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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 10/4/13 through 10/11/13

(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:

*  13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors Visit Los Alamos

Wishing to see where the atomic weapon was created that was dropped on their city, 13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors from Hiroshima, Japan, visited Los Alamos this week.  http://homepage2.nifty.com/wfchiroshima/  They gathered at Ashley Pond to see the location where the bomb was created and viewed the U.S. manufacturing facilities where plutonium cores for nuclear weapons are still being made just south of the pond.  The trip to New Mexico was the last leg of a three-week tour in the U.S.  They spent two weeks in Oregon and Washington state.

The World Friendship Center sent the group to tell the stories of survival, hope and rebuilding of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing on August 6^th, 1945.  Barbara Reynolds founded The World Friendship Center in 1965 in Hiroshima, with the motto to “foster peace, one friend at a time.”  Their goals are to tell the story of Hiroshima and the Hibakusha, who are the surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to promote world peace; and to work towards a nuclear-free world.

The Ambassadors included Hibakusha.  One gentleman told the story of when he was a child walking to school with sister when they witnessed the bomb explode and the resulting devastation.  Another was also a child who walked back into the city after the bombing to look for her sister.  The Ambassadors also included others whose families and friends were directly affected by the atomic bombing in Japan.  In New Mexico, they made six presentations in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe to elementary and high school students, and students at the University of New Mexico.  They also made an evening presentation at the Pax Christi Santa Fe gathering at the Santa Nino Regional Catholic School.

Ellie Voutselas, with Pax Christi Santa Fe, was the main New Mexico organizer.  She said, “I found the day permeated with love and togetherness between us and our Japanese brothers and sisters, a truly inspirational experience.”

The Ambassadors also visited the historical marker at the site of the Department of Justice World War II prison camp in the Frank Ortiz Park in Santa Fe.  In a moving ceremony, the Ambassadors honored the 4,555 Japanese men, many of whom were ministers, teachers, artists, journalists and businessman, who were held there.

Father John Dear, said, “It was a moving, powerful experience to accompany 13 friends from Hiroshima, including several atomic bomb survivors, to Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb.  They inspire me to redouble my effort to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  This is our shared hope – the pursuit of a world without war, a new world of peace and nonviolence.”

This has been the CCNS News Update.  For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 9/27/13 through 10/4/13

(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:

• More than 100 Groups Call on EPA to Withdraw Dramatically Weakened Radiation Guides

Over 100 environmental organizations recently called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy to withdraw EPA’s controversial new Protective Action Guides (PAGs), which would allow exposure to very high doses from radiation releases before the government would take action to protect the public.  http://committeetobridgethegap.org/  For example, following a release, EPA proposed relaxing its long-term cleanup standards.  It would allow leaving Plutonium-239 in soil used by farmers at levels over 3 million times than that currently allowed.

The PAGs are intended to guide the response to nuclear power reactor accidents, such as Fukushima in Japan, Chernobyl in the Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the U.S., explosions of dirty bombs, radioactive releases from nuclear fuel and weapons facilities, nuclear transportation accidents, and other radioactive releases.

Although official estimates of the health risks from radiation exposure have gone up substantially since the old PAGs were written in 1992, the new EPA guidance contemplates radically increased allowable exposures in the intermediate and long-term periods after radiation releases.  Diane D’Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said, “Even though EPA now admits radiation is more harmful than previously thought, it is weakening rather than tightening radiation protections.”  http://www.nirs.org/

The environmental organizations raised their concerns about the new PAGs in written comments to EPA.  They addressed EPA’s proposal to dramatically increase the permitted concentrations of radioactivity in drinking water, by as much as 27,000 times for Iodine-131, compared to EPA’s current Safe Drinking Water Act limits.  The PAGs are supposed to safeguard water supplies and provide information about how to treat contaminated water or how to provide alternative drinking water supplies after the immediate emergency has passed.  The EPA proposal does not meet the basic protections of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

There are also proposals to incorporate outdated Food and Drug Administration guidelines which would allow consumption of contaminated food.  Such food could contain as much radiation as having a chest X-ray every day.  EPA proposed to eliminate requirements to evacuate people threatened with radiation doses to the thyroid and skin over predicted specified limits.  The commenters reminded EPA that the PAGs are “doses that are to be avoided by protective actions.”

Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, said, “Rather than requiring protective actions to limit public radiation exposures, EPA is now saying it would allow the public to be exposed to doses far higher than ever before considered acceptable.”

If you are concerned, please contact your members of congress and ask them to also request that EPA withdraw its proposed Protective Action Guides for responding to releases of radioactivity.

This has been the CCNS News Update.  Please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 9/13/13 through 9/20/13

(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:

*  New NAS Report about Science and Engineering at Nuclear Weapons Lab Raises Concerns

The National Academy of Sciences recently released a report about “Managing for High-Quality Science and Engineering at the [National Nuclear Security Administration] National Security Laboratories” saying that the laboratories have made significant progress in their core mission of maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.  http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18440  In 2010, Congress asked for the report to understand the quality and management of science and engineering activities at the national laboratories located in California and New Mexico, including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Sandia National Laboratories.  The report suggests that less federal and independent agency oversight of these activities.

Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, responded to the report.  He said, “The National Academy of Sciences report giving the nuclear weapons labs high marks is a whitewash. There is no mention of the labs’ unfulfilled claims and huge cost overruns of taxpayers’ money, such as the National Ignition Facility at the Livermore Lab and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos. Nothing is said about their exorbitant cost of doing business, which runs at nearly 50% in overhead (or “support costs”) at LANL. While arguing for diminished federal oversight, the NAS report never touches upon the inherent conflict-of-interest at the labs.”  http://nukewatch.org/

One recommendation focused on reducing the administrative and reporting duties for the laboratory directors in order to “purposely free directors to establish strategic science and engineering direction at the laboratories.” Some believe that the laboratory directors have direct conflicts of interest in their roles and duties.  Coghlan said, “The lab directors wear two hats, first as those responsible for annual certification of the safety, security and reliability of the stockpile to the president and Congress. Their second hat is as presidents of the executive boards of the for-profit corporations running the labs. How can we be sure they are always acting in the best interests of the country while pushing a never-ending cycle of Life Extension Programs (LEPs) for existing nuclear weapons?

“These LEPS will cost at least $60 billion by 2038, when budget projections end but the programs clearly live on (and they always run over budget). Moreover, LEPs will endow existing nuclear weapons with new military capabilities, in contradiction to declared policy at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Finally, in a touch of irony, these programs may erode confidence in stockpile reliability by intentionally introducing major changes that can’t be full-scale tested.  Thus there should be more, not less, federal oversight and public scrutiny of the nuclear weapons labs.”

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

ACTION ALERT:  Attendance Needed!  

Who?  Ryan Flynn, Secretary-Designate of the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED)

What?  He will be speaking about the “Order on Consent, NMED Perspective” about the March 1, 2005 “Cleanup” Consent Order for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) 

When?  Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 2:15 pm

Where?  Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board meeting at the Cities of Gold Conference Center, 10-A Cities of Gold Road, Pojoaque, NM

How?  The NMED has used the Citizens’ Advisory Board (CAB) meetings as a forum to announce changes to the way NMED regulates/partners/changes “cleanup” agreements without adequate public input.  For example, the announcement of the Framework Agreement between Governor Martinez and the Department of Energy (DOE) was made before a CAB meeting in the middle of the day – similar to the meeting tomorrow.

We anticipate that Secretary-Designate Flynn will announce that NMED will begin “re-negotiating” the Consent Order with LANL.  Last time there were negotiations between NMED and the Department of Energy and LANL about the Consent Order, they took place behind closed doors and took nearly 18 months to complete.  

