Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee: I appreciate the invitation to speak before you today, and for your request to hear our views on S. 608, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1999.
I am speaking on behalf of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and our 1,000+ organizational and individual members across the United States, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. As you know, NIRS was founded in 1978 to serve as the information and networking center for grassroots environmental groups and people across the U.S. interested in nuclear power, radioactive waste, and sustainable energy issues. In 1997, we expanded our efforts to include support to organizations in those nations with the most dangerous nuclear programs: Eastern Europe and the CIS. More recently, we have received considerable demand for our services from organizations throughout Asia and Africa.
Our members across the nation and worldwide have a keen interest in the outcome of the debate over S. 608. No nation has yet successfully tackled the seemingly unsolvable problem of long-term radioactive waste storage. Virtually every country is looking to the United States for leadership on this vital issue. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not currently positioned to provide that leadership. S. 608 is symptomatic of the problem, not of the solution.
I am struck, upon rereading my February 5, 1997 testimony before this committee on similar legislation (S. 104), how little has changed over the past two years. In essence, we have all wasted those two years: we are no further along toward a sound, scientifically-defensible radioactive waste policy than we were—to me, that is the root of our current problem. I will have more to say on this later in my statement. In the meantime, I refer the Committee to my testimony of that date.
However, there are a few developments that have arisen since that earlier testimony and a few issues I wish to stress. In particular, I want to note that the environmental community is now firmly on record that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository must be disqualified from further consideration as a permanent waste site. This new position—based on ever-mounting scientific evidence—is reason enough to disqualify the Nevada Test Site adjacent to Yucca Mountain as an "interim" storage site as well.
S. 608 is just as unnecessary, dangerous and destructive to both the public health and safety and to any goal of achieving a scientifically-defensible, publicly-acceptable radioactive waste policy as was S. 104.
Our problem is not only with the details of the legislation, but also with its concept. There is no compelling reason to institute, at this time, the transport of high-level atomic waste across our nation. There is no benefit to beginning this action. There is, however, a serious detriment: transporting high-level atomic waste will result in accidents—transportation accidents are inevitable. This leads to the spectre of a Mobile Chernobyl—a serious accident that can result in local catastrophe.
Rail accidents occur: we all saw the devastating accident of an Amtrak train from Chicago to New Orleans 10 days ago. A similar accident involving a train carrying the long-lived radiological equivalent of some 200 Hiroshima bombs would be beyond tragedy.
Truck accidents occur: how often do those of us in Washington wake up to a traffic report about a tractor-trailer truck accident on the Capital Beltway? A similar accident involving a truck carrying high-level nuclear waste would not be just a traffic nightmare, but an environmental disaster.
Accidents happen; there is absolutely no rational reason to believe they won’t occur. The casks that will carry this waste certainly will be built to be robust (I say "will be built" because no such cask actually has yet been constructed or tested). But does good design mean it is impossible to breach the casks? Unfortunately, "impossible" is not a word that well signifies the nuclear power industry. Just 20 years ago, the nuclear power industry and its regulators, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, officially viewed a "Class 9" nuclear meltdown as "incredible." This Sunday, we will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the "incredible": the meltdown at Three Mile Island. Of course it will be possible to breach these casks. What is impossible is to believe that any man-made cask can survive every possible accident scenario that can be thrown at it. And it is likely that these casks will face—given the reality of somewhere between 15,000 and 100,000 shipments—every possible accident scenario we can think of, and probably a few we haven’t considered.
What is the rush?
These casks, if pressed into transport in the time frame envisioned under S. 608, will face thermal and radiation loads no material should ever have to protect against. The alphabet soup of lethal radionuclides contained in high-level atomic waste didn’t, for the most part, even exist 60 years ago. They are products of the atomic age. Plutonium-239, Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-129: these are fission products, and exist only as a result of the fissioning of the atom. They are killers. Why move them now, before we have a long-term storage solution in place? Who benefits?
The only beneficiaries are the nuclear utilities, who would be able to remove some of their waste from their reactor sites to a centralized site. Out of sight, out of mind. It wouldn’t solve their waste problems entirely, since as long as the reactors generate waste, they must have on-site storage. But it is the opposite of a sustainable environmental strategy: one does not simply move lethal wastes from one site to another in order to make more of the same lethal waste. But that is, to the nuclear utilities, the only "solution" they have to offer. Move the waste now, and let us make more that you’ll have to move later. This defies not only common sense, which is why most Americans are adamantly opposed to this legislation, but it defies scientific sense as well.
