According to CNN, the Senate narrowly rejected a Republican-sponsored measure Thursday that would have bypassed the Obama administration’s current objections to the Keystone XL pipeline and allowed construction on the controversial project to move forward immediately.
Fifty-six senators voted in favor of the amendment — four short of the 60 required for approval.
Click here to read CNN’s coverage
Posted in Tarsands | Tagged Keystone Pipeline, republicans, Texas, United States Senate |
This weekend marks the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Our thoughts and prayers will be with the hundreds of thousands of Japanese still living in contaminated areas.
There are anniversary actions across the U.S. and entire world this weekend. You can find a list of many of them on the NIRS Actions page. Don’t forget to click the link you’ll see there for additional global actions to get a sense of the incredible number and variety of events going on all over the world!
Here in Austin:
Saturday, March 10th at Noon, Prevent Fukushima Texas vigil
At the river (Lady Bird Lake) immediately across from the front of the Austin City Hall (301 W. 2nd St.) just West of 1st Street.
Speakers will include Chiaki Kasahara and Ivan Stout, who lived in Japan at the time of the nuclear disaster and had to leave their home, family and friends in order to protect their health and that of their young son.
Sponsored by SEED Coalition and Nuke Free Texas. www.NukeFreeTexas.org
(If it looks like light rain, bring an umbrella. If it’s raining heavily, we’ll move over to a covered space at City Hall – under the solar panels.)
Posted in Nuclear | Tagged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, japan, Nuclear, Texas |
The Texas Commission for Environmental Quality is the second largest environmental agency in the world—with a budget to match. Help hold TCEQ accountable for taxpayer’s interests and stop them from implementing rules that favor polluting businesses.
TCEQ’s Mission Statement and Agency Philosophy includes a commitment to “ensure meaningful public participation in the decision-making process.” Frankly, that did not translate into practice last week. At the public hearing on Tuesday, March 6th, Public Citizen testified about our experience attempting to gain access to an agency analysis of the proposed changes to Chapter 60 (Compliance History) rule on a previous report that is accessible on TCEQ’s website as an ASCII file which can be imported into an excel spreadsheet. Continue Reading »
Posted in Air Quality, Coal Plants, Toxics, Water | Tagged pollution, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality |
Get tough on environmental crimes
Texas law requires that the our state environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), consider a facility’s past compliance when making decisions regarding permits or inspections. In fact, a facility’s Compliance History score affects every bit of its business with the TCEQ.
New rules currently proposed by the TCEQ to the Compliance History program would possibly bump up thousands of previously categorized “poor” performers to an “average” classification without having removed an ounce of pollution from our air and water. The TCEQ has introduced even more limitations which will only further serve to keep every facility average. These changes include increasing the score by which a performer falls into the poor category, separating repeat violations by media (i.e. administrative violations vs specific emissions violations), giving the TCEQ Executive Director extraordinary authority to change a facility’s classification, and handing out bonus points for ill-defined and unregulated voluntary measures that a facility can implement.
If the Compliance History program reforms go forward as currently written, we will be missing out on two major opportunities by continuing to pretend that all facilities in this state are average.
At a time when the challenge of grappling with an increasing array of environmental and health threats to our state and its population gets harder every day, we cannot afford to let such opportunities pass us by. We urge the TCEQ to reconsider its Compliance History rules, and deliver a program that works to the people of the state of Texas.
The public has a chance to weigh in on these rules and we ask you to consider coming to the public hearing on March 6th or sending comments to the TCEQ by March 12th. Tell them:
As we know from our criminal justice system, swift sure and certain punishment deters crime. We should apply these lessons to environmental crime too
Public Hearing : TCEQ will hold a public hearing on this proposal in Austin on March 6, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. in Building E, Room 201S, at the commission’s central office located at 12100 Park 35 Circle.
Comments can be submitted by March 12, 2012.
You will be providing comments for the rulemaking – 2011-032-060-CE: HB 2694 (4.01 and Article 4): Compliance History
Posted in Air Quality, Coal, Sunset, TCEQ, Water | Tagged Hearing (law), pollution, TCEQ, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality |
This post was reprinted from a press statement by Trevor Lovell in response to TransCanada’s announcement yesterday, February 27th regarding their plans to pursue the building of a pipeline from Cushing, OK to the refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast while pursuing a new application for the Keystone XL pipeline through the heartland of the US.
