the
Coalition
CRIER
Coalition on West
Valley Nuclear Wastes
March, 2003
Public hearing
April 9 and 10
Closing
the site at last. Your comments are needed.
The choices
How
it might be done.
Potential issues
Things
you might want to think about.
Why this is
important
The
train is leaving, but is it on the right track?
The Coalition
position
West
Valley is not a good place.
Back to court?
Not
again!
Crier by e-mail
Fast
and cheap.
A playlet
Nuclear
waste is funny?
The Coalition Crier is published by the
Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes, a volunteer citizen group
dedicated to overseeing the radioactive wastes at West Valley, New York.
Carol Mongerson, Editor
10734 Sharp Street, East Concord, NY 14055
716-941-3168
WE NEED YOU !
APRIL 9 OR 10
7:00 – 9:00 PM
Ashford Office Complex
Route 219, West Valley, NY
WEST VALLEY HEARING
Final Closure of the Nuclear Service Center
The
Department of Energy is ready to decide how to close the nuclear waste
site in West Valley, NY. Your
comments are needed on the scope and content of an EIS (Environmental
Impact Statement). You may comment in person or send in written
comments by April 28 to
WVDP
Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship DEIS Comments 10282
Rock Springs Road, WV-49 West
Valley, NY 14171-9799
FAX to Sonja Allen (716) 942-4199 Telephone
800-633-5280 e-mail:Sonja.allen@wvnsco.com If
you plan to speak at the hearing you must request time.
A draft
EIS will be probably be issued in December, 2003. At
that time we will be asking you to comment and we will keep you
informed about our views between now and then. You will have three
months to comment on the EIS. For now all you need to do is comment on
its scope and contents.
The Choices
Decommissioning
: Clean the site up and remove it to
a safer place.
Stewardship: Leave
it and watch it for several hundreds of years.
Long-Term: Five
Alternatives --
1. Unrestricted site release
2. Partial site release without restrictions
3. Partial site release with restrictions
4. Monitor and maintain under current operations
5. No action
Potential issues
Doses to population and workers Impacts
on the environment Transportation
impacts Accident impacts
Costs of the alternatives Impacts
on specific groups such as low-income, minority, and Native Americans
Irretrievable
and irreversible commitment of resources
Unavoidable impacts Long term impacts of wastes
left on site Earthquakes
and erosion Incidental Waste reclassification (See below)
Why this is important
DOE has
told us repeatedly that their preferred way to close the site is to
mothball it. That does not mean the use of
a lot of smelly, round white balls to scare away the moths (though
their favorite plan may not be much more effective than that.)
Their plan would mean leaving most of the waste on site permanently,
what they are calling long-term stewardship. Some
would be buried under, or filled with, cement. Some
would be “grouted”. Some simply
reclassified to make it legal.
Under federal law, all high level reprocessing waste must be removed
from the site, including the liquid waste tanks because even after
vitrification of the liquid the tanks remain very radioactive.
Exhuming the tanks would be very expensive
so DOE has a simple solution: reclassification.
If high level reprocessing waste is illegal just call it something else. They are calling it incidental
waste instead. (The DOE code for that
is WIR, waste incidental to reprocessing.).
Brilliant, don’t you think? “Incidental”
sounds so … so … so harmless. So
incidental.
This paper solution is encouraged by the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory
Commission) and will be used at other DOE sites in the country.
The 1996 draft EIS concluded (using
computer modeling) that the eventual doses from leaving the tanks in
place would be too high. Today, simply by
using a different computer model, they have reduced those predications
substantially.
1. The decisions made on the basis of this EIS will affect the quality
of life for you and people for generations to come.
2. The
decision most favored by the DOE will leave the wastes here.
3. The
decision most favored by the DOE would be irreversible. If we don’t
stop them now it may be too late.
The Coalition Position
The
Coalition believes the only responsible way to go is to clean up the
West Valley site as well as possible and ship the radioactive waste to
a safer place as soon as one is available. West
Valley is not suitable for storing nuclear waste for hundreds of years. Erosion of the land will carry wastes into
Lake Erie eventually and endanger public health. Wastes,
including those from the burial grounds, must be packaged and removed. Wastes, in retrievable, monitored,
above-ground storage, may have to remain at West Valley temporarily
until a more suitable site is found.
Whatever method is chosen the radioactive wastes at West Valley must
not be irreversible.
Back to Court?
The Coalition may
find it necessary to go to court again over this new EIS. We
believe that it violates several provisions of our 1986 out-of-court
settlement agreement with the DOE. It
replaces the draft 1996 EIS in ways that violate NEPA requirements as
well. It introduces new
alternatives and eliminates others already agreed upon. It
makes NRC part of the decision-making process as well as giving it the
obligation to prescribe decommissioning criteria.
The Crier will be explaining our objections
to the new EIS in greater detail in future issues.
