CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 12/19/14 through 12/26/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Public Comments Due January 5 about Leaving High-Level Radioactive and Chemical Waste at Sandia’s Mixed Waste Landfill

Public comments are needed about the plans of Sandia National Laboratories to leave high-level radioactive and chemical waste in the Mixed Waste Landfill in unlined, shallow pits and trenches, which threaten Albuquerque’s drinking water aquifer. Sandia submitted a request to the New Mexico Environment Department saying that they have completed cleanup at the Mixed Waste Landfill and asked for the hazardous waste permit to be modified. On October 8, 2014 the Environment Department made a preliminary determination that the cleanup was complete and issued a Certificate of Completion. Citizen Action New Mexico has prepared sample public comments for you to use. Comments are due to Sandia on Monday, January 5, 2015 to nnsa.sandia@nnsa.doe.gov.

Sandia’s Mixed Waste Landfill is a 2.6-acre dumpsite, located in southeast Albuquerque within the Kirtland Air Force Base. Dumping began in 1959 and ended in 1988. It contains an estimated 1,500,000 cubic feet of radioactive and mixed hazardous wastes from the reactor meltdown experiments and the research and development of nuclear weapons. Plutonium, cesium, strontium, depleted uranium, beryllium, PCBs and chlorinated solvents were disposed in plastic bags, cardboard boxes and steel drums and placed in the unlined dump. Groundwater is located about 400 feet below the dump. Evidence of groundwater contamination has been found. In 2009, a dirt cover was installed.

For decades, Sandia and the New Mexico Environment Department claimed that only low-level radioactive and chemical wastes were buried in the dump. New records uncovered by Citizen Action New Mexico clearly demonstrate that high-level radioactive waste from nuclear fuel experiments was buried in the dump. Some of the waste canisters can explode because they contain metallic sodium.

Following the 1979 Three Mile Island commercial nuclear reactor accident in Pennsylvania, Sandia was tasked with finding out what happens to high-level nuclear fuel during meltdowns. Sandia conducted dozens of experiments on nuclear fuel from around the world in its Annular Core Research Reactor and the waste was disposed in the Mixed Waste Landfill.

Citizen Action encourages the public to make comments that request a public hearing; ask the Environment Department to deny the cleanup certificate; and ask the Environment Department to order Sandia to excavate the dump and safely store the wastes away from the aquifer.

Dave McCoy, of Citizen Action New Mexico, said, “High-level waste disposal requires a deep geologic repository that won’t leak for 10,000 years. Leaving high-level waste in the shallow Mixed Waste Landfill for future generations is nothing short of an environmental crime. Please also sign the Change.org petition.”

For more information, please visit Citizen Action’s website at http://www.radfreenm.org/, and Sandia’s information in the Lobo Vault at http://repository.unm.edu/ and search for the Mixed Waste Landfill.

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 12/12/14 through 12/19/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Pope Francis Calls for A World Without Nuclear Weapons at Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

Amongst a growing number of participants at the Third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna, Pope Francis clarified the Catholic Church’s position for nuclear disarmament. In a message read by Archbishop Silvio Tomasi, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, the pope said, “Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence among peoples and states. The youth of today and tomorrow deserve far more….  Peace must be built on justice, socio-economic development, freedom, respect for fundamental human rights, the participation of all in public affairs and the building of trust between peoples.” He concluded his message with an affirmation that “a world without nuclear weapons is truly possible.”

In a press conference, Archbishop Tomasi expanded on the concept of deterrence, saying, “During the ‘80s, especially during the cold war, the use of deterrence was accepted as a condition for avoiding worst results, but not as a value in itself.” He explained that deterrence is no longer justified because of the risk of accident or the weapons falling into the wrong hands. He said, “So we go back to the principal that the possession and use of atomic weapons is not at all acceptable.”

In a document released to the conference, entitled “Nuclear Disarmament: Time for Abolition,” the Catholic Church joined other international organizations calling for a re-examination of the policy of deterrence, questioning whether it is a “stable basis for peace” and noting that it is like a feudal tenant’s sworn loyalty to a lord, or “a kind of religion” in its own right.  http://www.news.va/en/news/message-of-the-holy-father-on-the-occasion-of-the

On December 6^th and 7^th, before the formal conference, a civil society conference attended by over 600 people from around the world, was facilitated by I-CAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. On December 8^th and 9^th, the government of Austria hosted the third Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War. During the November 2014 United Nations General Assembly, 180 nations endorsed the Vienna conferences.