Why should we rush to solve a problem that didn’t even exist 60 years ago, but will be with us for the next several million years? The simple fact is that we shouldn’t rush; rather, we need to proceed deliberately, and make the right decisions, because the decisions we make now will have ramifications for every generation to come. I am sure you will agree with me that we all care deeply about our grandchildren’s grandchildren, and their grandchildren too. The issue is what legacy will we leave them?
The urge to say ‘we did everything we could’ is understandable. What is impossible to grasp is why it should be considered better to "do everything we could" when our answers today are more likely to make the problem worse than to make it better. We do not yet know how to ensure that this deadly material never enters the environment, and making irrevocable decisions without that knowledge is irresponsible.
Moving high-level radioactive waste now, or in the near future, inevitably ensures accidents. The only question is whether we will experience a truly horrific accident, or will we merely suffer a series of nuclear fender-benders?
The consequences of a Mobile Chernobyl accident are mind-boggling. We could lose much of an entire major city—permanently. I have been to Pripyat, Ukraine, and I can attest to the absolutely apocalyptic nature of visiting a city—once of 50,000 active people--in which there is no sound, no movement, no life. I can assure you we don’t want that to happen in the United States. Or we could lose—permanently—hundreds to thousands of acres of prime farmland, as did Ukraine and Belarus.
We often hear, in support of this legislation, that it is intolerable to have high-level radioactive waste sitting at reactor sites across this country, near homes, schools and cities. A program to move the waste, this reasoning goes, would be an environmental benefit for these areas. But high-level atomic waste cannot be moved at all for at least five years (it must remain in cooling pools), so as long as nuclear reactors continue operating, each of these reactor sites will remain an "interim" atomic waste site. Creation of a centralized "interim" site merely adds one more contaminated site to those scattered across the country—it does not solve the problem, it merely expands it geographically.
Further, if those who make this argument truly were concerned about the safety hazards and the quality of the environment at the reactor sites, they would be the most adamant in insisting that reactors close now. After all, the reactors themselves—with all of their valves, pipes and other components susceptible to failures—are more dangerous than waste sitting in pools or casks.
Again: who benefits? The 50 million Americans who live, shop, go to school and farm within ½ mile—just one-half mile—of the likely transport routes? No, it is only the nuclear utilities. They just want this waste off their property, and they want the title and liability for this waste to revert to the taxpayer, not the utility. Their goal is transparent, and wrong. It is a direct repudiation of a long-held American belief that one is responsible for the mess one makes, for the garbage one creates, for the waste one generates. This tenet holds true for individuals and for corporations; for everyone, apparently, except the nuclear power industry.
In November 1998, NIRS and 218 other environmental and consumer organizations formally petitioned the Department of Energy to disqualify the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository from further consideration.
This action marked a watershed for the environmental movement, which, until then, had never taken such a clear position on whether radioactive waste ultimately should be moved to Nevada.
However, persuaded by the overwhelming onslaught of scientific evidence, the environmental movement is now firmly opposed to Yucca Mountain as either a permanent or "interim" nuclear waste storage site.
It is clear that Yucca Mountain cannot be licensed under existing regulations; only by changing the regulations after the rules have been established can Yucca Mountain even be considered as a long-term storage site. Changing these regulations would be cheating the American people, would indicate a reliance on politics over science, and would further diminish the credibility of both the Department of Energy and the U.S. Congress.
Our petition to the DOE focused on a specific issue: movement of water inside the mountain. Specifically, 10 CFR 960.4-2-1(d) states that a high-level nuclear waste site must be disqualified if "pre-waste-emplacement groundwater travel time from the disturbed zone to the accessible environment is expected to be less than 1,000 years along any pathway of likely and significant radionuclide travel." According to the DOE’s Viability Assessment for Yucca Mountain, radionuclides can be released from the Yucca Mountain site through groundwater in as little as 500 years.
