March 10, 2010
Nuclear Waste Mess in South Carolina Heads for Litigation Concerning Yucca Mountain
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Nuclear waste sets at power plants and former defense (DOE sites) awaiting a journey for burial at a proposed depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. President Obama had proposed abandoning the site for a permanent nuclear waste storage facility.
However, states are starting to line up at federal court houses seeking to force federal entities to adhere to their promises. Georgia officials were the first to sue. The State of Washington followed. Aiden County, S.C. has also sued.
Under various strategic clean up plans, states with waste had been assured that it would be moved to a secure federal facility permanently. If the Yucca Mountain plan folds, state officials worry that they will be stuck with the used nuclear materials permanently.
Yet, to do so would open the very scenario feared --- a potential terrorist infiltrating one of the many DOE facilities in various stages of clean up, decommissioning and decontamination where radioactive materials might be utilized to produce a WMD.
Electric companies using nuclear reactors have paid billions of dollars (and therefore their customers) into a trust fund for research and development of the Yucca disposal site. Georgia’s Public Service Commission has asked for a $30 billion refund. Utilities have been paying into the nuclear waste trust fund since 1982. Spent nuclear fuel remains on 130 individuals properties.
Despite the federal nuclear disposal promises, a scientist and investigative reporter has recently learned that the property is NOT owned by Uncle Sam or any of his entities and agencies.
A 2005 freedom of information request asked for “a copy of the document… by which the Governor of Nevada notified DOE that his state had been notified for participation in the development of Yucca Mountain and that he was willing to receive funds,” however, “no responsive documents were found.”
According to the inquiry the Department of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office of Repository Development did locate “several documents between DOE and the state of Nevada regarding DOE’s offer to enter into a benefits agreement and the state of Nevada’s response.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF OF DOCUMENT
But, despite the trust fund collection designated for the site, “no federal to state contract exists. The property upon which the proposed repository would be constructed is federal land currently under the control of three entities: U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Through the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress authorized the federal government to study Yucca Mountain.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF OF EMAIL
R.E. Sutherland, M.Ed. and Nuclear Radiological Protection Inspector, filed the requests. In a March 6, 2010 open letter to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, she stated that “South Carolina remains vulnerable to the most dangerous nuclear hazards on the planet.” As an example of her concerns, she wrote:
“The legacy liquid nuclear waste remains at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, along with some of the above mentioned. There are approximately 35 million gallons of high-level nuclear liquid legacy waste, which is housed in cracking aged tanks, atop an earthquake fault that is overdue for it 100-year earthquake, in sandy soil. The 49 tanks, some containing 1.3 million gallons, sit less than 8 feet from ground water. They have secondary containment . . . made of concrete . .. which will be like crackers-on-jello when the earthquake occurs. Only two of the tanks have been drained and closed since the DWPF project started vitrifying that waste in the early 1990s… The DWPF (Defense Waste Processing Facility) at SRS has created over 2,000 canisters of very high-level radiating vitrified waste (i.e., glass mixed with nuclear waste, and poured into 10-foot stainless steel canisters). If a person stands 10 feet from one of those canisters, s/he will be dead in 30 seconds from the gamma rays that are emitted. They canisters are temporarily placed into concrete holes to await transport to the national repository. That is a very temporary solution . . . the waste will be deadly for millions of years.”
Wastes such as this exist at other DOE and utilities awaiting transport to a permanent disposal location. The US DOE SRS Strategic Plan, May 2009, disclosed that such waste can and may include Plutonium, highly enriched Uranium, spent nuclear fuel, and depleted uranium oxide. (See: http://sro.srs.gov/SRSStrategicPlan052909.pdf)
The nearest plant with such serious issues to Huntington would likely be the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which is only now entering the decommissioning cycle. However, Huntington itself once contained a DOE facility --- the Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant --- which was contained on the INCO "campus" in the city's east end. The plant was demolished in 1979 and buried at Piketon, Ohio.
