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CounterPunch
September
4, 2002
Ten Reasons
to Oppose Yucca Mountain
by David Krieger and
Marissa Zubia
Nuclear energy has always been promoted to the
public in fraudulent ways. At the outset, it was claimed that
it would be "too cheap to meter," a claim that was
far from true even without taking into account large government
subsidies provided to the nuclear industry. Later, and still
today, nuclear energy is promoted as being "clean, safe
and environmentally friendly." This claim should have been
definitively laid to rest with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power
plant accident.
Now the proponents of nuclear energy
are pushing for long-term storage of highly radioactive nuclear
wastes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The $7 billion that the Department
of Energy (DoE) has spent on researching the suitability of Yucca
Mountain, Nevada as a radioactive waste storage site has only
served to prove that the volatile Yucca Mountain itself is a
terrible place to dump the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste that
has been building up at nuclear power plants. It is a shortsighted
and dangerous scheme that would endanger tens of millions of
Americans now and for generations to come.
There are many sound reasons to oppose
the Department of Energy's plan to transport nuclear wastes from
throughout the country to Yucca Mountain. Here are our top ten.
1. Accomplishes
No Reasonable Objective. Yucca Mountain
does not eliminate on-site storage of nuclear waste. After Yucca
Mountain is full, there will still be 44,000 tons of high-level
nuclear waste stored on-site at reactors throughout the country.
There will also be 77,000 tons of such waste moving around the
US over the next 30 years, traveling from one of 131 sites an
average of 2000 miles per shipment to Yucca Mountain. If the
purpose of the Yucca Mountain project is to consolidate the wastes,
that goal will clearly not be achieved.
2. Provides
Minimal Protection. Yucca Mountain
itself only provides a small portion of the "protection"
that the proposed site promises. The casks that hold the waste
are the actual protection, so why Yucca Mountain at all?
3. Creates
More Nuclear Waste. Shipping the
waste off-site will allow for the nuclear reactors to continue
creating more waste long after the contracts for those sites
were set to expire, thus continuing the cycle of producing extremely
dangerous waste that no one knows how to safely dispose of. The
nuclear industry has economic incentives for moving the waste
off-site from the reactors.
4. Adverse
Effects on Future Generations. The
project is a distinct danger to defenseless citizens -- not just
in this generation, but thousands of generations to come will
be affected by this decision. Plutonium-239, for example, has
a half-life of 24,400 years, which means that the wastes will
remain lethal for some 240,000 years.
5. Earthquake
Danger. Yucca Mountain is directly
above an active magma pocket and is the third most seismically
active area in the United States, with over 600 earthquakes of
magnitude 2.5 or greater on the Richter scale in the last 25
years alone. One such earthquake did over a million dollars worth
of damage to the US Department of Energy's own testing facility!
The most recent earthquake on July 14, 2002 had a magnitude of
4.4.
6. Fifty Million
People Endangered. Routes will move
through 734 counties across the United States. The high-level
radioactive waste contained in the casks will endanger 50 million
innocent people who live within 3 miles of the proposed shipment
routes. Hospitals, schools, businesses, emergency personnel,
commuters, travelers, and passers-by will also cross paths with
the shipments that will move through the country at an average
rate exceeding six shipments per day. Community health facilities
are not adequately prepared or equipped to deal with mass exposure
to radioactive matter. To find out how close your residence or
place of work is to the proposed routes, enter your address at
www.mapscience.org.
7. Terrorist
Attacks. The proposed shipments to
Yucca Mountain would move along predictable routes through 44
states, and many major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta (daily
shipments), Chicago (every 15 hours), Denver (every 13 hours),
and Salt Lake City (every 7 hours). They would provide tempting
targets for terrorists.
8. Costly Accidents
and Limited Liability. For each spill
that may occur (one out of every 300 shipments is expected to
have an accident) the cost of the clean-up is estimated conservatively
at $6 billion dollars. Thanks to Congress passing and repeatedly
renewing the Price-Anderson Act, the nuclear industry's liability
is limited. Taxpayers will pay the bill for accidents even if
they occur on reactor property.
9. Adverse
Impact on Water Sources. Yucca Mountain
sits above the only source of drinking water for the residents
of Amargosa Valley. The aquifer below Yucca Mountain provides
water to Nevada's largest dairy farm, which supplies milk to
some 30 million people on the west coast.
10. Violates
Treaties. Yucca Mountain is located
on Native American land, belonging to the Western Shoshone by
the treaty of Ruby Valley. The Western Shoshone National Council
has declared this land a nuclear free zone and demanded an end
to nuclear testing and the dumping of nuclear wastes on their
land.
It defies reason to expect that radioactive
wastes will sit for tens of thousands of years undisturbed by
unpredictable nature, by vengeful terrorists, or by human or
technological errors in the design of the containment structure
itself. The problem of what to do with high-level radioactive
wastes warrants additional consideration and resources, including
investigation of alternatives to Yucca Mountain. As an interim
solution, the wastes should be converted to dry-cask storage
and remain on-site where they were created.
Sources
1. Jaya Tiwari, "Time Running Out:
Senate to Vote on Future of Yucca Mountain Project Soon,"
Physicians for Social Responsibility Security Program Activist
Update, (June 2002).
2. Western Shoshone National Council,
"US Senate Vote Violates Treaty and Tribe's Basic Human
Rights,"(July 2002).
3. State of Nevada-Nuclear Projects Agency,
Nuclear Neighborhoods.
4. The Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects,
Office of the Governor, "A Mountain of Trouble: A Nation
At Risk," Volume 1, (February 2002).
5. Michael E. Long, "Half Life,
The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste," National
Geographic, (July 2002).
6. Richard Wiles & James R. Cox,
"What If...A Nuclear
Waste Accident Scenario in Los Angeles, CA," Environmental
Working Groups, (June 27, 2002).
David Krieger
is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Marissa
Zubia is the coordinator of the Foundation's Renewable Energy
Project. For further information, visit the Foundation's website
at http://www.wagingpeace.org.
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