Add this issue to the myriad of other problems at Yucca Mountain: its active seismicity, including last year’s revelation in Science that the earth’s crust at Yucca is less stable than scientists previously had believed and is stretching some ten times faster than expected; the January 1999 publication in Nature that the migration of radioactive materials through groundwater moves faster than previously realized; the December 1998 report by Institute for Energy and Environmental Research that warm groundwater has flooded the Yucca region in geologically recent times and the previously reported possibility of superheated water coming up into the mountain.
More recently, the Department of Energy’s own Peer Review Panel for the Viability Assessment raised numerous troubling issues that should provide great caution to anyone relying upon this document as evidence that Yucca Mountain should be, or ultimately will be approved as a repository site. When it released the Viability Assessment, DOE spokespeople described it as indicating there are no "showstoppers" for Yucca Mountain. But the Peer Review Panel report indicates that this show is likely to close early.
Stated the Panel in its February 11, 1999 report, "…the Panel finds that a number of the components of the TSPA-VA [Total System Performance Assessment—Viability Assessment] analysis were not supported by adequate evidence that they are representative of the systems, components, and processes they were designed to simulate. In addition, several of the component models are likely to be conservative and others non-conservative….For these reasons, it is unlikely that the TSPA-VA, taken as a whole, describes the long-term probable behavior of the proposed repository. In recognition of its limitations, decisions based on the TSPA-VA should be made cautiously."
It may surprise the Committee—and certainly will shock the American public—to learn that the mountain itself is no longer considered a primary barrier to prevent the release of radioactivity. So much for deep geological storage as a concept…This is, of course, the concept that originally brought us Yucca Mountain as a possible waste repository. The thinking was a geological barrier was essential because no man-made structures could contain the radiation from the waste for its hazardous life.
According to the Panel’s report, "Since the projection of the performance of the proposed repository by the TSPA-VAS is conditioned largely on the effectiveness of the waste package and cladding, particular attention needs to be directed to these components of the proposed barrier system. Important examples of key issues include the possibilities that the buildup of corrosion products from the outer carbon steel layer could cause early failure of the inner corrosion-resistant layer of the waste packages, and that the credit taken for spent fuel cladding may be optimistic, considering the potential effects of hydrogen embrittlement."
The Panel added, "Based on the TSPA-VA results, the TSPA analysts have judged that the rate of waste package degradation is a principal determinant of overall repository performance….The waste package contributes to the containment strategy in two ways: first it provides complete isolation until such time as the package is fully penetrated and, second, it provides subsequent retardation of the egress of radionuclides from the penetrated package. The Panel concluded that the conceptual description and analysis of the corrosion of waste packages are well underway and the needs are well defined. The Panel notes, however, that the understanding and treatment of how corrosion damage of a waste package evolves over time are not well developed. There is a need for improvements in the conceptual description, in the approach to the problem and in the completion of the necessary experimental work. Once these improvements have been accomplished, the next step will be to complete the necessary analytical analyses."
In other words, a key protection for the public and environment is not the mountain; it is the thin cladding that surrounds the lethal waste, and the waste cask itself. Fuel cladding often has failed inside reactors and in fuel pools in a matter of months and years; relying on cladding—particularly after 2,000 miles or so of transport, as a defense against radiation release is an act of desperation; not protection.
This leaves the casks themselves as the most important barrier. While these casks undoubtedly will be strong, there will be thousands of them—perhaps tens of thousands by the time the site is full. Further, these casks are to provide an effective barrier for, literally, tens to hundreds of thousands of years. This in itself, would be a remarkable time span for a man-made endeavor of any kind and material. It also would require a level of 100% quality control, or absolute perfection in design, materials, and manufacturing—a level unobtainable with this quantity of product.
The Viability Assessment assumes only one failure of a waste package in the first 1,000 years, but provides no basis for this assumption. This certainly would be a remarkably (and unlikely) low failure rate for materials that must sit in a mountain and be exposed to heat and constant radioactivity.
If the primary containment to protect the public and the planet from high-level nuclear waste is to be fuel cladding and casks, then the waste can be placed anywhere: from midtown Manhattan to downtown Juneau. The last place one would want it to be placed, however, would be a site like Yucca Mountain, with all of its blatant faults (both literally and figuratively).
It is time to stop wasting money and other resources on Yucca Mountain, and to begin the search for new alternatives.