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Nuclear Waste Mess in South Carolina Heads for Litigation Concerning Yucca Mountain
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Nuclear waste sets at power plants and former defense (DOE sites) awaiting a journey for burial at a proposed depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. President Obama had proposed abandoning the site for a permanent nuclear waste storage facility.
However, states are starting to line up at federal court houses seeking to force federal entities to adhere to their promises. Georgia officials were the first to sue. The State of Washington followed. Aiden County, S.C. has also sued.
Under various strategic clean up plans, states with waste had been assured that it would be moved to a secure federal facility permanently. If the Yucca Mountain plan folds, state officials worry that they will be stuck with the used nuclear materials permanently.
Yet, to do so would open the very scenario feared --- a potential terrorist infiltrating one of the many DOE facilities in various stages of clean up, decommissioning and decontamination where radioactive materials might be utilized to produce a WMD.
Electric companies using nuclear reactors have paid billions of dollars (and therefore their customers) into a trust fund for research and development of the Yucca disposal site. Georgia’s Public Service Commission has asked for a $30 billion refund. Utilities have been paying into the nuclear waste trust fund since 1982. Spent nuclear fuel remains on 130 individuals properties.
Despite the federal nuclear disposal promises, a scientist and investigative reporter has recently learned that the property is NOT owned by Uncle Sam or any of his entities and agencies.
A 2005 freedom of information request asked for “a copy of the document… by which the Governor of Nevada notified DOE that his state had been notified for participation in the development of Yucca Mountain and that he was willing to receive funds,” however, “no responsive documents were found.”
According to the inquiry the Department of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office of Repository Development did locate “several documents between DOE and the state of Nevada regarding DOE’s offer to enter into a benefits agreement and the state of Nevada’s response.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF OF DOCUMENT
But, despite the trust fund collection designated for the site, “no federal to state contract exists. The property upon which the proposed repository would be constructed is federal land currently under the control of three entities: U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Through the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress authorized the federal government to study Yucca Mountain.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PDF OF EMAIL
R.E. Sutherland, M.Ed. and Nuclear Radiological Protection Inspector, filed the requests. In a March 6, 2010 open letter to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, she stated that “South Carolina remains vulnerable to the most dangerous nuclear hazards on the planet.” As an example of her concerns, she wrote:
“The legacy liquid nuclear waste remains at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, along with some of the above mentioned. There are approximately 35 million gallons of high-level nuclear liquid legacy waste, which is housed in cracking aged tanks, atop an earthquake fault that is overdue for it 100-year earthquake, in sandy soil. The 49 tanks, some containing 1.3 million gallons, sit less than 8 feet from ground water. They have secondary containment . . . made of concrete . .. which will be like crackers-on-jello when the earthquake occurs. Only two of the tanks have been drained and closed since the DWPF project started vitrifying that waste in the early 1990s… The DWPF (Defense Waste Processing Facility) at SRS has created over 2,000 canisters of very high-level radiating vitrified waste (i.e., glass mixed with nuclear waste, and poured into 10-foot stainless steel canisters). If a person stands 10 feet from one of those canisters, s/he will be dead in 30 seconds from the gamma rays that are emitted. They canisters are temporarily placed into concrete holes to await transport to the national repository. That is a very temporary solution . . . the waste will be deadly for millions of years.”
Wastes such as this exist at other DOE and utilities awaiting transport to a permanent disposal location. The US DOE SRS Strategic Plan, May 2009, disclosed that such waste can and may include Plutonium, highly enriched Uranium, spent nuclear fuel, and depleted uranium oxide. (See: http://sro.srs.gov/SRSStrategicPlan052909.pdf)
The nearest plant with such serious issues to Huntington would likely be the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which is only now entering the decommissioning cycle. However, Huntington itself once contained a DOE facility --- the Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant --- which was contained on the INCO "campus" in the city's east end. The plant was demolished in 1979 and buried at Piketon, Ohio.
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