The meeting agenda is available at:  http://www.nnmcab.energy.gov/  The meeting begins at 2 pm and goes to 4 pm.  There is an opportunity for public comment at 3:45 pm.

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ACTION ALERT:   Public comments in support of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network citizens’ petition to the FDA are due September 11, 2013.  Please go to the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network to submit public comments.  http://ffan.us/?p=277  Or go to the Beyond Nuclear website and follow the instruction to submit comments.  http://www.beyondnuclear.org/food/  For more information, please read the CCNS News Update below.

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 9/6/13 through 9/13/13

(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:

• Petition to FDA Requests Sampling of Food for Radiation Resulting from Fukushima Catastrophe

In March, public health and environmental non-governmental organizations filed a citizens’ petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demanding that the federal agency drastically reduce the amount of radioactive cesium allowed in food, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals and develop regulations to protect consumers from such pollutants.  Coalition members of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, including Beyond Nuclear and Citizens for Health, petitioned the FDA to lower the radiation standards from 1,200 Bequerels per kilogram to 5 Bequerels per kilogram.  http://ffan.us/  A Becquerel is a measurement of radiation.  They are asking that all food be tested and labeled with the amount of cesium contained in it.  The Network requests your support of their petition.   http://ffan.us/?p=277 and http://www.beyondnuclear.org/food/

The National Academy of Sciences determined that there is no safe dose of radiation.  http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11340  The petition states that consumers must have the necessary information in order to manage their own intake of cesium.  Currently the FDA standards allow 1,200 Becquerels per kilogram in food, an amount 100 times higher than that allowed in Japan.

The damaged Fukushima nuclear power reactors continue to leak more than 10 million Becquerels of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 per hour into the environment, with no sign of stopping.  Every day there is more news about how Tepco, the operator of the damaged reactors, does not have the ability to stop the leaking, nor the emissions into the air and contamination of the soil.  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18556-abe-at-ground-zero-the-consequences-of-inaction-at-fukushima-daiichi and http://truth-out.org/video/item/18661-record-radiation-levels-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant (interview with Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research).

Cesium is a gamma emitter and a good tracer for releases from the spent fuel pools.  Cesium-134 remains radioactive for 10 to 20 years, while Cesium-137 remains radioactive for 300 to 600 years.  Cesium mimics potassium in the body.  Over time, cesium bio-accumulates and bio-magnifies in the environment.

Contamination of the U.S. food supply has been found in grapefruits in Florida and oranges, prunes and almonds in California.  In 2012, Bluefin tuna found off the coast of California had levels of radioactive cesium 10 times higher than the amount measured in previous years.  They spawn off the Japan coast and swim 6,000 miles across the Pacific to school in the waters off the California coast.

The American Medical Association has called for testing of seafood.  http://ffan.us/?p=253  The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced late last month that it will begin testing fish off the coast of British Columbia.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/08/19/bc-salmon-radiation-testing.html

Alexis Lynn Baden-Mayer, Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association, a sponsor of the petition, said, “The threat of contamination in our food supply is a long-term issue that deserves immediate attention.”  http://ffan.us/

To support the citizens’ petition, please go to the Beyond Nuclear website and follow the instructions.  http://www.beyondnuclear.org/food/  Because the FDA has 180 days to respond, the Network requests your attention prior to September 11, 2013.   http://ffan.us/?p=277

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

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 8/30/13 through 9/6/13

(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:

•  Vermont Yankee to Shut Down in 2014

This week the owners of Vermont’s only nuclear power plant announced that they will close the 40-year old Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in 2014.  Entergy Corporation will close Vermont Yankee after its current fuel cycle is completed and move to shutdown mode in the last quarter of 2014.  The plant is a Mark I design, a twin design to those that melted down and exploded at Fukushima Daiichi.  It is located on the Connecticut River.

The announcement ends a legal battle over the future of the plant.  In 2010, the Vermont Senate voted down a bill that would have authorized a state board to give Vermont Yankee permission to continue operations for an additional 20 years.  The Vermont legislators were concerned about the age, stress corrosion cracking and safety record of the plant.