The funding mechanism proposed in S. 608 (and in its companion bill, HR 45) is convoluted, unnecessarily complex, and does not adequately alleviate the projected shortfall in the Nuclear Waste Fund. Indeed, the legislation, by establishing an "interim" storage site paid for from the Nuclear Waste Fund, virtually ensures that U.S. taxpayers will bear the brunt of the long-term storage burden. This is equivalent to a new tax on average citizens, especially those who do not receive any benefits from nuclear-powered electricity.
Moreover, it is our belief that the shortfall in the Fund could grow so large as to imperil essential reforms in basic social welfare programs such as Medicare.
Consider that recent studies, including one by the State of Nevada that is based on very reasonable assumptions, conclude that a program such as that envisioned by S. 104 will cost some $54 Billion, and that the Nuclear Waste Fund—if no more reactors close before their licensed period, a highly unlikely proposition—is expected to gross less than $28 Billion. By capping—and later reducing—utility fees to the Waste Fund, S. 608 could result in an even larger deficit. Who will make up this nearly 100% shortfall? And which elected officials will pay for this unmitigated failure at the voting booth?
Much has been made of recent court decisions which some have interpreted as mandating that the DOE must take possession of nuclear waste immediately. That is a misreading of these decisions. No court has ruled that DOE must literally take possession of atomic waste for which it has no means of storage. The issue is one of liability for potential economic damages, not possession of the waste, and an interpretation that a facility, interim or otherwise, must be built quickly is simply wrongheaded.
The court decisions of relevance are three in the U.S. Court of Claims, which ruled that the DOE is liable—for closed reactors, since these are the only reactors for which the Court has heard claims—for lack of waste storage. No monetary damages have yet been assessed by this Court. There is little reason to believe that this Court will rule similarly for operating reactors which are still generating radioactive waste, and therefore still require onsite storage of radioactive waste for at least five years under the best of circumstances.
There is no nuclear waste crisis, there is no need to rush to judgement on nuclear waste issues. And the "crisis" has dwindled even over the past two years. As just one example, consider the Millstone nuclear complex. In 1997, I argued in my testimony that Millstone-1 would run out of onsite storage space in 2011, contrary to the 2004 date Northeast Utilities (NU) had stated to the DOE. Millstone-2 also was projected by NU to be out of space by 2004; I argued 2005. And Millstone-3 was projected to fill by 2003; I said 2004. Since then, Millstone-1 has closed permanently. Millstone-3 finally got back on line in the summer of 1998, leaving its fuel pool available until at least 2006, although it could also take advantage of Millstone-1’s unfilled fuel pool. Millstone-2 is still not operational, extending its date until at least 2007.
The few utilities with reactors that actually may be running out of space in their fuel pools can pay to build their own dry casks, or they can close their reactors and save themselves—and their ratepayers—the expense and burden of additional atomic waste storage. The special privileges given the nuclear industry for its lethal by-products are unwarranted. Should the taxpayers suddenly be required to take Dupont or Monsanto’s chemically hazardous waste if those companies no longer feel like taking responsibility for their own garbage?
In the two years since I last spoke to you, I have visited Germany twice to witness radioactive waste transports there. In the first instance, high-level waste was moving from a southern nuclear power plant to an "interim" storage site at Gorleben. In the second instance, high-level waste was going from various points in the south of Germany to an "interim" storage site at Ahaus.
I can say, without hesitation, that you do not want to repeat the German experience in the U.S. As a high school student in the Washington area in the late 1960s, I attended the large anti-war demonstrations here. But I have never seen a police presence such as that presented in Germany. It quite literally required establishment of a police state and a virtual war zone to allow the waste shipments to reach their destinations. It is not surprising, given what I saw, that these shipments, and the police presence, played a major role in the election of Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic government last year, and subsequent alliance with the Green Party. Senator Reid has spoken at some length in floor debate about these transports; I would be happy to provide you with additional information about them.
Obviously, these were not the only issues that led to Schroeder’s election, but they were among the initiating issues. Schroeder’s base is in northern Germany—site of the "interim" dumps. His constituents were those most affected by the transports, and they were not about to tolerate any more shipments. They were farmers protecting their fields and townspeople protecting their villages. Among the first actions of Schroeder’s new government was an end to work on the proposed Gorleben high-level waste site, and an end to transports to such "interim" sites. While the new German government has been all over the map on other nuclear-related issues, such as when to phase out nuclear power, its commitment to the above principles has never been in doubt.
