Don't Waste NM! Don't Waste TX! Don't Waste America! Stop H.R. 3053!

Don't Waste New Mexico! Don't Waste Texas! Don't Waste Nevada! Don't Waste America!

Beyond Nuclear has been honored and privileged to spend the past two weeks in New Mexico, with anti-nuclear colleagues and allies. A member of our staff participated in, and presented at, a largely Native American- and youth-led symposium entitled "Dismantling the Nuclear Beast: Connecting Local Work to the National Movement." It was organized by the Nuclear Issues Study Group at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque on Dec. 1-3. We also took part in, and presented at, a large grassroots gathering in Roswell, NM focused on stopping the irradiated nuclear fuel "centralized interim storage site" targeted at southeast NM on Dec. 9. As shown by the New Mexico Threats Map, prepared by Sacred Trust NM, the "Land of Enchantment" suffers plenty enough already from dirty, dangerous, and expensive fossil fuel, nuclear weapons, and nuclear power industrial activities. The grand total of 160,000 metric tons of commercial irradiated nuclear fuel, targeted for "temporary storage" at the NM/TX borderlands -- already heavily polluted communities, with a large percentage of Hispanic residents -- would make these environmental injustices even worse. H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, would authorize these de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dumps. The bill is poised for a U.S. House floor vote. In addition to rallying cries of "Don't Waste NM!" and "Don't Waste TX!", "Don't Waste America!" is also in order: high-risk irradiated nuclear fuel shipments, by truck, train, and/or barge could travel through most states, en route to "centralized interim storage."

What can you do to help stop this?  Both groups and individuals can take action. An environmental coalition of 120+ organizations has sent a letter to the U.S. House, urging opposition to H.R. 3053. The letter will be sent one more time, when the bill moves to the floor for a vote. There is still time to sign your group on if you haven't already. To sign your organization on, please fill out and and submit this Google form, or else directly email Sean Alcorn at NRDC your name, title, organization name, city and state. Please sign on ASAP, as the bill could reach the House floor for a vote at any time now. Please contact your own U.S. Rep., and urge them to oppose H.R. 3053. Sierra Club has a webform you can fill out and submit to your U.S. Rep. SEED Coalition of Texas has launched a CREDO petition you can sign. You can also phone your U.S. Rep.'s D.C. office, via the Capitol Switchboard, at (202) 225-3121, by following the instructions. Or you can look up your U.S. Rep.'s direct contact info. here, by entering your zip code, clicking the FIND YOUR REP BY ZIP button, and following the links. To learn more about why H.R. 3053 is a dangerously bad idea, see Beyond Nuclear's Yucca Mountain burial dump, de facto permanent surface storage "parking lot dump," and radioactive waste transport risk website sections. If you have taken action already, thank you very much.

Please consider spreading the word as widely as possible, given the grave risks and high stakes! 

more: Don't Waste NM! Don't Waste TX! Don't Waste America! Stop H.R. 3053!

Nuclear Waste “Russian” Roulette SPECIAL – Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear – Nuclear Hotseat #311

LISTEN NOW

This Week’s Featured Interview:

• Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Watchdog/Bulldog for Beyond Nuclear, gives an all-encompassing vision of nuclear waste problems faced by not just the United States, but the world.  Included in his discussion are:
  • Hanford Site
  • Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
  • San Onofre 
  • Yucca Mountain
  • US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement

Numnutz of the Week (for Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Ontario Power Generation has studied every aspect of the problem and – believe it or not! – come to the conclusion that what’s a little desecration of First Nation lands and sacred burial grounds, and putting the safety of the entire Great Lakes water basin in nuclear danger when it’s SO convenient to site the nuclear waste REPOSITORY – NOT “BUNKER” AS THEY’RE TRYING TO RE-LANGUAGE IT!!!!! – on its own property. 