For the first time, the U.S. sent a representative to the conference.

The nine weapons states, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, are modernizing or expanding their nuclear weapons arsenals and systems. It is estimated that the U.S. will spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years. This week the U.S. Senate and House passed an Omnibus bill to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. It included over $8.2 billion for weapons activities.

The fourth Conference on the Humanitarian Impact on Nuclear Weapons is being planned.

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 12/5/14 through 12/12/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Reduction or Expansion of the Number of Nuclear Weapons?

The push and pull about what to do with the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile is making headlines across the country, while at the same time the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is asking Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to examine whether the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project radiological laboratory can withstand an 47-fold increase in the amount of plutonium-239 allowed.

Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a Washington Post editorial entitled, “America’s nuclear arsenal is unnecessarily and unsustainably large.”  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dianne-feinstein-our-large-nuclear-arsenal-is-unnecessary-and-unsustainable/2014/12/03/1f835ed0-7320-11e4-9c9f-a37e29e80cd5_story.html  She referenced that the Congressional Budget Office estimates the U.S. will spend $355 billion over the next decade on nuclear weapons, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimates the U.S. will spend $1 trillion over the next three decades for new weapons facilities, nuclear-capable submarines, and long-range bombers.

She argues that the U.S. should reduce the number of backup nuclear weapons from two for each of the 4,804 active weapons in the stockpile. Senator Feinstein concludes, “We can reduce these reserve weapons without the painstaking task of negotiating further arms-control treaties. We can do so without negatively affecting our national security or our global deterrence. And doing so could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.”

Recently, the NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), sent a memo to LANL requesting an analysis about whether it would be possible to increase the amount of plutonium used in the new CMRR Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building (RLUOB) from 38.6 grams to 400 grams of plutonium-239. http://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/Board%20Activities/Reports/Site%20Rep%20Weekly%20Reports/Los%20Alamos%20National%20Laboratory/2014/wr_20141024_65.pdf  Four hundred grams is equivalent to a little more than 14 ounces, or nearly a pound. Because Plutonium-239 is used its nuclear weapons, it is considered a “special” nuclear material.

The RLUOB is the first facility built in the CMRR Project, a DOE proposal to increase the manufacture of plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons from 20 per year to 50 to 80 per year. Since 2003, when the CMRR Project was first proposed, many have opposed it.

The amount of plutonium allowed in the RLUOB was first limited to 8.4 grams, or about one-third of an ounce. But NNSA recently gave itself permission to increase that amount to 38.6 grams, all without any type of public process.

The memo asks LANL to consider changing the status of the RLUOB from a radiological facility to a Hazard Category 3 nuclear facility. But DOE and NNSA explicitly stated in its 2011 final environmental impact statement, “NNSA would not operate RLUOB as anything other than a radiological facility, which would significantly limit the total quantity of special nuclear material that could be handled in the building.”

LANL has five months to complete the analysis.

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 4/24/15 through 5/1/15

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

*  Join Peace and Planet to Build a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World – Global Activities This Weekend

On the eve of the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations (UN), Peace and Planet is organizing a number of events this weekend in New York City to build a nuclear-free, peaceful, just and sustainable world. During four weeks in April and May, governments from around the world will meet at the UN to conduct a five-year review of the treaty. Civil society is calling on governments to end the threat of nuclear weapons by negotiating for their complete prohibition and elimination, which is a requirement of the treaty.

Peace and Planet is organizing a conference, rally, march, and peace festival in mid-town Manhattan.

On Friday and Saturday, April 24^th and 25^th, there will be an International Peace and Planet Conference. It is anticipated that 800 people working for nuclear abolition; economic, racial, and environmental justice; and an end to war will attend.

