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Subject: Current Nuclear Waste Transports in NC – and Stockpiling at Reactors Will Continue for Many Years

Dear Senator Edwards,

While NC WARN vigorously disagrees with your vote in favor of the premature approval of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project, I am sure that we share a common interest in protecting against nuclear terrorism. 

It is clear from your public comments that you have been provided inaccurate information on key aspects of high-level waste management.  Right now, an important and urgent opportunity exists to greatly improve public safety in two ways:  by reducing risks from the present transport of high-level nuclear waste; and by reducing risks from waste stockpiled at each reactor during the decades it will remain there.  I trust that we can work cooperatively toward that goal.

The nuclear industry won its Yucca vote in the Senate based largely on the entirely false premise that a national dump site would solve the present dilemma posed by storage of enormous quantities of high-level waste at each reactor site.  You stated that you are “convinced it is safer to put nuclear waste in a central location than to leave it spread throughout North Carolina.”  However, this cannot and will not be accomplished for several decades due to current industry practices.  It will take a minimum of eight contentious years and at least $50 billion more before the Yucca dump could be licensed and constructed, according to the Department of Energy.   If Yucca is ever built and filled, the DOE has admitted that nearly as much high-level waste will remain at most reactor sites as is stored there now, due to continued production.  Hence, protecting waste fuel stored at each plant will continue to be a prominent challenge for at least several decades. 

I am concerned that with the pre-approval of the Yucca site, the industry has created an illusion that the waste issue is resolved, so that there is no need for better protecting it at reactor sites.

In addition, CP&L’s Shearon Harris plant, which is stockpiling waste from all CP&L reactors, would be one of the last plants to send its waste to a national disposal site, because Harris was one of the last nuclear plants opened and because it has no problem with storage capacity, as do many plants.

It is ironic that the industry and the DOE use, as one of their key selling points for Yucca, the same argument that NC WARN and others have made for years: that current storage of “spent” nuclear fuel represents a potential target for terrorists.  High-density cooling pools are widely recognized as the largest and most vulnerable targets at each plant, and a successful attack on a waste pool could, according to federal studies, cause many thousands of deaths, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and contaminate thousands of square miles.  No number of guards or guns can ensure protection against an attack, especially from an airliner, and especially because the industry continues to argue against maximizing measures against potential ground-level attackers.

There is a growing consensus among independent experts and environmentalists across the nation that eliminating high-density pool storage in favor of hardened, onsite dry storage would be the best way to reduce risks at nuclear power plants.  This process could be accomplished expeditiously for a small fraction of the funding set aside for Yucca Mountain, even while DOE continues to pursue the 293 technical concerns remaining about the Yucca site.  Most U.S. nuclear plant owners are already using dry storage, or will within a few years, but none are yet protecting the canisters sufficiently; most are stacking them closely together out in the open.

There is a specific example of hardened, well-protected storage that has been presented to CP&L and Duke Energy in North Carolina, and advocated publicly since last October.  This plan would reduce the probability and consequences of attack by protecting waste fuel in small batches stored in thick steel canisters, dispersed and surrounded by gravel mounds.  Low-density pool storage would be used only for the first five years after waste fuel is discharged from a reactor.  This plan drastically changes the size of the potential target, from thousands of vulnerable waste assemblies to dozens of well-protected assemblies. 

We have contacted you before about this issue, but I am forwarding another copy of the plan, including graphic illustrations.  So far, it has been endorsed by numerous scientists, elected officials, and thousands of citizens.  Neither CP&L nor Duke has attempted to rebut this plan, nor have they been called on by the governor or the media to address the relative risks of the hardened storage compared to their high-density pools.

I am very concerned that the Bush Administration and many state governments, including North Carolina’s, seem to persistently avoid dealing with the extent of the risk at nuclear facilities.  This is undoubtedly related to the powerful industry’s wish to avoid negative publicity about nuclear power and avoid measures that cost money.  Therefore, I hope that you will take a prominent role regarding the upcoming development of a national strategy for protecting against terrorism, and that you will insist that all options be duly considered for safeguarding high-level waste fuel, including a full examination of hardened onsite storage. 

Regarding the transport of high-level waste fuel:  I was glad to hear that you are concerned, as you said, about “the safety of nuclear shipments, especially after September 11,” traveling toward Yucca Mountain, and that you are working on legislation to make sure that future shipments are as safe as possible. 

