Urge your Member of Congress to oppose pro-reprocessing and Mobile Chernobyl language in the House Energy & Water Appropriations Bill by supporting the Markey-Holt-Inslee Amendments.
Capitol Switchboard Phone Number to be transferred to your Congressmember's office: 202.224.3121.
JUST SAY NO TO THE RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPROCESSING RELAPSE!
Republican Congressman Hobson of Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee in the House with oversight on Dept. of Energy (DOE) funding, has — without holding hearings or debate -- slipped pro-reprocessing language into the Energy & Water Appropriations Bill to be voted on today on the House floor. The language would also require the DOE to begin Mobile Chernobyl shipments of commercial high-level radioactive waste from reactor sites to regional "interim" storage sites beginning as early as September, 2006. Congressmen Markey, Holt and Inslee's amendment would transfer funds for reprocessing to energy efficiency programs.
BACKGROUND
Since the Gerald Ford Administration thirty years ago, the United States has banned the extraction of plutonium and uranium from commercial high-level radioactive waste. Here are a few uncomfortable historical facts showing that the ban should absolutely be kept in place...
"INTERIM" BECOMES DE FACTO PERMANENT WASTE STORAGE
General Electric's reprocessing facility in Morris, Illinois was built and opened in the early 1970s but never operated due to major equipment failures and technical problems. However, the 772 tons of high-level radioactive commercial waste stored underwater remain there to this day. Recently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the facility's original operating license for another 20 years, till 2022. Thus a proposed reprocessing facility has instead become a several-decades-long storage site for commercial high-level radioactive waste from reactors throughout several states.(1)
Although the West Valley, New York reprocessing center only operated from 1966 to 1972 (and then at only about one-sixth its design capacity due to chronic equipment breakdowns and accidents involving radioactive contamination, thus reprocessing only one year's worth of projected quantity), the last un-reprocessed irradiated fuel was not removed from the site until 2003, and vitrified (glassified) logs of highly radioactive waste still remain at the site, 40 years after its opening and 33 years after cessation of reprocessing operations. In addition, high-level radioactive sludges remain in the underground storage tanks, threatening eventual leakage into Lake Erie.(2)
REPROCESSING CAUSES SEVERE RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
The only commercial reprocessing done in the United States was a dismal failure. Of the three commercial reprocessing facilities built (Morris, IL; Barnwell, SC; West Valley, NY), only one actually operated (West Valley). In the six years reprocessing was underway at West Valley, NY only 27 'runs' were completed — an amount that was supposed to have been completed in the first year of operations. There were fires and high worker exposures. There were radioactive releases into the water and into the air—some of which left a radioactive "prong" of contamination identifiable decades later by aerial surveying. According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy, the clean up bill for the mess made by these minimal reprocessing operations at the West Valley, New York site is projected to cost over $5 billion in taxpayer money (and that in 1996 dollars unadjusted for inflation).(3)
According to a 2001 report published by the European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment, 80% of the collective radiation dose of the entire French nuclear power industry, and 90% of the radioactive emissions and discharges from the British nuclear power program, come from commercial waste reprocessing. The collective radiation dose from 70 years of "routine" (that is, accident-free) operations of the French and British reprocessing plants would be equivalent to the collective radiation dose from the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. In addition, leukemia clusters have been observed near both the French and British reprocessing facilities. Research into these leukemia clusters is inconclusive, but the role of radiation as an initiating or contributing factor has not been ruled out. Indeed, toxic chemicals used in the reprocessing facilities is also pointed to as a possible contributing factor. The British reprocessing center has discharged over 1,000 pounds of plutonium — known to be carcinogenic in microscopic quantities if inhaled or ingested — into the sea, and has been detected in children's teeth throughout the British Isles. A huge accidental leak of highly radioactive liquids containing 20 tons of uranium and enough plutonium to make 20 nuclear warheads that began on just over a month ago threatens to permanently close Britain's $3.8 billion reprocessing facility.(4)
(1) David A. Lochbaum, Nuclear Waste Disposal Crisis, PennWell Publishing Company, Tulsa, OK, 1996, pages 71-72; Chicago Tribune, 8/23/2001; NRC press release, Dec. 30, 2004.
(2) Lochbaum, pgs. 69-71; Newsday (NY), "Train Loaded with radioactive waste leaves New York," July 16, 2003.
(3) Table 5-9, "Summary of Closure Costs for Implementing Alternative I (Removal)," pg. 5-35, U.S. Department of Energy and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Completion of the West Valley Demonstration Project and Closure or Long-Term Management of Facilities at the Western New York Nuclear Service Center, January 1996.
(4) "STOA Report Condemns Reprocessing," World Information Service on Energy News Communique, Dec. 7, 2001; "Plutonium in Children's Teeth," Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment press release, Dec. 11, 2003; "Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant," The London Guardian, May 9, 2005; "Thorp reprocessing should never be restarted — boss," The London Observer, May 15, 2005.
For more information: Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, 202.328.0002 ext. 14.
With the Senate apparently having resolved the judicial filibuster issue, we expect that work will begin again soon on both the Senate energy bill and the McCain/Lieberman climate change bill. The energy bill as it now stands can be downloaded from http://www.energy.senate.gov
We are looking at the bill, which could change in committee, and hope to present an analysis later this week. In the meantime, please sign the Petition for a Sustainable Energy Future at http://www.nirs.org and please forward it to all your friends and colleagues. Grassroots groups: please link to it from your websites! Thanks!
-30-
< Return to Previous Page
|