The conference will be livestreamed to your computer. The Opening Ceremony will begin on Friday, April 24^th at 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time, followed by the Opening Plenary at 7:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time. The Plenary is entitled, “Connecting the Struggles for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World,” and will feature Manuel Pino, a Professor at Scottsdale College and Co-Founder of the Acoma-Laguna Coalition for a Safe Environment, and Board President of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Watch the Peace & Planet Conference for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World live on your computer! https://livestream.com/accounts/501730/events/3991876

The Opening Ceremony begins at 6:30 pm EDT/3:30 pm PDT Friday, April 24, followed by the Opening Plenary – Connecting the Struggles for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World, at 7:30 pm EDT/4:30 pm PDT. (Joseph Gerson and Jackie Cabasso will MC)

On Saturday, April 25^th, the Second Plenary, two workshops and the Closing Plenary, entitled “Looking Forward: Movement-Building and Actions for the Future,” will also be livestreamed.

The Second Plenary, featuring Parliamentarians and Mayors starts on Saturday morning April 25 at 9 am EDT/6 am PDT. (John Burroughs and Anna Ikeda will MC)

Between the Second and Closing Plenaries, two workshops will be livestreamed: Global Hibakusha and Creative Peacemaking starting at 11 am EDT/8 am PDT, and Doomsday Machines: Renewed Great Power Confrontations and the Risk of Nuclear War, featuring Daniel Ellsberg, at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT.

The Closing Plenary – Looking Forward: Movement-Building and Actions for the Future, will start at 4:30 pm EDT/1:30 pm PDT. (Kevin Martin and Sara Medi-Jones will MC)

Please check out the amazing lineup of plenary speakers at http://www.peaceandplanet.org/conference-program/

You can read the workshop descriptions at http://www.peaceandplanet.org/workshops/

On Sunday, April 26^th, there will be a rally, march and peace festival. The rally will be held at Union Square North, where the march to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza will begin. During the festival, millions of petition signatures calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, many of which have been collected by Japanese anti-nuclear activists, will be presented to Ambassador Taous Feroukhi, of Algeria, and UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Angela Kane. You can support this work by signing the petition at peaceandplanet.org

If you would like to join in, but cannot travel to Manhattan, please consider organizing a local event for the Global Wave, a simple public wave action in cities around the world. The wave will begin at the Sunday, April 26^th peace rally in New York City at 1 pm. It will proceed westward through each time zone at 1 pm. People will gather to wave goodbye to nuclear weapons through symbolic acts and events. Please photograph your event and post them at globalwave2015.org. For more information, go to globalwave2015.org

For more information about these events, please visit peaceandplanet.org.

This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 11/28/14 through 12/5/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Radioactivity from Fukushima Detected off West Coast of North America

Low-levels of radioactive cesium-134, a pollutant from the ongoing releases at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, were detected in samples collected in August, 100 miles due west of Eureka, California. Since the March 2011 tsunami, earthquake and reactor meltdowns, the radioactive plume has traveled 6,000 miles east on ocean currents across the Pacific. The private and independent Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution collects samples to monitor the natural and manmade sources of radioactivity in the Pacific Ocean.  http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection

Cesium-134 is a short-lived radionuclide, with a half-life of two years, and was found at levels less than 2 Becquerels per cubic meter of water. A cubic meter of water holds 260 gallons. The levels are 1000 times lower than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water standards.

Computer modeling shows that detectable levels will move south along the North American coast and eventually back towards Hawai’i. It is expected that the concentrations will increase over the next two to three years.

Woods Hole, based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is coordinating the effort to monitor along the Pacific Coast of Canada and the U.S. This effort is led by Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist who specializes in the study of natural and man-made radionuclides in the ocean. He works with the Point Sur, a research vessel that sailed between Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and Eureka, California last summer and collected samples. These results confirmed the findings of John Smith, a scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, who found similar levels during research off Canada’s west coast.  http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/publications/article/2014/11-05-14-eng.html

Because no federal agency is currently funding the monitoring effort, Buesseler launched a crowd-funded, citizen-science program that engages the public to collect samples, which are then analyzed at Woods Hole. The scientific results and analysis are posted to OurRadioactiveOcean.org.

Buesseler said, “”Crowd-sourced funding continues to be an important way to engage the public and reveal what is going on near the coast. But ocean scientists need to do more work offshore to understand how ocean currents will be transporting cesium on shore. The models predict cesium levels to increase over the next two to three years, but do a poor job describing how much more dilution will take place and where those waters will reach the shore line first.” He continued, “So we need both citizen scientists to keep up the coastal monitoring network, but also research vessels and comprehensive studies offshore like this one, that are too expensive for the average citizen to support.”

