The dial-in number for the meeting is 888-333 0879 and the passcode is 301292 followed by the “#” sign. RSVP in advance with Belinda Wright at DOE’s law firm, telephone 804-788-8581, e-mail — bwright@hunton.com.
Dear friends and colleagues concerned about radioactive waste and its transportation through your communities:
According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Feb. 2002 Final Environmental Impact Statement for Yucca Mountain, 45 states plus the District of Columbia have high-level radioactive waste truck, train, and barge routes targeted to run through them. Despite this, the federal government has kept these communities almost entirely in the dark about the potential impacts of this transport.
Presently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, despite the lack of applicable EPA regulations for Yucca Mountain and the recent revelations of falsified data, is rushing full steam ahead to set in stone the ground rules that will apply to the 3- to 4-year long Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding. DOE hopes to certify its full document collection in the near future, and then apply for a license to NRC early next year. This could have a major effect on cities and communities along the proposed waste transportation routes! The rules being set now could effectively limit the ability of many communities and public interest organizations to become involved in the licensing process and have their concerns addressed.
Facing this possibility, we need to strongly remind DOE and NRC that communities and organizations around the country are as concerned as ever about the problems with the Yucca Mountain site, the transportation of highly radioactive waste that will result if this dump opens, and the present push to relicense old–and build new–nuclear reactors, which will only make these problems worse. An important meeting is taking place this week on Wednesday, June 15 at 10 a.m. EDT, at the law firm of Hunton & Williams (DOE’s law firm), 1900 K Street NW., 12th Floor Washington, DC. To keep rules from being set up that would effectively preclude meaningful public and city-county involvement, people expressing concern need to be present at this meeting!
If you cannot attend in person, please attend this meeting by phone. Please also spread the word to other concerned groups and communities across the US. It’s important that we not only have the DC based groups present in the room, but as many as possible of our community and grassroots allies present on the phone!
To attend in person, or to take part by phone, please RSVP as soon as possible to counsel for DOE via Ms. Belinda Wright, telephone 804-788-8581, e-mail — bwright@hunton.com. Please include: (a) Name of person desiring to attend; (b) organizational affiliation, if any; (c) daytime phone number; (d) e-mail address; (e) mailing address; and (f) statement as to whether the person intends to participate in person, or desires to participate remotely in the event that electronic facilities can be made available [we have requested more than once that phone lines be made available for those unable to attend in person]. The dial-in number for the meeting is 888-333 0879 and the passcode is 301292 followed by the “#” sign.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We’ll be pulling together talking points for the meeting in advance, which we will share with everyone via email.
Thanks. Melissa and Kevin
Melissa Kemp, Policy Analyst, Nuclear Energy and Waste Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program Public Citizen, p: 202.454.5176, f: 202.547.7392, mkemp@citizen.org, www.citizen.org/cmep
Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, p: 301-270-6477, f: 301-270-4291,kevin@nirs.org, www.nirs.org