One year ago, Environment Hawai`i reported on the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel from dismantled Navy reactors at Pearl Harbor and other sites around the country. Recently, the Department of Energy released a draft environmental impact statement covering the temporary storage, necessitated by a federal judge’s ruling that forbids most shipments of nuclear waste to the Idaho site that had been used as a “temporary” nuclear dump site since the 1950s.
The draft EIS describes five alternatives for managing the spent nuclear fuel. The first, “no action,” would have the waste be stored indefinitely in the area where it was generated or removed from service. The second, “decentralization,” would involve storing most fuel near the generation site, while allowing some shipments to DOE facilities. The third, described as the “1992/1993 planning basis,” would have all newly generated spent nuclear fuel transported to and stored at one of two potential centralized storage facilities (either the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory or the Savannah River, South Carolina, site). A fourth alternative, “regionalization,” would have the spent nuclear fuel distributed at several Energy Department sites, depending on the type of fuel involved or upon the geographic area where it was generated.
The fifth alternative, “centralization,” calls for managing all existing and proposed spent nuclear fuel inventories from both Energy Department and naval reactors at one site until “ultimate” disposition at a long-term storage site (yet to be identified).
The Department of Energy has not identified its “preferred alternative” nor will it identify one, according to the draft EIS, until after all public comment has been received. (The public comment period will close September 30.) The Navy has already made known its preferred alternative, however: centralization, using the Idaho site.
In July, hearings were held across the country on the draft EIS. In Honolulu, public comment on the idea of holding nuclear waste at Pearl Harbor was generally not favorable. Elsewhere, the response was much the same.
However, in Albany, New York, the response of the Knolls Action Project to the draft EIS went against the general trend. That group has consistently called for the closure of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where the Navy conducts much of its nuclear research. Despite the group’s record of opposition to nuclear armaments, nuclear energy, and nuclear waste, it concurred with the “no action” alternative of the draft EIS, sanctioning the local storage of nuclear waste.
The Knolls Action Project set forth its reasoning in a thoughtful essay, portions of which we are reprinting below.
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An Overview of the DOE’s Spent Nuclear Fuel EIS
Whether you read the executive summary or the full 4,200 pages of documentation, the DEIS study on spent nuclear fuel issues is an eye-opening exposure to the enormity of the nuclear waste management crisis faced by this country. The DOE estimates that military and various research reactor programs will create 100 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste in the next forty years. This amount supplements the 102,700 metric tons already generated by these programs and in problematic storage at several sites named as potential future storage locations.
But the DOE apparently does not think a crisis exists. It calmly states that its military and civilian programs will continue to generate waste and that current facilities could handle the additional waste as safely as building new ones. It all comes down to simply asking the public for input as to which option is most palatable (and perhaps most politically feasible).
Despite its length, the study is inadequate, simply on a policy level. The study is about managing SNF wastes “only” for the next forty years. In effect, it is only about interim or temporary storage. The study does not consider “ultimate disposition” of these materials.
Although the issue of ultimate disposition of SNF is outside the official limits of the DEIS, it deserves some consideration. The DOE continues to seek an ultimate disposal solution for such materials; potential sites and techniques are being researched at enormous expense while target dates for start-up are pushed further and further back. The forty year period covered by this DEIS reflects the time period by which the DOE hopes to open a final repository. The outlook for this process remaining on schedule cannot be considered good.
Thus, this DEIS is really about passing our mounting waste storage and disposal problems on to the next generation of citizens and bureaucrats, all the while adding more SNF to the problem. Perhaps the best description of the range of storage alternatives presented here is as a rather macabre shell game: waste moves around but never goes away. Unfortunately, there’s a sinister catch to the game: there’s high-level radioactive waste under every shell.
There is virtually no guarantee that the next forty years of SNF management will be any better than the first forty. Uncaring administrations, inadequate budgets, inattentive management, and poor design and operational procedures — let alone secrecy and lack of public accountability — could all rear their heads in the next four decades. They were certainly present during the first forty years.
Plans for storage alternatives in the DEIS pit one community against another; sites of waste generation against sites of waste storage, an unfortunate and vicious cycle.
Knolls Action Project wants to end the shell game.
We advocate the “no action” alternative. This would result in the on-site storage of SNF waste at the Knolls Kesselring Site and at other DOE and Navy locations. We advocate this for several reasons:
* “No action” represents the safest, sanest and most appropriate response to the DOE’s shell game of moving waste around with little purpose or vision in mind. “No action” eliminates the additional hazards of transportation for these hazardous materials safely.
* Local, on-site storage of radioactive wastes generated at Knolls is the morally correct choice. Our communities can no longer enjoy the economic benefits and professed technical reputation of the Knolls facility and the Naval Reactor Program without accepting responsibility for the facility’s environmental liabilities as well.
* On-site storage allows our community to assume a fair portion of the burden of radioactive waste. In turn, it frees another community from bearing the burden of responsibility for waste created elsewhere.
* On-site storage will catalyze our community to assume a greater role in the national decision-making surrounding radioactive waste generation, storage, and disposal issues.
* Any form of on-site storage at Knolls must include a monitoring and safety program that allows independent oversight of storage conditions and activities. The Naval Reactor Program, with a history of secrecy and lack of public accountability, cannot be trusted with sole responsibility for such storage.
Knolls Action Project recognizes that this is a bold choice to recommend to the citizens of Saratoga County. We believe, however, that it is the correct and responsible choice, barring environmental or safety issues which may make such a recommendation untenable. It is a choice that we feel must be made in the face of the DOE’s unwillingness or inability to confront the SNF problems on its own.
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For Further Information
The public comment period on the draft EIS has been extended through September 30, 1994. Comments should be postmarked by that date and sent to the following address:
Public Comments on the SNF and INEL EIS
Attention: Thomas L. Wichmann
U.S. Department of Energy
Idaho Operations Office
P.O. Box 3189
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83403-3189.
Copies of the draft EIS are available on O`ahu at the Pearl City Public Library; the Aiea Public Library; the Hawai`i State Library; and the Pearl Harbor Naval Base Library. Anyone on the Big Island who wants to review the document may do so by arrangement with Environment Hawai`i. Please call 934-0115 to set up a time.
Volume 5, Number 3 September 1994
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