11. Radioactive waste can’t be moved from reactors for several years—it’s just too hot. HR 1270 doesn’t consolidate the nation’s nuclear waste at one site: it just adds one new site to the 109 or so that already exist.
10. The technology to store the waste is the same at an interim site as dry casks at a reactor site. The only difference is the additional risk caused by radioactive waste transportation.
9. A $12 Billion shortfall already is projected for the Nuclear Waste Fund. “Interim” storage would further deplete the Fund, for no safety or environmental benefit.
8. More than 150 environmental groups oppose HR 1270; not a single such group supports the bill. HR 1270 is also opposed by numerous religious and civic groups, as well as cities like Los Angeles, Denver, St. Louis, Santa Barbara, Fort Wayne, and dozens of others.
7. Similar waste transports (over only 200 miles) to an “interim” site at Gorleben, Germany have revitalized the German anti-nuclear movement, brought tens of thousands of protesters, and have cost an average of $20 million per cask in police and related costs. You don’t really expect fewer protesters in the U.S., do you?
6. Do you really want casks carrying the long-lived radiological equivalent of dozens of Hiroshima bombs on the Beltway? Any Beltway?
5. Union Pacific has been “losing” freight cars? What happens if a radioactive waste cask gets misdirected to a canned goods warehouse in Phoenix or Fresno, Philadelphia or Fargo?
4. According to the Thursday, October 16, 1997, Washington Post, CSX tracks and safety practices are in terrible shape. Does Congress want to appropriate money to upgrade and maintain these tracks, or should DOE just send the casks on unacceptable tracks?
3. Because Yucca Mountain is still under characterization as a permanent radioactive waste storage site, and because much evidence indicates the site may be found unsuitable, HR 1270 could have the ironic effect of mandating radioactive waste storage at the only site in the nation explicitly found unsuitable for this purpose.
2. (For Members Only): to prove that you have not been bought by the nuclear industry’s multi-million dollar public relations/political contribution campaign.
1. If you or I had the nuclear industry’s driving “safety” record for high-level waste shipments (one accident every 343 shipments), our driver’s license and insurance would be revoked.
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 6930 Carroll Avenue, #340, Takoma Park, MD 20912, 301-270-6477, fax: 301-270-4291, e-mail: nirs@nirs.org, web: www.nirs.org