Moreover, opposition to such transports has now spread to France, to Bulgaria, to Moldova and Ukraine, and to Russia. It is simply naïve to believe that similar activities will not take place in the U.S. Indeed, wherever I travel--in the U.S. and abroad--radioactive waste transport and ways of expressing opposition to it are the number one topic of conversation and activist trainings.
There is a growing ethic, in this country and abroad, that states it is simply immoral to transport atomic waste to a non-reactor community. This ethic is especially prevalent in reactor communities--the exact places one might expect to see the greatest support for moving the waste. And this ethic is particularly sensitive to environmental justice issues: to the disproportionate impact of transport through rural, and urban minority, neighborhoods and to the impact of waste storage on Native American land. I honestly believe that, if you are ever successful in initiating radioactive waste transport in the U.S., you will be required to fill jails from Maine to Nevada with non-violent, but determined protestors.
However, it did not win the support of the U.S. Congress. Apparently, many members of Congress viewed this recommendation as some sort of "delaying tactic."
I daresay that if the U.S. Congress had adopted our suggestion, we would not now be considering a "Mobile Chernobyl" bill for the third Congress in a row. Rather than a simple "delaying tactic," such a Commission already would have reported back, and by now we would be seeking ways to implement its findings.
Clearly, as a "delaying tactic," the independent commission idea was less effective than the actual "interim" storage legislation favored by the nuclear utilities.
We acknowledge that since our Independent Commission proposal, the environmental movement has not made any specific recommendations about either "interim" or long-term atomic waste storage. We have been content, and successful, at merely saying NO to "interim" storage and Mobile Chernobyl.
On the other hand, the nuclear industry has offered nothing new either.
We are at an impasse. Legislation does not get enacted and effective policy does not get promulgated when neither side offers new alternatives, new ways to break the deadlock.
That is beginning to change. Secretary Richardson already has suggested one new proposal. We do not agree with it, but at least it’s new. Various environmental groups are now preparing new ideas and approaches to begin addressing the fundamental problems of current radioactive waste policy. I urge you not to take action on S. 608 until you hear some of the alternatives. The first set of recommendations, I am told, will be released in the next few weeks; you can expect more new policy suggestions over the next several months.
We are all Americans here, we all want what is best for our nation. We have different starting points of looking at issues, I hope we can reach some common ground toward achieving acceptable answers. We are doing the best we can to address your concerns about radioactive waste issues; we hope you realize that, and that you recognize our very legitimate concerns about S. 608 and its ramifications.
The debate over S. 608 is not about the future of the nuclear power industry. Economics and competing generating sources, utility restructuring, the quality of reactor operation—all of these will determine the industry’s future, not interim storage or Yucca Mountain. Indeed, as the German nuclear industry learned the hard way, premature waste transport to unpopular "interim" storage sites may be the fastest method of turning the public against nuclear power.
Rather, NIRS and every environmental group that has taken a position on the issue, oppose S. 608 because it is fundamentally flawed and environmentally destructive. It continues the ill-fated Congressional conceit that because the radioactive waste program isn’t working, Congress must act to fix it. While this sounds reasonable on the surface, in fact every time Congress inserts itself into the issue, long-term solutions fall further behind. That’s because Congress does not have the expertise, or perhaps patience, to make scientific decisions and thus has made purely political decisions. Congress already blundered by establishing dates that could not be met, on either scientific or safety grounds, and by requiring that atomic waste be moved to Nevada, regardless of whether that site is suitable for long-term waste storage.
If Congress is indeed interested in resolving the radioactive waste issue, it will remove Yucca Mountain from the list of possible repositories. Second, Congress will direct the DOE to consider a wide range of alternatives. Third, Congress will seek to minimize the extent of the radioactive waste problem by explicitly tying access to off-site atomic waste storage facilities to cessation of waste generation. Most importantly, Congress will begin its quest for a just, scientifically-defensible, publicly-acceptable radioactive waste policy by defeating S. 608 and thereby not exacerbating the problems of the past.