BACKGROUND
The DOE is rushing to slam shut the final public comment period on its 20+-year-old Yucca Mountain Project. This, despite never yet having responded to 11,000 public comments, delivered nearly two years ago, during its Draft Environmental Impact Statement hearings around the country.
DOE has also failed to publish documents that the public must have in order to give meaningful “final” comments on the Yucca scheme: the Final Environmental Impact Statement, and new Repository Siting Guidelines (DOE’s attempt to circumvent the fact that the unsuitable Yucca Mountain site is unable to live up to DOE’s 17-year-old and still-on-the-books Siting Guidelines).
Another essential document, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s final Yucca Mountain licensing rule, has not even been available to the public during this “final” comment period.
In addition, U.S. federal courts have yet to rule on the legality (or lack thereof) of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency radiation release regulations for Yucca Mountain. The State of Nevada, as well as a coalition of environmental and public interest groups (including NIRS) has filed suit against EPA’s woefully weak rule, which would allow for a nuclear sacrifice zone in the drinking water supply as far as 11 miles downstream from Yucca Mountain, and would not protect future generations from radioactive contamination after an arbitrarily short 10,000 year cut-off point (the wastes will remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years). Despite this unresolved dispute and Yucca’s ever more obvious scientific unsuitability, Energy Secretary Spence Abraham is moving full steam ahead with recommending to President Bush by the end of this year or early 2002 that Yucca Mountain become the country’s high-level atomic waste dump.
According to the pro-nuclear Bush/Cheney energy scheme to build new reactors, a “solution” to the high-level radioactive waste dilemma must be found pronto. Bush may move quickly to give his thumbs up to dumping on Nevada. The State of Nevada, exercising its rights under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, has already indicated that it would veto the President’s decision to move forward with Yucca Mountain. That would kick the decision over to Congress, a simple majority in both Houses could override Nevada’s veto.
Thus, HUGE decisions will be made in the months ahead on Yucca Mountain. It’s scandalous just how badly DOE has conducted this final comment period. Public hearings have only been called in Nevada, not in the 42 other States that would see tens of thousands of “Mobile Chernobyl” shipments pass through on trains and trucks. The Nevada hearings have been held on extremely short notice (sometimes just a few days), with numerous confusing last-minute changes of venue. Nevada citizens and elected officials are understandably outraged, and nearly unanimous in their opposition to the dump.
TAKE ACTION
Now is the time to flood DOE with comments opposing the outrageous Yucca Mountain plan. If you haven’t already, get your comments in by the October 19th deadline. A sample letter can be found below. or, feel free to use NIRS’ full comments in formulating your own.
If you have already submitted comments, thank you! Get your friends, family, and neighbors to do the same. Rent a Simpson’s episode, pop some popcorn, and host a letter-writing party to DOE in your living room. Send this e-mail alert far and wide ASAP!
Send comments to DOE via snail mail, e-mail, or fax at:
Carol Hanlon U. S. Department of Energy Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office (M/S #025) P.O. Box 30307 North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-0307
E-mail: YMP_SR@ymp.gov
Fax: 1-800-967-0739 But remember, there’s just one week left…
SAMPLE COMMENT LETTER
Carol Hanlon U. S. Department of Energy Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office (M/S #025) P.O. Box 30307 North Las Vegas, Nevada 89036-0307
Dear Ms. Hanlon,
I urge DOE to disqualify Yucca Mountain from any further consideration as the country’s high-level atomic waste dump for the following reasons.
The rightful owners of Yucca Mountain are opposed to dumping atomic waste there: the Yucca Mountain Project is in violation of the Treaty of Ruby Valley that the United States government signed with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in 1863.
DOE’s preliminary site recommendation is woefully premature, in that DOE’s Final Environmental Impact Statement and changes to its Site Suitability Guidelines have not been published. Rather than disqualify Yucca Mountain as it should have done many years ago, the federal government has continually lowered regulatory standards and weakened environmental protections that the unsuitable site cannot measure up to.
Like an elephant in the living room, DOE has never adequately addressed the huge environmental impacts associated with transporting tens of thousands of atomic waste trains and trucks through 43 States past the homes of 50 million Americans. The September 11th terrorist attacks on America highlight the utter lack of consideration that DOE has given to the fact that every single one of those tens of thousands of waste shipments is a potential terrorist target; Yucca Mountain itself would become a monumental terrorist target, endangering the entire western U.S.
Earthquakes at Yucca’s surface could destroy the huge waste storage pools DOE proposes there, resulting in a major radiological catastrophe. A volcanic eruption through Yucca could deliver 1,000 rem annual doses to Downwinders, killing everyone exposed. DOE has not resolved huge uncertainties in its scientific analyses, and cannot guarantee that radiation will not leak massively into the drinking water supply in the first 10,000 years, let alone the hundreds of thousands of years the waste would remain deadly.
Due to his Senate voting record and evident predisposition toward Yucca Mountain, Secretary Abraham should recuse himself from any further decisions on this proposed project. DOE’s “final” public comment period has been chaotic, capricious, and confusing, with absurdly short notice of hearings and an arbitrarily short deadline.
The real solution to the nuclear waste dilemma is to stop making it in the first place, and to use energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable electricity sources such as solar, wind, microturbines and hydrogen fuel cells to make nuclear reactors unnecessary.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME, ADDRESS
[Be sure to send a copy of your comments to your U.S. Senators and Representative: The Honorable __________, US Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510; The Honorable ____________, US House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515.]