Texans are a proud people and not to be taken for fools. TransCanada today has changed the name of its Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and claims it will be used for U.S. crude oil – knowing that such a use would be temporary at best and that it would be converted to tar sands in very short order. The diluted bitumen that this pipeline ultimately would carry must be pumped at extreme pressures, increasing the likelihood and magnitude of a leak. It also is far more toxic, as the sludge must be diluted with chemicals like benzene, which is considered threatening at levels higher than 6 parts per billion.
The White House’s judgment appears clouded with regard to the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. In stating support for the project, the president has willfully neglected the fact that this pipeline is intended to carry diluted bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands mines – a substance far more toxic and corrosive than crude petroleum. Allowing TransCanada to dress this project as a crude oil pipeline knowing full-well this is not its purpose, and further, knowing that it will deliver a far more dangerous feedstock across important water resources in our drought-stricken state is a dereliction of duty. The president and TransCanada can rest assured that Texans of all political stripes will take every step possible to impede its construction.
Public Citizen’s Texas office calls upon the president and relevant agencies to treat this pipeline as a tar sands pipeline. Additionally, it would be imprudent to build this pipeline when we anticipate new findings from a congressionally mandated study on the unique dangers of tar sands pipelines that may inform new regulations for this industry. Texas may be an oil-and-gas state, but the health and safety of our residents are no less important than they are anywhere else. Our water resources are threatened now more than ever. We are due a minimum of protection from our elected and appointed leaders.
Posted in Tarsands | Tagged Keystone Pipeline, Texas, TransCanada Corporation, white house |
While March is generally considered to be the beginning of tornado season, this year the season got an early and deadly start in late January when two people were killed by separate twisters in Alabama, and just yesterday, dozens of homes were damaged by a tornado in Georgia that knocked out power and forced schools to close. Preliminary reports showed 95 tornadoes struck last month, compared with 16 in January 2011.
The season usually starts in March and ramps up over the next couple of months, but forecasting tornado seasons is even more imprecise than predicting hurricane seasons. Small and too short-lived, tornados eluded scientists’ ability to make seasonal predictions. They pop in and pop out, and if the weather service can let people know 20 minutes in advance, it’s considered a victory. Despite the difficulties in predicting the tornado season, forecasters are telling the Southeast and heartland to get ready again.
All this is remincent of one of the worst tornado years in U.S. history. Tornadoes in 2011 started on New Year’s Day killing hundreds, injuring thousands and causing billions in damage. The 2011 season continued on to break records for the most tornadoes in a single day and in a single month. Still, tornado experts just don’t know what that means for this year. Keep in mind, climate scientists have told us that the impacts of climate change include more incidences of extreme weather events, so folks should be aware as we head into another tornado season.
You just might want to bookmark the following two websites:
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming | Tagged National Weather Service, Storm Prediction Center, Texas, Tornado |
Last week, local citizens from areas bordering the path of the proposed Texas leg of the TransCanada tar sands pipeline, rallied in front of the Lamar County Courthouse where a hearing was scheduled, pitting the Canadian corporation, TransCanada, against a local landowner, Julia Triggs Crawford. The crowd then packed the courtroom leaving standing room only.
On Monday, February 13th, Ms. Crawford obtained a restraining order against TransCanada to protect her property. Within 24 hours, TransCanada in turn filed for the restraining order to be dissolved. The hearing was held in the Lamar County courthouse in Paris, Tx on Friday, Feb. 17 starting at 10 a.m. before Judge Bill Harris.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmcTzht2XH8]
Rally in Paris, Texas on the steps of the Lamar County Courthouse (video by David McFatridge)
In the hearing on Friday, the attorneys for TransCanada displayed what many called an arrogance at the thought of one landowner and her rights, or even the archaeological significance of the property as a means of stopping their project, saying “We will not let one landowner stop this multi-billion dollar pipeline,” and again saying ““They can have their day in court, but they won’t stop this pipeline.”
In the end, Judge Harris handed the Paris area landowner a temporary victory in setting a date of April 30, 2012 for a jury trial to hear her case against TransCanada and their efforts to steal her land away from her for the Keystone Pipeline.
