Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
FEBRUARY 10, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
1488 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
REP.
SHELLEY BERKLEY
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER
SUBJECT - HR. 45
LEGISLATION TO
AMEND NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY
BODY:
Mr Chairman,
Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to
address the Subcommittee this morning.
I come before you today to give voice
to the well-founded fears and concerns of the citizens of the Las Vegas Valley--
my home District-- and the citizens of the entire state of Nevada.
Over one
million and a half millions Nevadans would live within an hour drive or so from
the so-called temporary hi-level nuclear dump proposed by HR. 45. This bill
would dump over 70,000 tons of an incredibly lethal substance at one location...
in southern Nevada.
Those Nevadans--mothers, like me...fathers, sons,
daughters, and grandparents deserve the same health and safety protections as
every American. HR 45 would deny equal protection under the law to the citizens
of Nevada and future generations.
But I will also discuss how this bill
places Americans in all parts of the country at risk.
When you live in a
state that has been singled out as the target for a nuclear payload, you give
close attention to the issue. Nevadans know just how toxic, how dangerous, how
menacing high level nuclear waste really is. A person standing next to an
unshielded spent nuclear fuel assembly would get a fatal dose of radiation in
just three minutes.
Under H.R. 45,the concentrated level of deadly radiation
at one place--in my home state-staggers the imagination. H.R. 45 would force
virtually all of the nation's high-level waste on the people of one state...a
state where there is not even one nuclear reactor.
For nearly two decades
the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy have tried to convince
Nevadans that high level nuclear waste transportation and storage is safe.
Now hold on a minute. What's wrong with that picture? If the canisters of
nuclear waste are so safe .... WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SHIPPED FROM ALL OVER THE
UNITED STATES AND DUMPED IN NEVADA?
That question has haunted Nevadans for
years. And our concerns have again intensified with the introduction of H.R. 45.
This bill would unleash high level nuclear waste on to the nation's highways and
rail lines. It is this issue--the transportion of high level nuclear waste--that
binds Nevadans with all Americans as potential victims of H.R. 45. Americans
from all parts of the country who would be exposed to unacceptable and
unnecessary risk .... because they live near the highways and railroads where
the nuke trucks and trains would roll. This sounds a national alarm.
The
deadly cargo will intrude on 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns. 50
million Americans live within just a half mile of the shipping routes. The waste
will rumble through Birmingham, Alabama and Laramie, Wyoming. Portland, Maine
and the suburbs of Los Angeles. Miami, Florida and Kansas City and St. Louis,
Missouri. In short, nuclear waste will be on the move all over the country all
the time...for 30 years.
The Dept. Of Transportation counted more than
99,000 incidents in which hazardous materials were released from trucks and
trains, from 1987 to 1996...causing 356 major injuries and 114 deaths.
The
Dept of Energy has described a plausible crash scenario involving high impact
and fire that would contaminate an area of 42 square miles with radioactive
debris. It is truly horrifying to picture this happening in a populated area.
We've been repeatedly told that shipping nuclear waste across the country
and stashing it at a dumpsite is safe. But let's take a brief look at the
history of how the federal government has handled nuclear projects. The lands
around nuclear installations at Hanford, Washington...Rocky Flats,
Colorado...Oakridge, Tennessee... Fernaid, Ohio are contaminated. The GAO
concluded that 124 out of 127 nuclear facilities have been mismanaged by the
DOE.
Nevadans don't buy into the "don't worry, be happy" attitude toward
radiation. And for good reason.
I grew up in Las Vegas and I know that
Nevadans were proud to volunteer for the patriotic chore of playing host to
above and below ground nuclear weapons testing. But the federal government never
levelled with us about the risks.
The government produced films advising if
people just stayed indoors as clouds of fallout drifted through communities,
everyone would be safe. And for good measure, the government suggested that a
quick car wash would eliminate any pesky radioactive contamination.
