Keep Yucca mountains out of the dumps

In session
July 2002

Campaign finance rules get diluted
Members of Congress sue Bush over ABM treaty
Keep Yucca mountains out of the dumps

Keep Yucca mountains out of the dumps
Yucca Mountain, located 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, is the only site under consideration for a proposed repository to store 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste from U.S. weapons production facilities and commercial nuclear reactors. After years of study and billions of dollars, important scientific, ethical, environmental justice, and policy questions about the repository proposal remain unresolved, as identified in part by independent federal review agencies.

When it is removed from the reactor core, the fuel is about one million times more radioactive than when it was loaded. These irradiated fuel rods are the most intensely radioactive material on the planet, and unshielded exposure at close range gives a lethal radiation dose in seconds or minutes.

Most reactor waste is currently stored on site in cooling pools or dry casks at more than 100 operating reactors. A Yucca Mountain dump would not replace these on site storage facilities due to capacity limits on the proposed repository and because irradiated fuel rods must be cooled for at least 5 years before they can be transported. Nuclear industry efforts to extend the licenses of nuclear power plants and build new ones will add to this mounting stockpile.

In addition to problems with the Yucca Mountain site, the prospect of transporting nuclear waste across the country to Nevada raises serious safety and security concerns. Tens of thousands of shipments of this deadly cargo would be slated to pass through as many as 45 states, putting at risk millions of Americans who live near interstate highways and railroads. (For more info on Yucca Mountain, visit http://www.atomicroadshow.org/.)

Beginning the Yucca Mountain storage program was endorsed by the Bush administration in February and subsequently approved by a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate will take up this issue in the coming weeks.

An independent technical institute has offered an alternative approach to Yucca Mountain called Hardened On Site Storage. HOSS, which is safer and more environmentally, is a sound interim "solution," according to its developers.

"Our plan, which is based on more than two decades of analysis and experience on radioactive waste management policy, includes the placement of spent fuel in hardened storage at or near the point of generation for a period of about 50 years. This would reduce the risk of large-scale catastrophe in case of a terrorist attack, . . . [and it] would have the benefit of greater public acceptance, especially if it were coupled with termination of the waste stream as nuclear power plant licenses expire," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, author of the plan and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in Takoma Park, Maryland.

For more information about HOSS, visit http://www.ieer.org/comments/waste/yuccaalt.html

Possible legislative advocacy actions (suggested by the 8th Day Center for Justice):

1. Immediately write to your two U.S. Senators (see sample letter below) http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm

Write also to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) whose powerful position enables him to block the Yucca dump if he chooses to do so.

2. Endorse the statement at http://www.yuccastatement.org/ (Organizations only, please. Individuals can sign the petition at http://www.yuccapetition.org/.)

3. Forward or print this message for those in your network, place of employment, family or faith community.

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Senator (name):

I implore you to oppose the Department of Energy's premature and technically unfounded Yucca Mountain recommendation. Transporting 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to a dump site at Yucca Mountain that cannot meet basic safety standards poses unacceptable threats to human health and the environment.

Important scientific, ethical, environmental justice, and policy questions about the repository proposal remain unresolved, as identified in part by independent federal review agencies. The Department of Energy has not developed a credible transportation plan. The risks of shipping highly radioactive waste through 44 states to a questionable site, as currently proposed, cannot be justified.

An independent technical institute has offered an alternative approach to Yucca Mountain called Hardened On Site Storage. HOSS , which is safer and more environmentally friendly, is a sound interim “solution.”

Again, please oppose the Yucca Mountain dump site.

Sincerely,

(your name and address)

Back to page top