rail-sized HLRW shipping container, which would hold up to 240 times the long-lasting radioactivity (in terms of radioactive cesium isotopes alone) released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb and

WHEREAS HLRW rail casks on barges fully loaded with irradiated nuclear fuel would weigh 100 to 150 tons, requiring special heavy-load cranes that could greatly complicate or delay emergency cask recovery operations and

WHEREAS underwater submersion accidents could cause release of radioactive contaminants, or the inadvertent nuclear chain reaction of fissile materials still present within the HLRW due to the neutron-moderating effect of infiltrating water and

WHEREAS Lake Michigan, which flows into the rest of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, is the source of drinking water, recreation, tourism, industry, and fisheries for many tens of millions of people, in the United States, Canada, and indigenous First Nations,

THEREFOR BE IT RESOLVED that Great Lakes United urges the prohibition of shipments of high-level radioactive waste on the Great Lakes.

I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE COPY OF A RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY GREAT LAKES UNITED AT THE JUNE 6, 2004 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING IN NORTH EAST, PENNSYLVANIA.

______________________________
Loretta Michaud, Secretary

http://www.glu.org/english/information/resolutions/resolutions-2004/barging-radioactive-waste.doc

Great Lakes United is a coalition of 160 community-based and regional environmental and conservation organizations in 9 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces devoted to protecting the environment of the Great Lakes ecosystem.