Nearly all of the nuclear power generated is shipped out-of-state.  The legislature had asked Entergy to provide lower priced power to Vermonters if the state granted the 20-year extension.  Entergy sued Vermont and won.  The state appealed the decision and earlier this month the court ruled mostly in Entergy’s favor.  But the court overturned a part of the lower court decision which said that Vermont had violated the U.S. Constitution by trying to obtain cut-rate power from Vermont Yankee if it granted a 20-year permit.

Leo Denault, Entergy’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement, “This was an agonizing decision and an extremely tough call for us.  Vermont Yankee has an immensely talented, dedicated and loyal workforce, and a solid base of support among many in the community.  We recognize that closing the plant on this schedule was not the outcome they had hoped for, but we have reluctantly concluded that it is the appropriate action for us to take under the circumstances.”  http://www.entergy.com/News_Room/newsrelease.aspx?NR_ID=2769

In the past year, five nuclear power plants have announced their closure.  In October 2012, Dominion Resources announced the closure of the Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin citing the price of natural gas; in February 2013, Duke Energy announced that it would close Florida’s Crystal River plant rather than pay for costly repairs; and in June 2013, Southern California Edison announced the closure of the two reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station, also citing repair costs.

Senator Edward J. Markey, of Massachusetts, said in a statement, “Closing Vermont Yankee reflects the growing realization in New England and around the nation that it is time to move towards a safer, more affordable clean energy future of wind, solar, geothermal, along with well-regulated domestic natural gas.  While nuclear energy was once advertised as being too cheap to meter, it is increasingly clear that it is actually too expensive to matter.”  http://www.markey.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=345599

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

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 8/23/13 through 8/30/13

(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:

• Seventeenth Annual Gathering for Mother Earth to be Held the Third Weekend of September

The seventeenth annual Gathering for Mother Earth, sponsored by Tewa Women United and community organizations of concern, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, September 21st and 22nd, in Pojoaque. The two-day gathering is open to all cultures of all ages and seeks to honor Mother Earth for her lifegivingness.  The Gathering is a time for community unity to protect the most vulnerable people, including pregnant women farmers and infants, especially those living around nuclear production sites.  http://tewawomenunited.org/

Kathy Sanchez, of Tewa Women United, invited everyone to come together for a sharing of events, workshops, activities, and meals.  She said, “Let us all celebrate cultural ways of giving love and gratitude for our Earth Mother.  Her life givers need loving care to support us on our life journeys.  It is beyond critical time to stabilize energy with wisdom and unite for eco-systemic survival.  The time is now to awaken peace and stop the violent use of Mother Earth’s life giving energy.  We encourage all cultures, all ages, schools, communities and families to bring intergenerational thinking to this holistic event.” Both days will begin with a sunrise service at 6:30 and regular programming will start about 9.  Saturday’s scheduled program ends around 5 p.m. to be followed by a communal meal and evening entertainment.  On Sunday a scheduled program runs through the morning until the close of the Gathering around 1 p.m, when there will be a traditional distribution of gifts.  Food and drinks will be available and the organizers request that you bring your own plate, bowl, utensils, cup and water bottle.

Each year, Tewa Women United chooses special colors for the festivities. This year the color of peace, a rainbow of colors, will be celebrated.

Scheduled events include a children’s peace tent; health related information sharing; solar cooking and produce; healing tents; arts and crafts; and raffle prizes.  Attendees will enjoy performances of native songs and dances during the two days.  Invited guests include the Pacific Curls from New Zealand, Beverly Doxtator of Native Lifeways, Inc. in Canada, Yolanda Teran and Jose Males from Ecuador, and Katia Delgado and others from Peru.

The Saturday sunrise service includes the blessing for the relay run from Tsankawi, the ancestral Pueblo homelands near Los Alamos, to the Gathering site. The relay is open to runners between the ages of 18 and 30.