At a rally in Austin, in support of Ms. Crawford’s efforts, the organizations are Independent Texans, Texans for Accountable Government and Texans Uniting for Reform spoke up about the bullying tactics used by TransCanada.
“Everyone wants to know, by what authority or permit does this private, foreign company have the right to condemn property and start construction? We are going to tell TransCanada, don’t mess with Texans, don’t mess with our landowners,” commented Linda Curtis of Independent Texans.
TransCanada’s Keystone XL permit was denied by the president, so the groups and landowners question by what permit or authority does TransCanada take property or start any kind of tar sand pipeline construction? TransCanada, despite the denial of a permit, continues to bully landowners and execute eminent domain condemnation proceedings. Groups are questioning this company’s right to take land via eminent domain. The Railroad Commission has stated that it does not have the authority to grant the power of eminent domain to TransCanada. Ms. Crawford has also challenged the company’s common carrier status.
Ms. Crawford’s case is emblematic of the continuing struggle along with more than 80 cases in Texas where TransCanada, a foreign pipeline company, has condemned or threatened to condemn private property belonging to Texans.
“This is a private company taking land for private use and foreign profit. They are cloaking themselves in common carrier regalia and exercising eminent domain against Texas citizens but there is no evidence that they have the legal authority to seize property in Texas,” noted Debra Medina former gubernatorial candidate and director of We Texans.
“We are telling this private, foreign company ‘Don’t Mess with Texas'”, “Don’t bully Texans, putting our land and our water at risk,” while this foreign company continues to masquerade as a common carrier.
[vimeo=37031876]
This is the complete event video of protest and press conference by several Texas organizations representing landowners to show their support of Julia Trigg Crawford of Lamar County whose property has been condemned by TransCanada for their XL pipeline even though the federal permit has been denied. The organizations are Independent Texans, Texans for Accountable Government and Texans Uniting for Reform
Click here to read the Texas Attorney General’s landowners bill of rights in any attempt by the government or a private entity to take your property.
Posted in Tarsands | Tagged Eminent Domain, Julia Trigg Crawford, Keystone Pipeline, Texas, transcanada |
Earlier this week, a new statewide coalition of groups and advocates for private property rights announced its support for landowners along the path of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas. The groups charge that TransCanada, the company proposing to build the pipeline, has used eminent domain to bully landowners and condemn private property.
Despite a presidential permit denied to TransCanada for the Keystone XL project just weeks ago, the company continues to bully and pressure landowners along the Texas pipeline route.
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands crude more than 1900 miles through six states including Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In Texas, the pipeline crosses eighteen counties, from Paris to Pt. Arthur. Groups with landowners near the cities of Paris, Winnsboro, and Wells joined in press events held in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston to ask for support from agencies and officials on the continuing plight of landowners who would be impacted by the pipeline.
“Texas, we have an eminent domain problem,” said Terri Hall, director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF). “There is absolutely zero oversight for pipeline companies that want to take private property from Texans – all you have to do is check the right box on a form and declare yourself a common carrier, no questions asked.”
The form Hall refers to is a T4 permit application filed with the Texas Railroad Commission. In a recent Texas Supreme Court case, Texas Rice Land Partners, Ltd. and Mike Latta vs. Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas LLC , the court effectively revoked the eminent domain authority of the pipeline builder, holding that “Private property cannot be imperiled… by checking a certain box on a one-page government form.” In order to be a common carrier, a company needs to satisfy the question if it is purposed for public use. The pipeline company in this case did not meet the criteria of “common carrier” , as it was merely a private company transporting product to one of its own subsidiaries, therefore, not meeting the criteria of operating for public use or the public good. There is a real question as to whether the private entity TransCanada Keystone XL meets those same criteria.
The ruling has been hailed as a major victory for private property rights in Texas. Advocates like Hall and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina say that conservative politicians have campaigned on the issue but have done too little for property owners.
“Texas politicians talk tough on eminent domain, but with Keystone we have a private pipeline company acting as a ‘common carrier’ and bludgeoning private property owners with eminent domain while many of our Republican leaders cheer from the sidelines,” said Medina who is also director of We Texans.