The Crier by e-mail
Some of you are getting this Crier by e-mail. Please forward it to anyone you think might be
interested. If
you have an e-mail address please send it to us and we’ll keep you up
to date on the West Valley nuclear waste. You
will not only save us money but you’ll probably get your West Valley
news a lot faster and more often. Send it
to: mongerson107@earthlink.net If
you don’t have e-mail but would like to continue getting the Crier
please call or drop us a note and we’ll keep you on the snail list.
A Playlet
(entertainment for dose receptors)
Cast:
James. The DOE boss. Beset, bewildered and beleaguered
Bill. Engineer. Clever, clever, clever.
Bob. Community relations spinmaster. Expert
word manipulator. Nuke
speak is his second language. Lurks in
back at meetings doing damage control.
Richard. NRC Bureaucrat. Avoidance master, great with numbers. Affable and ready to please.
Tom. State
Representative. Charming and always ready
to be called upon for (quite) a few words
First
Ordinary Person. Beset,
bewildered, and beleaguered
Second Ordinary Person. Ditto,
but even more totally out of the loop.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance
to real people is only slightly coincidental. Much
of the dialogue is drawn from actual DOE documents however.
SCENE 1
A public hearing in a
small rural town of western New York
BOB: Welcome to public hearing # 9,280. We have assembled a number of experts here
tonight to answer questions and listen to what you have to say. However, please remember that we are in charge
and that we know what we’re talking about. We
are the experts. We have degrees.
Before we get started I want
to go over a few housekeeping details. Feel free to help yourselves to
coffee, but only during specified breaks in the meeting. Otherwise
you might miss some valuable information we are sharing with you and
we’re sure you don’t want to do that.
The bathrooms are down the
hall. You may use them during the break. If
you can’t wait please raise your hand and ask permission. Please
don’t use too much paper. We at the DOE
believe in the environment, and besides we are on a tight budget.
I hope you picked up an
agenda at the door because now you must wait for the break to get one. If you try to go before the break everyone
will look at you and that would be disruptive.
If you will consult your
agenda you will see that the first speaker is James, the director of
the program here. We call her James because she is just like a real
man, but she talks a little nicer. She
will go over the budget with you. James?
(Sycophant holds up an applause sign.) JAMES: Good evening. I’ll be brief. I have heard
through my special hot line to Washington that Congress has just
approved our $500 million budget for FY2004. (applause)
That brings the total spent so far on this project to only $52 billion
dollars of your money. (Citizens gasp and a hand goes up.)
Sorry, no questions. That’s all I know.
BOB: Thank you James. (to audience) I told you she was nice.
SECOND
CITIZEN. ( aside to first citizen) Did she really say
$52 billion?
FIRST
CITIZEN. I think she must have meant $ 52
thousand.
BOB.
Now, if you will kindly consult your agenda again. Those
of you who can’t read can just watch the screen. We’ve put everything
up here in picture language. Here, I’ll
show you. Now, let’s see … uh … this little clicker thing is uh ... press 6, while holding down 3 …uh … Well, our engineer expert is going to explain
acceleration to you and I’m sure he can figure it out. Please welcome
Bill. (Applause sign)
BILL: Thank you so much Bob. Headquarters
has determined that acceleration of decontamination operations is to
reduce the site’s risks and prepare WVDP for decommissioning.
The end point of
acceleration is operational readiness of the RHWF to support
despositioning of the project -generated waste to further reduce site
risk. We will accelerate site
decommissioning so that it is performed in parallel in FY2005.
BOB: Excuse me, Bill, but perhaps you could explain
to those unfamiliar with technical concepts how you can accelerate and
reduce risk at the same time?
BILL: Certainly. It’s
really very simple. The overall goal is to accomplish risk reduction
through accelerated closure and cleanup of the E-M missions across the
complex. Now, DOE worked with WVNSCO to
develop a baseline for decontamination and waste management. That’s all pretty obvious, of course.
Now, this next part is very
important for you to understand so pay attention. The
cost and schedule estimates associated with out-year scopes of work
were confirmed, updated, and/or detailed in compliance with existing,
currently promulgated regs with the most careful attention to
performance objectives. (a hand goes up in the audience). Oh I’m sorry; that is the end of my
allotted
time. You can check out the details on our
web site: http//www.dep209487576378.gpenieudhb.gov. Thank you for
giving me this opportunity to impress you.
BOB:
Thank you so much, Bill. It’s a shame he
had to leave. You may, of course, submit
questions in writing.
FIRST
CITIZEN: Will there be another meeting
soon? I’m just a little confused.
BOB:
Oh, of course. We hold these public
meetings every three months. The agenda
for the next one will include the PMP which I’m sure you’ll all find
very interesting.
SECOND
CITIZEN: Oh sure. Uh… just exactly what is
that?
BOB: The Performance Management Plan. James
will outline the strategic initiatives outlined in the PMP, updated, of
course, to incorporate current out-year support cost estimates. Then Bill, here will explain the path forward.
CITIZEN:
Good. I wouldn’t want to miss that.