The citizen monitoring effort is support by nearly 400 individuals and sponsoring organizations, including International Medcom, a manufacturer of radiation detectors, https://medcom.com/ along with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. https://scripps.ucsd.edu/

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 11/21/14 through 11/28/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

* Santa Fe New Mexican Investigation of LANL’s Waste Exploding at WIPP

The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper disclosed new evidence of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) misconduct in its characterization of the nuclear waste that exploded in February at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/missteps-and-secrets-lab-officials-downplayed-waste-s-dangers-even/image_fb032fd9-bedc-5f75-b1a3-d84ee52d7f9c.html After reviewing more than 2,800 pages of documents and emails released under the Freedom of Information Act, reporter Patrick Malone revealed that Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a privately held consortium that manages LANL, was in a hurry to complete removal of the nuclear waste for disposal at WIPP by June 30, 2014. As a result, shortcuts were taken in the required waste characterization, which led to an explosion in the WIPP underground and exposed at least 22 workers to harmful radiation.

In the lengthy story, Malone explains how, following the 2011 Las Conchas fire that came within miles of the waste stored in fabric tents, the New Mexico Environment Department made an unenforceable agreement with the Department of Energy (DOE) and LANL to remove 3,706 cubic meters of waste and ship it to WIPP by the June 2014 deadline. The work then became a performance requirement under the contract, which could result in additional profits and a one-year contract extension.

Following the February 14, 2014 release from WIPP, which was later explained to be from a LANL waste container, in May, a LANL scientist determined that the drum might contain the compounds of a plastic explosive. Temperatures in the area may have reached 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

At the same time, another LANL scientist, Christopher J. Chancellor, researched whether there were other containers impacted by the high temperatures. For the LANL containers, he found that one group had the necessary ingredients for a chemical reaction, which included nitrate salts that provided oxygen, and organic kitty litter used to absorb liquids, as the fuel.

Chancellor wrote that the high temperatures “may have dried out some of the unreacted oxidizer-organic mixtures increasing their potential for spontaneous reaction. This dehydration of the fuel-oxidizer mixtures caused by the heating of the drums is recognized as a condition known to increase the potential for reaction.” Further, he wrote, “Reactions may have occurred within some of these drums at levels insufficient to lead to detectable visible evidence.”

Joni Arends, of CCNS, questioned why DOE is sending workers into the WIPP underground before they know the cause of the release and when they know that there is potential for more reactions. She said, “Worker safety must be the priority. WIPP has not learned from LANL. Thanks to the investigative work of the Santa Fe New Mexican, the public can learn first hand about how profits drive the limited liability corporations that operate LANL and WIPP.”

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 11/14/14 through 11/21/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Sandia Public Meeting about Mixed Waste Landfill on Tuesday, November 18^th at Manzano Mesa Multigenerational Center

Sandia National Laboratories will be hosting a public meeting on Tuesday, November 18^th from 4 to 8 pm about their plans to leave high-level radioactive waste in the Mixed Waste Landfill in unlined, shallow pits and trenches, which threaten Albuquerque’s drinking water aquifer. The format will include posters and Sandia staff will be there to answer questions. Written public comments will be accepted during the meeting, with the public comment period ending on Monday, December 29th. The public meeting will take place at the Manzano Mesa Multigenerational Center, at 501 Elizabeth Southeast, located between Eubank and Juan Tabo at the corner of Southern and Elizabeth Southeast, in Albuquerque.

For decades, Sandia and the New Mexico Environment Department claimed that only low-level radioactive and chemical wastes were buried in the dump. New records uncovered by Citizen Action New Mexico clearly demonstrate that high-level radioactive waste from nuclear fuel experiments was buried in the dump.

Following the 1979 Three Mile Island commercial nuclear reactor accident in Pennsylvania, Sandia was tasked with finding out what happens to high-level nuclear fuel during meltdowns. Sandia conducted dozens of experiments on nuclear fuel from around the world in its Annular Core Research Reactor and the waste was disposed in the Mixed Waste Landfill.