“Despite the fact that this permit has been denied and there technically is no permit for TransCanada, the company continues to bully and pressure Texas landowners,” Medina noted. “And we would all like to ask, by what authority does this company have to continue insisting that landowners settle with them when there is no permit?”
Linda Curtis of Independent Texans, who helped coordinate groups in 2006 supporting Carole Strayhorn’s independent gubernatorial bid and the anti-Trans-Texas Corridor efforts said, “A similar statewide grassroots movement is waiting in the wings on this issue because the problems are way too familiar to east Texans who fought to stop the land grab for the TTC.”
Medina and Hall held press events in Houston and San Antonio respectively, standing with landowners who say they’ve been bullied by TransCanada. Former DISH, TX mayor Calvin Tillman hosted a similar event in Dallas, and in Austin, Independent Texans director Linda Curtis and Jessica Ellison of Texans for Accountable Government spoke.
Landowners attending the events have property condemned or are being pushed into negotiated settlements and claim their story has not been told. Landowners say theirs are among more than 80 cases in Texas where TransCanada, a private foreign pipeline company, condemned private property belonging to Texans.
“At this moment my property is condemned and legally TransCanada can lay that pipeline and pump undisclosed chemicals through it, even though we’ve never seen a judge,” said Julia Trigg Crawford of Lamar County. “I think most Texans would be stunned to find out that there is no process for challenging eminent domain use
in a pipeline case until after your land has already been condemned.”
Crawford is challenging TransCanada’s right to common carrier and eminent domain in her case. TransCanada’s representatives indicate they want to settle with the Crawfords out of court. However, they insist on retaining the right to begin construction/trenching as soon as March 1, 2012.
“We need our officials to stand up and help these landowners,” commented Calvin Tillman, former Mayor of Dish. “Currently the Railroad Commission and other state agencies are passing the buck, claiming they have no authority over Keystone wanting to build a segment from Cushing to the Texas coast. Where are our legislators? Where are the authorities to protect Texas landowners from private companies like TransCanada?”
The group also pointed out that the company misled landowners in other situations, telling property owners the pipeline had all necessary permits and repeatedly telling individual landowners that they were the last holdouts, making the pipeline seem inevitable and securing more favorable terms for the company.
Posted in Tarsands | Tagged debra medina, Keystone Pipeline, keystone xl, Texas, Texas Railroad Commission, transcanada |
The other day at a dinner party I sat across from a climate scientist (seriously, a professor at a major university in the earth sciences department), who commented that his trips to the Artic this summer were somewhat daunting. When I asked him who were all these folks Governor Perry said were funding work like his in support of the science of climate change, he said he’d like to know that too since he wasn’t getting any of that funding and in fact could probably get rich and have the ire of his colleagues heaped upon him if he took the opposite stance.
Now, according to MSNBC, internal documents have been leaked from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago nonprofit think tank, showing its plans to fund leading skeptics of global warming and develop a curriculum to teach climate change skepticism in schools (K-12). An anonymous person leaked the documents to several publications and activists supporting the science of climate change which is funded by huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses, including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more. Click here to read the MSNBC article.
Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming | Tagged Climate change denial, Texas |
Big Bend. The Guadalupe Mountains. Everything about them is iconic…everything but the air pollution that obscures the scenic viewscapes. Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains National Park are increasingly under attack from air pollution known as haze from coal plants and refineries. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to reduce and eliminate this haze. Under EPA’s proposed rule, however, Texas’s oldest and dirtiest power plants would be exempted from installing readily available, modern pollution controls. As a result, air pollution and impaired visibility at our National Parks could persist.
Don’t let big polluters off the hook — if they pollute our parks, they should pay to clean up. EPA has the authority to require the major sources of haze in our National Parks to clean up – let’s demand improved safeguards. EPA needs to hear from you before February 28th.
To submit a comment and see a sample letter, click here.
Posted in Air Quality | Tagged Big Bend National Park, clean air act, EPA, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas |
Thirty-seven clean energy groups submitted a formal petition for rulemaking to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking adoption of new regulations to expand emergency evacuation zones and improve emergency response planning around U.S. nuclear reactors. If you would like to sign on as a co-petitioner, click here.