However, I remind you that one utility is already transporting its deadly waste fuel.  CP&L imports it by rail each month to Shearon Harris – near your hometown of Raleigh – to avoid procuring additional storage capacity at its Brunswick and Robinson plants.  This creates an unnecessary risk to communities near each plant and everyone in between.  It also is creating the nation’s largest storage site for waste fuel, and the only four-pool storage configuration.

We have provided to your senior staff copies of government and independent studies confirming that accidents or attacks on waste fuel transports could cause deaths, injuries and billions in economic damage.  Most of the counties through which these train shipments pass have no emergency planning for a radiation release.  The NRC has not examined the risks posed by terrorist attack on CP&L’s nuclear waste shipments.   The difficulty of adequately protecting nuclear waste transports was illustrated in March when an escapee boarded the train carrying CP&L’s waste fuel in Richmond County, then fled into nearby woods. 

I copied you on our November 5th appeal to NRC Chairman Meserve to halt CP&L’s waste transports pending a full evaluation of the risks versus alternative means of managing the waste.  I pointed out that at least twice last fall, the DOE suspended a planned shipment of waste fuel from the defense industry – on September 11th and again when bombing began in Afghanistan.  The DOE was obviously concerned about possible terrorist attacks. 

On February 12th, I again appealed to Meserve to personally intervene, based on continuing FBI warnings about possible attacks on nuclear facilities, and due to the discovery that mock terrorists working as part of a federal security assessment program last year were able to hijack DOE shipments of nuclear materials in each of five attempts.  I later learned that Chairman Meserve had relegated our request to a Petition Review Board, and that it remains buried in the federal bureaucratic process, despite a requirement that such petitions be resolved within 120 days.  It appears that the NRC has no interest in challenging CP&L to justify its unnecessary waste transports, or even to openly examine the risks.

However, the North Carolina Democratic Party called in June for a halt to nuclear waste transports.  Also last month, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, including many from North Carolina, proclaimed that no shipments of waste fuel should take place until and unless risks have been fully assessed and a formal plan is in place for emergency preparedness among localities on transport routes.  Apparently, many of them do not realize that our state is already bearing the risk of these shipments so that CP&L can save money.

Regarding your legislation on future transports to Nevada, I hope you will require input and acceptance from state and local governments, and that you will insist that a full and open assessment of risks and emergency preparedness requirements be conducted.  The NRC simply cannot be trusted to act independently in establishing risk and security parameters.  Also, will you include the present CP&L transports within this legislation?  Those will likely remain the only shipments of commercial waste fuel for at least a decade, and thus should be addressed in any and all federal risk assessments and security upgrades.  More importantly, there must be action right now to stop the unevaluated risks posed by CP&L’s waste shipments to communities near the three nuclear plants and everyone in between. 

It seems apparent that the NRC is unable to take protective action on transport and storage issues described in this letter.  Therefore, I ask you for the following specific actions:

1. Will you please use your office as a U.S. Senator to insist that the NRC suspend CP&L’s monthly waste shipments, at least temporarily, pending a full and open assessment of risks and until a federal plan is in place to ensure that all communities are prepared for a radiation release from a nuclear transport?

2. Will you please make certain that the ongoing development of a national strategy for Homeland Security includes due consideration of all options for protecting high-level waste fuel, including a full and open examination of hardened onsite storage compared to high-density cooling pools?

Senator Edwards, many factors could prevent Yucca from ever opening, including more earthquakes, terrorism at any nuclear facility, or science prevailing over the industry’s control over the DOE in the licensing process.  I hope you will agree that the nation’s plans for protecting against nuclear terrorism must not be dominated by the nuclear power industry’s prodigious lobbying and distortions the way the Yucca project has been.  I urge you to ensure that the extremely important issue of risk management at the nation’s nuclear plants for the next two decades is conducted in the open, and that prudence take precedence over the industry’s profits.  Storage of waste fuel at reactor sites will remain a challenge for decades; risk minimization must begin now and be sustained until a safe solution is found for all the nuclear waste fuel being generated. 

The nation needs your leadership in reducing the very real risk of nuclear terrorism.  I look forward to your earliest possible reply. 

Sincerely,

Jim Warren

Executive Director

cc:        Sen. Tom Daschle
            Sen. Harry Reid
            Governor Mike Easley
            Robert Alvarez
            David Lochbaum