It seems
laughable...if it weren't for the evidence of a disturbing increase in cancer
that traumatized these communities. Laughable, perhaps, if above ground testing
didn't spread radioactive elements across the country. Supposedly "safe" above
ground nuclear tests were stopped when it was proved that radioactivity was
winding up in the bodies of American children...from the milk they drank.
Underground testing was supposed to be the safe answer...or so the government
said. The radioactivity would be trapped underground-- never to get out...except
that some of the underground shafts burst open, spewing radiation into the air.
And now, scientists are finding that plutonium, thought to be trapped in
those test shafts-- is moving through the ground water at alarming speed.
So
I have a healthy skepticism about federal nuclear programs.
My healthy
skepticism persuades me that H.R. 45 is in fact a Trojan Horse for permanently
dumping high level waste in Nevada. There is nothing "temporary" about it H.R.
45. This bill is a political vehicle to get the waste to Nevada, to be
conveniently parked next door to Yucca Mountain, the site of a
foundering effort to justify a permanent dump.
The past year has been marked
by a quickening pace of scientific "surprises" that clearly eliminate
Yucca Mountain as a safe place for nuclear waste. Water will
saturate the dump. Those who assumed Yucca Mountain would be
dry for 10,000 years are stunned to discover that water is filtering through at
an alarming rate.
Yucca Mountain has been, is, and always
will be jolted by earthquakes. In recent days, seismologists described swarms of
earthquakes that rocked the area. To visit Yucca Mountain is to
feel the earth move. And, a growing number of scientists fear that a
Yucca Mountain dump, intended to isolate deadly radioactivity
forever, may one day be destroyed when volcanoes erupt.
It is not nice
to try to fool Mother Nature. Where earthquakes, water, and volcanic activity
are permanent dangers, we must not build a high level nuclear dump.
The
nuclear power industry should immediately seek alternatives to Yucca
Mountain. The billions of dollars coming from ratepayers would be
better spent finding a sensible and safe solution to nuclear disposal. Instead,
we have H.R. 45. This bill exists because the nuclear power industry sees that
the only way to keep the Yucca Mountain Project alive is to
build a temporary dump next door.
With the waste stacked up at a temporary
dump near Yucca Mountain, there would be a powerful motivation
to make Yucca Mountain work out-- somehow. Under those
circumstances. I fear that the health and safety of current and future
generations would be jeopardized for the sake of expediency. As the Nuclear
Waste Technical Review Board has clearly stated, a temporary facility at the
Nevada Test Site could prejudice the later decisions about the suitability of
Yucca Mountain.
H.R. 45 has its roots in expediency over
public health and welfare.
H.R. 45 throws out existing EPA radiation safety
standards...and replaces them with dangerous levels of radiation exposure that
would be quote "acceptable." The temporary dump can not meet the current
standards, so H.R. 45 permits Nevadans to be exposed to 4 to 6 times the amount
of radiation allowed at other waste sites. And H.R. 45 allows exposure 25 times
the level set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
EPA Administrator Carol
Browner said H.R. 45 would authorize "exposures to future generations of
Nevadans which are much higher than those allowed for other Americans and
citizens of other countries."
Congress, in 1982, called for 9 potential
nuclear storage sites to be assessed. By 1987, due to political
considerations...not scientific findings .... Yucca Mountain
alone was targeted for site characterization. As it became increasingly clear
Yucca Mountain is not suitable under the stringent and
responsible law Congress passed in 1982, the rules have repeatedly been relaxed
in favor of Yucca Mountain and against health and safety. And
now comes H.R. 45, a bill which achieves nothing but risks health and safety of
current and future generations. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board advises
that there are no compelling reasons to move the nuclear waste in the short
term.
H.R. 45 would be a terrible and needless mistake. If passed, it will
be fought in court by Americans across the country. I would stand with them in
court--or on the roads and rails, if necessary to stop this disastrous policy.
Thank You.
END
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 1999