The Mixed Waste Landfill is a 2.6-acre dumpsite, located in southeast Albuquerque within Kirtland Air Force Base, where Sandia is located. It contains an estimated 1,500,000 cubic feet of radioactive and mixed hazardous wastes from the reactor meltdown experiments and the research and development of nuclear weapons. Plutonium, cesium, strontium, depleted uranium, beryllium, PCBs and chlorinated solvents were disposed in plastic bags, cardboard boxes and steel drums. In 2009, a dirt cover was installed.

Recently Sandia applied to the Environment Department for a certificate saying that they have completed cleanup of the dump. The Environment Department made a preliminary determination to approve the request. The public meeting and associated public comment period is part of the administrative process to obtain the certificate.

Citizen Action encourages the public to make comments that request a public hearing; ask the Environment Department to deny the cleanup certificate; and ask the Environment Department to order Sandia to clean up and safely store the wastes in the dump.

Dave McCoy, of Citizen Action New Mexico, said, “High-level waste disposal requires a deep geologic repository that won’t leak for 10,000 years. Leaving high-level waste in the shallow Mixed Waste Landfill for future generations is nothing short of an environmental crime.”

For more information, please visit Citizen Action’s website at radfreenm.org, and Sandia’s information in the Lobo Vault at repository.unm.edu and search for the Mixed Waste Landfill.

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 11/7/14 through 11/14/14

This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• Proposed EPA Rule Supports Clean Water – Comments Due November 14th

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently accepting public comments on a proposed rule to protect clean water. Without the new rule, 90 percent of New Mexico’s rivers and streams are threatened by unregulated dumping of harmful pollutants. Because New Mexico is an arid state where less than 10 percent of the rivers and streams flow year-round and because many of the water resources are located in closed basins, New Mexico is disproportionately vulnerable to pollution. The comment period ends on Friday, November 14^th. A sample comment letter for you to use is available on the Amigos Bravos website at amigosbravos.org

Since 2008, over 400,000 requests have been sent by a wide variety of groups, including farmers, environmentalist, state and local officials and members of Congress, asking the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to make the Clean Water Act easier to understand. In response, the federal agencies collaborated with all interested parties to create a new rule that clarifies existing law and ensures clean water protections for streams and wetlands.

Clean water protections for many of New Mexico’s waters have been in question for more than a decade. As a result, some waters have been opened up for industrial dumping, while others have become harder to protect. The proposed rule would clarify that tributary streams, including those that are intermittent and ephemeral, are protected.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory there are many non-perennial drainages that are not protected. For example, there are waters in the canyons that do not flow all the time, but when they do, they can flow to the Rio Grande. The rule is essential to ensure that these waters are protected and restored.

The new rule updates the definition of “waters of the U.S.” It clarifies existing laws, increases government efficiency and makes the water cleaner by better defining which rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands the Clean Water Act protects from industrial pollution, oil spills and outright destruction. Special consideration for agricultural concerns is addressed and the new rule will bring certainty and predictability to agriculture.

Smaller streams, creeks and wetlands help reduce flooding, supply drinking water and provide critical support and habitat for fish and wildlife in downstream waters. These smaller waters provide access to adventures, exploration and wildlife and they can be some of the most treasured places. The proposed rule ensures automatic protection for all streams and wetlands scientifically proven to have significant connections to downstream waters.

Rachel Conn, Projects Manager at Amigos Bravos, said, “Water is precious in New Mexico. This proposed rule will help ensure that our watersheds stay healthy and species, like the bald eagle and river otter, will once again thrive.”

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

Sandia MWL Closure Public Hearings

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED!

SANDIA NATIONAL LABS AND THE NEW MEXICO ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT HOPE YOU’LL STAY SILENT ABOUT DRINKING NUCLEAR WASTE

For more information, go to Citizen Action New Mexico at  http://www.radfreenm.org/ 

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 10/31/14 through 11/7/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

• NMED Approves Certificate of Cleanup for Sandia’s Mixed Waste Landfill

The New Mexico Environment Department recently granted a preliminary determination that Sandia National Laboratories have completed all cleanup requirements for the Mixed Waste Landfill, as part of its hazardous waste permit.  According to Citizen Action New Mexico, who has actively worked for excavation of the unlined dump, the cleanup has not been completed and the determination is premature. In fact, they say, the Cold War era nuclear weapons dump should be dug up because it is leaking and threatens Albuquerque’s drinking water aquifer.

