MONTROSE, N.Y. - Elected officials, environmental groups and scientists will gather in Montrose on Thursday for a regional forum on decommissioning nuclear power plants, including Indian Point.
The forum will address an audience of federal, state and local officials and citizens about public safety concerns around the decommissioning process. According to Manna Jo Greene, environmental director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, one major concern is that the private companies being considered for the work want to transport the waste to interim storage sites in Texas and New Mexico.
"That would be bringing this highly radioactive waste through communities," she said, "by potentially bumpy and unsuitable roads or rail, or barge."
Holtec International, the company acquiring the Indian Point licenses, has said the sale means decommissioning will be completed decades sooner than if Entergy continued to own the plants.
Holtec also is decommissioning the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey. Greene said both Indian Point and Oyster Creek use fuel that is so hot and radioactive that it needs to cool off in pools for five to seven years after it is removed from the reactors.
"At Oyster Creek," she said, "they're saying they're going to complete the process, including emptying the fuel out of the fuel pools into dry casks, in two to three years."
She said the business model of private decommissioning companies involves doing the work quickly and inexpensively, turning money left over from the decommissioning funds into profit.
The forum will include safety experts, watchdog groups and officials from cities where nuclear plants have been decommissioned. Greene said raising the issues now gives regulators and legislators the information they need to protect the public.
"Putting public health and safety first is our goal," she said, "and providing the best available information seems like the best action to take to ensure that."
The forum is to start at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Hendrick Hudson Free Library in Montrose. Space is limited, but the event will be videotaped.
More information is online at surveymonkey.com.
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A 2,000-mile bus trip has not deterred representatives from Southwest tribes from traveling to Washington, D.C., this week to support expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
The law provides health screenings and financial aid for people sickened by testing of nuclear weapons in the 1940s.
Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, is traveling with members from the Laguna and Acoma Pueblos and the Navajo Nation. She noted expansion of the law is supported in the Senate but Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., the Speaker of the House, has blocked a House vote.
"It's very disappointing that somebody who has so much power can simply say something like, 'It's going to cost too much,' and that works," Cordova asserted. "It's obscene."
Expansion of the bill would, for the first time, benefit thousands of New Mexicans from the area surrounding the Trinity Test Site. It would also include people from Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Missouri, Colorado and Guam.
Cordova's father died of cancer believed related to radiation exposure. After surviving cancer herself, she has made expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act her life's mission by testifying before Congress and leading numerous meetings across the state.
"You're always amongst nothing but widows -- widows raising children and grandchildren -- the men have died," Cordova pointed out. "I mean, when you bury enough people that you love, you realize that there's not a whole lot else they can take from you."
She believes expansion of the law would provide justice for people irreparably harmed by nuclear radiation.
"Our children now have the genetics and our children are now being diagnosed all the time," Cordova observed. "This isn't going to go away for us anytime soon. And so, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose from fighting this fight."
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Public meetings in New Mexico this week will gather input on proposed expansion of a nuclear waste repository.
But watchdog groups are urging a federal rulemaking process be adopted before the expansion is approved.
The Department of Energy wants the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside of Carlsbad to stay open until at least 2083 - decades past a previous deadline.
WIPP is the disposal site of radioactive and hazardous wastes generated from fabricating triggers, or pits, for nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Organizations such as the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, led by Director Don Hancock, said they believe rulemaking is the fairest route the Environmental Protection Agency could take.
"Agencies, when they do rule-making, tend to be more rigorous," said Hancock, "because they know if they have to defend it in court, the court won't throw out what they've done."
A technical meeting among experts, regulators, and the public will be held tomorrow at the Santa Fe Hilton - at 100 Sandoval Street, from 1 to 3 p.m.
An evening meeting to receive public comment will be held at the same location starting at 6 p.m.
The WIPP site near Carlsbad stores waste like clothing, rags, soils and tools contaminated with radioactive elements due to nuclear weapons research and assembly.
It was originally set to close this year. Now, the federal government wants to continue receiving shipments there and expand the plant to store more waste.
Hancock said he fears New Mexico will be the destination of an unending stream of radioactive waste, unless rulemaking is adopted.
"So the EPA, DOE and the public all know that's what the process is going to be in the future," said Hancock, "so there won't be confusion about that and people won't have to spend time and effort saying, 'Is there going to be a rulemaking or not?' - because it will already have been decided that there will be."
WIPP has received 13,000 shipments of nuclear waste since 1999, arriving from about 10 sites across the country shipped in large drums on semi-trailers along state roads and interstates.
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A scientist who said he found extreme plutonium contamination in Los Alamos' Acid Canyon believes concerned residents should invest in monitoring equipment for greater peace of mind.
Over a 20-year period ending in 1963, liquid and often radioactive waste was dumped down the canyon.
Michael Ketterer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry, Northern Arizona University, presented findings to Nuclear Watch New Mexico about water, soil and plant samples he collected at the site 60 years later. He believes people living nearby should follow his lead.
"New Mexicans, you guys can do this too," Ketterer urged. "Your state needs a community instrument, not one run by the state or the locals or by DOE, one run by the community. You can do this too."
Ketterer pointed out the instrument would provide those downstream updated contamination readings. In 1967, the Atomic Energy Commission worked to clean up the area before releasing the land to Los Alamos County without any restrictions on uses. A County Councilor who attended the presentation said they have not received any notification from the federal government about Acid Canyon being unsafe.
The canyon now features a dirt trail shaded by pines, providing easy recreational opportunities. Ketterer noted the levels of plutonium contamination were the highest he's ever seen in an area without restricted access.
"You know this is happening in an area with full public access," Ketterer emphasized. "Anybody's child or dog can go down there, contact water, the sediments, the plants. What actions has EPA taken or should EPA take to stop this?"
Nuclear Watch New Mexico is pushing for increased cleanup of legacy waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory. The group also opposes new plutonium pit production proposed near the site and worries future wildfires in the area could possibly disperse plutonium through falling ash.
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