Calling on the NRC to incorporate the real-world lessons of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the proposed rules would expand existing emergency evacuation zones from 10 to 25 miles around nuclear reactors and establish a new zone from 25-50 miles around reactors for which utilities would have to identify and publicize potential evacuation routes. Another improvement would require utilities and state and local governments to practice emergency drills that includes a natural disaster that either initiates or occurs concurrently to a nuclear meltdown. Currently, utilities do not have to show the capability to conduct an evacuation during a natural disaster—even though, as seen at Fukushima, natural disasters can cause nuclear meltdowns. The petition would also expand the “ingestion pathway zone,” which monitors food, milk and water, from 50 miles to 100 miles around reactors.
“80% of the airborne radiation released from Fukushima went directly over the Pacific Ocean,” explained Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which initiated the petition. “Even so, the Fukushima evacuation zone extended more than 25 miles to the northwest of the site, and the NRC and U.S. State Department both recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of Fukushima evacuate. Such evacuations could not be effectively conducted in the U.S. under current emergency planning regulations. We need to be better prepared and we can’t rely on favorable wind patterns to protect the American people.”
The NRC has relied primarily on the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and subsequent computerized accident simulations to support its emergency planning rules. But first at Chernobyl in 1986, and now at Fukushima, the real world has trumped any possible simulation. The fact is that far too many Americans live near nuclear reactors, but outside existing emergency planning zones. Based on real-life experience, these people need better protection.
“There is no invisible lead curtain surrounding nuclear power plants. We need to incorporate lessons learned from previous nuclear disasters. At the very least, we should stop pretending that emergency evacuation zones of 10 miles are adequate, and expand planning to include residents living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant,” said Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert in Pennsylvania. “On Friday, March 30, 1979–while school was in session–Governor Thornburgh recommended a ‘precautionary evacuation’ for preschool children and pregnant women living within five miles of Three Mile Island. The targeted population was estimated at 5,000, but more than 144,000 central Pennsylvanians from 50 miles away fled the area–further proof that a radiological disaster is not a controlled field trip.”
Indian Point, 24 miles from New York City, sits at the epicenter of the most demographically dense area of any nuclear reactor in the nation. Even under normal conditions, traffic is congested and regional infrastructure is highly stressed. During the severe snow, rain and wind storms of the past few years, large swaths of the region have been brought to a near standstill. And yet the NRC ignores all these realities, preferring to play with its computer models. This is a dangerous game.
In light of the recent activities around nuclear plants both in the United States and in Japan it had become obvious that new Emergency Planning Zones need to be implemented. Japan is still experiencing unfolding occurrences that are taking place outside of their projected protected zone. The United States must move to protect her citizens who are in these dangerous pathways.
A third of the population in the U.S., or roughly 120 million people, lives within a 50 mile radius of a nuclear reactor. Current emergency planning rules require utilities to develop and exercise emergency evacuation plans within a 10 mile radius around reactors. The “ingestion pathway” currently consists of an area about 50 miles in radius and focuses on actions appropriate to protect the food ingestion pathway.
At Fukushima, and earlier at Chernobyl, interdiction of contaminated food and liquids has occurred further than 100 miles from the accident sites.
Japan is already acting to improve its emergency response capability, in the event nuclear reactors ever are allowed to operate there again. Prior to the disaster at Fukushima, the emergency planning zones for nuclear emergencies in Japan was between 8-10 kilometers (5-6 miles). The zone is now being expanded to 30 kilometers (18 miles). The actual Fukushima evacuation zone was a 20 kilometer (12 mile) radius around the site, although areas to the northwest had the heaviest radiation measurments on land.
The full text of the petition is available here: http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/emergency/petitionforrulemaking22012.pdf
Posted in Nuclear | Tagged Fukushima, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Texas |
A survey done by Solar Austin at the beginning of 2012 shows there are at least 615 full-time solar energy jobs in Austin. These jobs include manufacturing, R&D, solar installation, financial and engineering consultants. Adding standard jobs multipliers the total direct and indirect employment supported by the Austin solar industry is 1,180 to 2,190 jobs.
The job figures in Solar Austin’s survey did not include the 240 local job years of employment created by the 30-Megawatt solar park at Webberville east of Austin. The group says the job potential for rooftop solar is even greater.