LISTEN NOW: Nuclear Waste “Russian” Roulette SPECIAL – Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear – Nuclear Hotseat #311

Yucca Mountain: Serpent Swimming Westward – Indigenous Action Media

(27 APRIL 2017) The Trump administration & Congress are renewing the threat to turn sacred Yucca Mountain, located on Western Shoshone Lands near Las Vegas, Nevada, into a massive nuclear waste dump.

Yesterday, on the 31st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing in Washington, DC to initiate the legislative process.
Congress is considering amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act that would restart  operations that began in 1982. 

If the Yucca Mountain project is allowed to proceed, it would mean transport of highly radioactive waste from throughout the country’s nuclear power plants to this site. More than 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste would be dumped inside the sacred mountain…

Yucca Mountain is located on Western Shoshone land. The NCAC has also legally challenged U.S. federal ownership of the site as a violation of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

more: Yucca Mountain: Serpent Swimming Westward – Indigenous Action Media

Dying Nuclear Power Industry – Wealth Pump

“The nuclear power industry requires government help to stay afloat.”

Subsidies to nuclear power reactors are among the most obvious instances of the federal government acting as a wealth pump for large corporations. Now, companies that operate these expensive and dangerous power plants are looking for additional wealth pumping from state governments. If those of us who support cleaner, cheaper and much less dangerous power can’t stop them, our state governments will have less to invest in education, clean energy and other beneficial work because more will go to extending the life of a failing nuclear power industry.

We might start by looking at the Price-Anderson Act. It was first passed in 1957 and has been renewed as needed since. It puts a cap on the amount of damages for which a commercial reactor can be held liable. For 2017, that amount is $450 million per reactor. (Read the linked Wikipedia article for details.)

It seems like a big number, but it is pretty small when compared to what is possible. In December of 2016, the Japanese government estimated the cleanup costs for the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster at $190 billion. That’s “billion,” not “million.” For an equivalent disaster in the United States, insurance would cover $0.45 billion, leaving the government to cover the other $189.55 billion.

The Fukushima reactors are located in a thinly populated area of Japan. Something like 185,000 people were evacuated. In the United States, reactors that might melt down are located upwind of New York City (metro area population over 20 million), Chicago (9-1/2 million) and Detroit (4.3 million in 6 counties, 5.3 million in 9 counties), to cite just 3 examples in which fallout would be orders of magnitude more damaging than at Fukushima…

more: Dying Nuclear Power Industry – Wealth Pump

Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues 2017 – April 22-23 | CENSORED NEWS

Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues 2017

Western Shoshone, Timbisha Shoshone, Havasupai, Dine' and Paiute speak out

on radioactive dumping in Native American communities

By Ian Zabarte, Western Shoshone

Secretary of the Native Community Action Council

Censored News

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Native Americans are preparing to meet the renewed threat of the proposed Yucca Mountain High Level Nuclear Waste Repository by educating themselves about cancer risks by hosting the Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues 2017 (NAFNI 2016) at the UNLV Barrick Museum Auditorium. 

Joe Kennedy of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe in Death Valley stated, “Our effort is focused on cancer prevention by understanding exposure pathways then conducting risk mitigation in Native American communities.” 

Since 1951 the US and UK have conducted nuclear testing within Western Shoshone homelands causing a wide variety of adverse health consequences know to be plausible from exposure to radiation in fallout. The proposed Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository, if licensed, will add significant risk factors to the lives of the Shoshone and Paiute people. According to Ian Zabarte, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council, “Yucca Mountain is within the Shoshone treaty boundary and therefore cannot meet the licensing requirement of ownership since the treaty is in full force and effect. This is our primary contention at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety Licensing Board.” . 