The Gathering will be held at Pojoaque Ben’s Gathering Grounds on Highway 502, 1.8 miles west of the interchange with Highways 285 and 84, near the Pojoaque High School.

Sanchez invites you, “To come prepared to revitalize beloved community energy to nurture all relations with water and sky.”  For more information, please visit http://tewawomenunited.org/programs/environmental-justice-program/gathering-for-mother-earth and the August 2013 edition of Green Fire Times.  See the  “Tewa Women United :  Indigenous Women United in Heart, Mind and Spirit” article at http://greenfiretimes.com/

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

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 8/16/13 through 8/23/13

(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:

*  Court Says NRC Violated Law and Orders Review of Yucca Mountain Application

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must promptly continue its review of the 2008 Department of Energy (DOE) application for an operating license for the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site in Nevada.  The plaintiffs, including the states of Washington and South Carolina, each with large volumes of stored high-level waste, along with organizations and individuals, asked the court for a writ of mandamus requiring the federal agency to restart its application review.  A court may grant a writ in order “to correct transparent violations of a clear duty to act.”

In a 2 to 1 decision, the majority of the Court found that the NRC has been violating the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act that requires it to consider the license application and issue either a final approval or disapproval decision within three years of submission.  Congress has not provided the $200 million or more needed, so the NRC shutdown its review.

In the dissenting decision, Chief Judge Merrick Garland cited a 1936 case to support of the position that the NRC should not be made to review the application.  He wrote, “[c]ourts will not issue the writ to do a useless thing, even though technically to uphold a legal right.  [ ]  Unfortunately, granting the writ in this case will indeed direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do ‘a useless thing.’”  Referring to the approximately $11 million in the NRC budget for the review, Judge Garland questioned whether any real progress could be made.  The NRC said it could not.  Judge Garland then wrote that using up the funds would amount “to little more than ordering the Commission to spend part of those funds unpacking its boxes, and the remainder packing them up again.”

This is an important time for New Mexicans to be involved.  Just as Nevadans rejected Yucca Mountain, New Mexicans have said no over and over again to proposed disposal of high-level waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).  Nonetheless, DOE has proposals to bring more waste to WIPP, and Representative Pearce has a bill in Congress to expand WIPP.  Other nuclear waste legislation also could result in high-level waste coming to WIPP even though existing law prohibits such waste.  The congressional summer recess is a good time to contact your senators and representative to let them know your concerns.

Don Hancock, of Southwest Research and Information Center, said, “Members of Congress need to hear again and again that New Mexicans still oppose bringing high-level waste to WIPP or anywhere else in the state.  No means No!”  http://www.sric.org

This has been the CCNS News Update.  For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

ACTION ALERT:  Please download the Tri-Valley CARES petition and gather signatures to stop the transportation of plutonium bomb cores from LANL to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (in Livermore, California) and back to LANL.  http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/PETITION-final.pdf  

CCNS NEWS UPDATE 

Runs 8/9/13 through 8/16/13

(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:

• DOE Plans to Truck Plutonium Bomb Cores from LANL to Livermore and Back

Despite the loss of the required high security categorization at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Department of Energy (DOE) is planning to transport plutonium bomb cores from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to Livermore for what has been called “Shake and Bake” diagnostic testing.  The cores would be transported by truck from New Mexico, through Arizona, through the Los Angeles area to the Livermore nuclear weapons facility, located 50 miles east of San Francisco.

The Shake and Bake diagnostic testing involves a shaker pit, a thermal chamber and a drop test that simulate conditions during the storage, transportation or use of the bombs.  Following the tests, the cores would be trucked back to New Mexico.