In 2004, Austin Energy began a rebate program to promote rooftop solar panel installations. It was the first program of its kind in Texas. Austin has since founded and funded institutions that develop new clean energy technology and businesses resulting in clean-tech start-ups, spin-offs, and expansions with many of the jobs at family-wage scale – solar electric system installers making $36,000 a year, solar manufacturing jobs averaging $50,000 a year, and solar engineering paying $75,000 and more annually.
In spite of the potential for job growth, the group pointed to Austin’s south where San Antonio’s public utility CPS, has begun funding solar rebate programs that have overtaken Austin’s and challenged the city to continue to capitalize on their previous commitment, taking it to the next level to make Austin a renewable energy industry cluster in the same way it has electronic manufacturing and software clusters.
“We want thousands of jobs in renewable energy, not hundreds!,” says Public Citizen’s Texas director, Tom “Smitty” Smith.
Take a look at the 4 page flyer on the survey put out by Solar Austin – Jobs Survey 4-Pager.
Posted in Renewables, solar | Tagged Austin, jobs, renewable energy, San Antonio, solar energy, Texas |
According to an MSNBC article, even short-term exposure to air pollution — just a day or a week in some cases — may kick off a heart attack or stroke according to two new studies. The studies reveal that the risk of heart attack or stroke can jump after high-pollution days, especially for people who already have predisposing health problems.
In a new analysis published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, up to a week of exposure to most major types of air pollution may be enough to trigger a heart attack.
The risk of stroke jumped 34 percent after 24 hours of exposure to moderate air pollution, according to a study published in the latest issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
No one knows exactly how much pollution will trigger a heart attack or stroke, but experts suggest that vulnerable people protect themselves by minimizing time spent breathing air contaminated with a heavy dose of fine particles. As exposure increases, both in terms of time and intensity, so does the risk of a heart attack and stroke.
The best recourse for those with cardiovascular disease may be to keep a close eye on local pollution levels, experts say. And government agencies are making that easier and easier. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has a downloadable app that provides information on local air quality. You can download the air quality app from the AIRNow app from the EPA’s website. The app works on both Apple and Android phones and allows users to get pollutant and ozone levels for more than 400 cities across the nation.
The culprit in both studies is particulate matter, tiny bits of material and droplets, known as PM2.5s. The particles come from a variety of sources, including power plants, factories, trucks and cars.
If you live in an area that is in non-attainment for federal air quality standards such as DFW or Houston, this should cause you some concern as the Texas leadership does everything they can to block the EPA’s efforts to enforce the Clean Air Act. While they express concern about EPA regulations on the financial health of the energy industry, touting the imaginary loss of jobs, they rarely express concerns about the actual health of Texans who would be protected by the increased regulation.
Posted in Air Quality | Tagged air pollution, Environmental Protection Agency, Texas |
While only 23 percent of Texas remains under “exceptional” drought, 90% of the state is still under some level of drought in spite of the recent rains many parts of the state have experienced. But we can’t get cocky, as the U.S. seasonal drought outlook indicates most of Texas can expect the drought to persist or intensify through April of this year. If we are lucky, the next outlook won’t be so dire as we head toward another Texas summer, hopefully not like our last one.
Posted in Coal Plants, Global Warming, Nuclear Plants, Water | Tagged drought, Texas |
Among the recommendations for managing the current stockpile of spent nuclear fuel — approximately 65,000 tons of waste stored at about 75 operating and shut-down reactor sites around the country — is a plan to move the waste to temporary storage sites.
Public Citizen rejects this plan. In the absence of a permanent and viable solution, we and more than 200 other organizations advocate safeguarding the waste where it is generated.
The temporary dump plan is flawed for several reasons:
To better safeguard this waste, we advocate hardened on-site storage — a plan that calls for emptying the waste storage pools and placing the irradiated rods in high-quality outdoor casks fortified by thick bunkers and berms.
Ideally, we should stop generating nuclear waste, but while it continues to accumulate, we must implement smart safeguards to protect people and the environment from the immediate risks associated with high-level radioactive waste.
Tell your representative to increase nuclear waste safety at reactor sites.
Posted in Nuclear, Radioactive Waste | Tagged Fukushima, radioactive waste, Spent nuclear fuel, Texas, yucca mountain |
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