The NAFNI 2017 will have presenters speaking about protecting the Grand Canyon including Professor Michael Lerma of Northern Arizona University, author of Indigenous Sovereignty in the 21st Century; Tribal Council Member, Carletta Tillousi, Havasupai Tribe; Klee Benally, Dine’ (Navajo); Leona Morgan, Dine’ No Nukes; Joe Kennedy of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe; and the Native Community Action Council board members representing Shoshone and Paiute people.

more on the Native Community Action Council –

CENSORED NEWS: Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues 2017

nativecommunityactioncouncil.org

Tell Congress: Support informed consent, dump Yucca

What if your neighbors could dump their trash on your front yard under a law that allowed you to say “no,”--but which also allowed your neighbors to override  your opposition? The neighborhood could dump and keep dumping until decades of trash was piled up.

That is a picture of what the people in Nevada and the Western Shoshone Nation members face--only instead of neighborhood trash, it is our nation’s lethal high-level radioactive wastes. Nuclear waste that is a deadly hazard for more than a million years.

This month Nevada Senators Reid (D) and Heller (R) signed a letter with Nevada Governor Sandoval (R), vowing to continue to block highly radioactive wastes from coming to Yucca. In addition, the two Senators introduced a new bill, known as the “Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act” that would mandate that any permanent radioactive waste site be subject to the written approval of the Governor as well as impacted local jurisdictions, to include the current contested site at Yucca Mountain. In the Senate, the bill is S. 691. A companion bill in the House, introduced by Nevada representatives Titus (D) and Heck (R), is HR 1364. It's important: next time it could be your state.
 Take Action below: Urge your Congressmembers to co-sponsor the Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act and Dump Yucca now!

> SIGN NOW: Tell Congress: Support informed consent, dump Yucca

Tell your Congressmembers to Dump Yucca!

February 2015

One of President Obama's first actions in office, back in 2009, was to end the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste project.

Overriding its own 1982 legislation, which required investigation of several possible sites for a permanent high-level nuclear waste repository, in 1987 Congress narrowed the list to one: Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Why? Politics, not science. Nevada had a small, weak Congressional delegation while the other states involved, especially Washington and Texas, included many more members and Congressional leadership.

Obama's action was intended to end the practice that politics, rather than science, should determine the future of the nation's radioactive waste program.

But the nuclear industry and its most fervent Congressional backers have never given up on Yucca, and even now they're working to restart that project. That's despite the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff now has recommended against any more work on Yucca, on the grounds that the federal government does not have the necessary water or land rights. Those are held by the state of Nevada, which has steadfastly opposed a radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

It's time to start educating Congress about the facts on Yucca Mountain. We're starting with the water rights issue. Tell Congress below to Dump Yucca once and for all.


SIGN NOW: Tell your Congressmembers to Dump Yucca!

Tell your Senators NOW: Do not fund Yucca Mountain to become a nuclear dump.

December 4, 2014,

Dear Friends,

The Yucca Mountain site never should have been chosen for permanent disposal of highly radioactive waste. The Department of Energy (DOE) declared the site to be unworkable and it was taken off the table by President Obama in 2010. DOE withdrew the license application but it is still pending.

But the incoming Republican-led Congress could well try to revive the failed project--many members of the House of Representatives have been pushing for that for the past four years.

Yucca Mountain would leak radioactivity because it is plagued by combined risks from earthquakes, volcanic activity, eventual groundwater contamination and air emissions projected to violate the lax regulations that were weakened to accommodate the site. Because of the refusal of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow taxpayer funding for Yucca Mountain, the project has received no money for more than 4 years.

Yucca Mountain has failed as a permanent radioactive waste repository.Here's a new NIRS fact sheet on some of the technical reasons for that failure. It's time to move on.As the Congress now negotiates budget deals, tell your Senators and Representatives below: No Funds For Yucca Mountain Licensing. 

Notes: You must have a U.S. address to participate in this action. Please use the icons above to share this action page before sending your letter to your Congressmembers. Please feel free to edit the letter to reflect your own concerns.

SIGN NOW & ALSO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR >

Tell your Senators NOW: Do not fund Yucca Mountain to become a nuclear dump.