Recently the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board revealed that up to five kilograms of plutonium could be used in each test.  Therefore, a whole bomb core could be tested at one time because modern nuclear bomb cores contain two to four kilograms of plutonium.  http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/govdocs/dnfsb_20130621.pdf

In late 2007, after the Livermore facility failed its “force on force” security tests, it permanently lost the high security categorization to house and test plutonium bomb cores.  Livermore was then forced to remove all of its bomb-usable plutonium to more secure storage areas at other DOE sites.

On October 1, 2012, with the “de-inventory” completed and more than 100 security personnel let go, the government officially lowered the security at Livermore so that it is no longer authorized to handle, test or store nuclear bomb usable quantities of plutonium, including these bomb cores.  Nevertheless, DOE plans to conduct an assessment in December to determine if the Shaker unit is ready for tests.

The Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, or Tri-Valley CAREs, is urging DOE to cancel its plan and prioritize alternatives that would reduce or eliminate transportation risks.  They have created a petition, in both English and Spanish, which may be downloaded at http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/PETITION-final.pdf.

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs, said, “Government officials have told us that Livermore Lab plans to obtain ‘variances’ to the nation’s security regulations in order to receive the plutonium bomb cores from Los Alamos. This dangerous scheme puts us all at risk – in New Mexico, in California and every place in between. Therefore, I ask all New Mexicans to download and sign the petition at nuclearactive.org or trivalleycares.org. Working together, I am confident we can stop the weapons labs from putting deadly bomb cores on our highways. Moreover, with our ongoing activism, we can likewise stop the further development of nuclear weapons and the production of new bomb cores, which are the underlying reasons to perform ‘shake and bake’ testing.”

This has been the CCNS News Update.  For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

f 401 cert public comment 8-11-13

f NPDES public comment 8-11-13

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CCNS NEWS UPDATE  and ACTION ALERT

Runs 8/2/13 through 8/9/13

(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 about Major LANL Discharge Permit due August 13th

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to renew the major permit which allows Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to discharge pollutants into the waters of the United States from 11 industrial outfalls.  Public comments are due to EPA on Tuesday, August 13^th, 2013.

The EPA is proposing to renew the discharge permit for LANL for five years under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program, which is part of the Clean Water Act.  The permit covers discharges from industrial sites, such as cooling towers, sanitary facilities, the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, and the High Explosive Waste Water Treatment Plant, into the canyons of the Rio Grande Basin.  http://www.epa.gov/region6/water/npdes/publicnotices/nm/nmdraft.htm

The Communities for Clean Water attended the EPA public meeting about the draft permit in Los Alamos this week.  They asked the majority of questions to officials from the EPA, LANL and the state Environment Department.  The Communities for Clean Water have prepared sample public comments you can use to submit to EPA.  [Please see above.]  They may be downloaded at nuclearactive.org or at the Facebook page for Honor Our Pueblo Existence.  Public comments should be directed to Diane Smith, of EPA’s Permitting Processing Team, by email at smith.diane@epa.gov.

Further, under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, the State of New Mexico is required to certify to EPA that it agrees that the final permit will “reasonably ensure that the permitted activities will be conducted in a manner that will comply with applicable New Mexico water quality standards, including the antidegradation policy and the statewide water quality management plan.”  The Surface Water Quality Bureau of the Environment Department handles the certification process.  Last December the Environment Department wrote to EPA stating that a more protective laboratory analytical method was needed for the polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are found at high-levels in the discharges.  Nevertheless, because there is no EPA-approved analytical method for PCBs, EPA included a less protective method in the draft permit.  The Communities for Clean Water ask for your support to submit public comments about this issue to the Environment Department.  They have prepared sample public comments for you to use.  [Please see above.]  Please download them at nuclearactive.org or from the Facebook page for Honor Our Pueblo Existence.

Written public comments about the Section 401 certification may be submitted to Bruce Yurdin, a manager with the Surface Water Quality Bureau, by email to bruce.yurdin@state.nm.us. The EPA will not issue the permit until after the Section 401 requirements have been met.

This has been the CCNS News Update.  For more information and to download sample public comments, please visit our website at nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.