Sign-on by August 31, 2004 to Letter to Congress on High-Level Waste in South Carolina/Great Lakes
Dear Colleagues,
We are seeking national and local groups to sign-on to this letter to Congress which opposes reclassifying and abandoning highly radioactive nuclear waste in leaking underground tanks in South Carolina. With debate on the defense authorization bill completed in the House and Senate, it is time to contact Members of the House-Senate conference committee. An action alert on this issue is posted on the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability website at www.ananuclear.org/action.html
Please circulate this announcement to any groups who might be interested in supporting this effort. We will not be using individual names, only groups and organizations, including the city and state you are located in.
Individuals: You can help by taking the actions described at the bottom of this Alert!
Send your name, group name, city and state to Barb Sullivan with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice at barbaras@chej.org or 703-237-2249, ext. 10 by August 31.
Thanks for your help! Michael Mariotte, NIRS
LETTER
August 24, 2004
Dear Senator/Representative:
During the Conference Committee considerations for the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization bill, we urge you to oppose Senate Section 3116, providing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the authority to reclassify and abandon millions of gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste in leaking underground storage tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
Approximately 37 million gallons of highly radioactive waste remain in 51 large and failing tanks in South Carolina. Section 3116 gives the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) the authority in South Carolina to reclassify high-level waste as low-level waste simply by covering the waste with a thick layer of grout. The highly radioactive waste would then be abandoned in the aging corroding tanks that were never designed for permanent disposal and are already leaking. Given the proximity to the Savannah River and the underlying water table, the radioactive waste in the tanks represents a serious threat to communities surrounding SRS and downstream in Georgia and South Carolina.
Section 3116 also establishes a dangerous precedent providing DOE with leverage to pressure Idaho, Washington, and New York to accept reduced cleanup at their high-level waste tanks, which are also old, rusting and in many cases leaking, posing grave risks to the Columbia River, Snake River Aquifer and Great Lakes.
The DOE lacks a mandate to move forward with their reclassification plan. When Section 3116 was voted on in the Senate, it drew a tie vote surviving by only the narrowest of margins. The House did not approve of a similar measure in its Defense Authorization bill and the House, in the Energy & Water Development appropriations, explicitly rejected state-specific solutions of the kind present in Section 3116.
It should be noted that Section 3116 is a direct legislative reversal of a Federal District Court case that was decided in the summer of 2003. An appeal to that case is currently pending before a United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Section 3116 would partially interfere with that pending case prior to the Court of Appeals having an opportunity to rule on the matter.
The affirmation by both the House and the Senate to have the National Academies of Science (NAS) examine the high-level waste issue in detail is a safer course of action, considering the serious nature of the threat. Nor would the NAS study in any way interfere with the current legal matter under review in the Court of Appeals.
Cleanup of the all of the high-level waste tanks must continue uninterrupted with full funding. We urge support for Senate Section 3120 to fully fund $350 million for ongoing cleanup of the high-level radioactive waste tanks in Idaho, Washington, and South Carolina.
Again, we urge you to strike Senate Section 3116 providing DOE with the ability to reclassify high-level nuclear waste in South Carolina and to support Senate Section 3120 providing full funding for ongoing cleanup of the waste tanks in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington. We hope that you will do all you can to spare the residents of communities next to DOE nuclear weapons complex sites from facing the risks of these inadequate cleanup policies and to stop such ill-advised plans from being adopted at other DOE cleanup sites.
Sincerely,
On Monday, August 9th, call both Presidential Candidates at:
Bush Campaign - 703-647-2700
Kerry Campaign - 202-712-3000
NIRS encourages everyone to join the BE SAFE Campaign's Nuclear Days of Action and participate in the National Call-In Day on MONDAY August 9th, the 59th Anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. We call on presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry to protect our children and our future by reducing and eliminating our nuclear weapons stockpile and clean up the radioactive and toxic contamination from nuclear weapons production instead of the current path of pursuing a provocative nuclear weapons program to develop bunker busters and mini-nukes, and return to fullscale nuclear weapons testing.
Don't forget! You can support NIRS and help us meet our $100,000 matching challenge grant by contributing online at: https://secure.campagne.com/Donation/donate.aspx?id=58
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