The Mixed Waste Landfill is a 2.6-acre dumpsite that contains an estimated 1,500,000 cubic feet of radioactive and mixed hazardous wastes from reactor meltdown experiments and the research and development of nuclear weapons. Plutonium, americium, tritium, depleted uranium, lead, beryllium, PCBs and chlorinated solvents were disposed there. The waste lie above Albuquerque’s drinking water aquifer in plastic bags, cardboard boxes and steel drums. Sandia officials cannot state what is in the dump. In 2009, a dirt cover was applied to the site.

The Environment Department, in its approval letter, says that Sandia may submit an application to modify its hazardous waste permit to reflect the change. But the change subjects Sandia to provide the public with a notice of the change, along with an opportunity to provide comments and request a public hearing. Given the amount of public interest in the dump, inevitably, there would be a public hearing. Further, the Environment Department reserves its rights to require additional cleanup if it receives new information through the public comment process.

Sandia requested the change after the Environment Department approved the Long-Term Monitoring and Maintenance Plan in January. The plan describes the types of monitoring and maintenance that will be conducted, along with contingency procedures that will be implemented when the dirt cover fails and is no longer protective of human health and the environment.

That plan is now the subject of litigation brought by Citizen Action against the Environment Department.  http://www.radfreenm.org/  In May 2005, when the Environment Department approved the Final Cleanup Order, it required that every five years Sandia review whether excavation is feasible, update the fate and transport model, conduct an evaluation of pollution reaching groundwater, and make it publicly available. Sandia has not conducted the required five-year review, even though one was due in 2010. Now the Long-Term Monitoring and Maintenance Plan allows the five-year review to deferred so that the first review would take place in 2019.

Unfortunately, the combination of cleanup approval, along with further delays of the five-year review, means that pollution will continue to migrate to Albuquerque’s drinking water aquifer.

For more information, please visit Citizen Action’s website at radfreenm.org.

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 10/24/14 through 10/31/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

* NRC and DOE Activities for High-Level Waste Disposal

On October 16^th, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff released one of the five volumes of its Safety Evaluation Report for the licensing of the proposed Department of Energy (DOE) Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository.  http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1949/v3/  The technical inadequacies of the site have been detailed for years by the State of Nevada, and the NRC licensing board has admitted more than 200 safety and environmental impact issues that were not addressed in the NRC staff report. The vast majority of Nevadans oppose Yucca Mountain, and DOE now states that the site should not be used. Congress has not provided the tens of millions of dollars to complete the licensing process.

In related news, Allison M. Macfarlane, NRC Chairperson, announced that she plans to leave the Commission to become the Director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at the George Washington University, effective January 1, 2015. She has served as chair since July 2012.

And this week DOE released an “Assessment of Disposal Options for DOE-Managed High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel.” The report looks at three options for the permanent disposal of the dangerous waste managed by DOE at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory, and the Hanford site in southeast Washington state, all located in major watersheds.

The options considered are to dispose of all the waste in one common repository; to dispose of some of DOE’s waste in a separate mined repository; and to dispose of the waste in deep boreholes. The preference is for a separate repository and for some research on deep boreholes.

DOE’s high-level waste is primarily from reprocessing of nuclear reactor fuel to extract uranium and plutonium for nuclear bombs. Its spent nuclear fuel is from nuclear production reactors and naval propulsion reactors. DOE estimates that its high-level and spent nuclear fuel waste is more than 26,000 cubic meters, which is much less volume than the commercial spent fuel that is supposed to go to Yucca Mountain or to other deep geologic disposal sites.

Nevertheless, DOE states that the alternatives considered in the report are “based on technical and programmatic considerations and do not include an evaluation of relevant regulatory and legal considerations.” They add that the report is not “a determination of the legal permissibility” for specific options. CCNS questions why DOE spent taxpayer funds to conduct such an analysis, which historically has been technically inadequate and contentious, without taking the regulatory and legal issues into consideration.

Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, “These recent events demonstrate that the federal agencies are again trying to determine where DOE’s dangerous high-level waste will be disposed. It’s time to get involved.”

This has been the CCNS News Update. To learn more, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org.