Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
MARCH 24, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
4746 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
MICHAEL
MARIOTTE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE
BEFORE THE SENATE ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE
SUBJECT - S. 608 THE NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY ACT OF 1999
BODY:
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee:
I appreciate the invitation to speak before you today, and for your request
to hear our views on S. 608, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1999.
I am
speaking on behalf of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and our
1,000+ organizational and individual members across the United States, Europe
and the Commonwealth of Independent States. As you know, NIRS was founded in
1978 to serve as the information and networking center for grassroots
environmental groups and people across the U.S. interested in nuclear power,
radioactive waste, and sustainable energy issues. In 1997, we expanded our
efforts to include support to organizations in those nations with the most
dangerous nuclear programs:Eastern Europe and the CIS. More recently, we have
received considerable demand for our services from organizations throughout Asia
and Africa. Our members across the nation and worldwide have a keen interest in
the outcome of the debate over S. 608. No nation has yet successfully tackled
the seemingly unsolvable problem of longterm radioactive waste storage.
Virtually every country is looking to the United States for leadership on this
vital issue. Unfortunately, the U.S. is not currently positioned to provide that
leadership. S. 608 is symptomatic of the problem, not of the solution.
I am
struck, upon rereading my February 5, 1997 testimony before this committee on
similar legislation (S. 104), how little has changed over the past two years. In
essence, we have all wasted those two years:we are no further along toward a
sound, scientifically-defensible radioactive waste policy than we were--to me,
that is the root of our current problem. I will have more to say on this later
in my statement. In the meantime, I refer the Committee to my testimony of that
date. However, there are a few developments that have arisen since that earlier
testimony and a few issues I wish to stress. In particular, I want to note that
the environmental community is now firmly on record that the proposed
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository must be disqualified
from further consideration as a permanent waste site. This new position--based
on ever-mounting scientific evidence--is reason enough to disqualify the Nevada
Test Site adjacent to Yucca Mountain as an "interim" storage
site as well.
I. S. 608 SHOULD BE REJECTED BY TIlE SENATE ENERGY COMMITTEE:
THERE ARE NO BENEFITS AND NUMEROUS HAZARDS
S. 608 is just as unnecessary,
dangerous and destructive to both the public health and safety and to any goal
of achieving a scientifically-defensible, publicly-acceptable radioactive waste
policy as was S. 104. Our problem is not only with the details of the
legislation, but also with its concept. There is no compelling reason to
institute, at this time, the transport of high-level atomic waste across our
nation. There is no benefit to beginning this action. There is, however, a
serious detriment: transporting high-level atomic waste will result in
accidents--transportation accidents are inevitable. This leads to the spectre of
a Mobile Chernobyl--a serious accident that can result in local catastrophe.
Rail accidents occur. We all saw the devastating accident of an Amtrak train
from Chicago to New Orleans 10 days ago. A similar accident involving a train
carrying the long-lived radiological equivalent of some 200 Hiroshima bombs
would be beyond tragedy. Truck accidents occur: how often do those of us in
Washington wake up to a traffic report about a tractor-trailer truck accident on
the Capital Beltway? A similar accident involving a truck carrying high-level
nuclear waste would not be just a traffic nightmare, but an environmental
disaster. Accidents happen; there is absolutely no rational reason to believe
they won't occur. The casks that will carry this waste certainly will be built
to be robust (I say "will be built" because no such cask actually has yet been
constructed or tested). But does good design mean it is impossible to breach the
casks? Unfortunately, "impossible" is not a word that well signifies the nuclear
power industry. Just 20 years ago, the nuclear power industry and its
regulators, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, officially viewed a "Class 9"
nuclear meltdown as "incredible." This Sunday, we will be commemorating the 20th
anniversary of the "incredible": the meltdown at Three Mile Island. Of course it
will be possible to breach these casks. What is impossible is to believe that
any man-made cask can survive every possible accident scenario that can be
thrown at it. And it is likely that these casks will face--- given the reality
of somewhere between 15,000 and 100,000 shipments-- very possible accident
scenario we can think of, and probably a few we haven't considered. What is the
rush? These casks, if pressed into transport in the time frame envisioned under
S. 608, will face thermal and radiation loads no material should ever have to
protect against. The alphabet soup of lethal radionuclides contained in
high-level atomic waste didn't, for the most pan, even exist 60 years ago. They
are products of the atomic age. Plutonium-239, Strontium-90, Cesium- 137,
Iodine-129:these are fission products, and exist only as a result of the
fissioning of the atom. They are killers. Why move them now, before we have a
long-term storage solution in place? Who benefits? The only beneficiaries are
the nuclear utilities, who would be able to remove some of their waste from
their reactor sites to a centralized site. Out of sight, out of mind. It
wouldn't solve their waste problems entirely, since as long as the reactors
generate waste, they must have on-site storage. But it is the opposite of a
sustainable environmental strategy:one does not simply move lethal wastes from
one site to another in order to make more of the same lethal waste. But that is,
to the nuclear utilities, the only "solution" they have to offer. Move the waste
now, and let us make more that you'll have to move later. This defies not only
common sense, which is why most Americans are adamantly opposed to this
legislation, but it defies scientific sense as well. Why should we rush to solve
a problem that didn't even exist 60 years ago, but will be with us for the next
several million years? The simple fact is that we shouldn't rush; rather, we
need to proceed deliberately, and make the right decisions, because the
decisions we make now will have ramifications for every generation to come. I am
sure you will agree with me that we all care deeply about our grandchildren's
grandchildren, and their grandchildren too. The issue is what legacy will we
leave them? The urge to say 'we did everything we could' is understandable. What
is impossible to grasp is why it should be considered better to "do everything
we could" when our answers today are more likely to make the problem worse than
to make it better. We do not yet know how to ensure that this deadly material
never enters the environment, and making irrevocable decisions without that
knowledge is irresponsible. Moving high-level radioactive waste now, or in the
near future, inevitably ensures accidents. The only question is whether we will
experience a truly horrific accident, or will we merely suffer a series of
nuclear fender-benders? The consequences of a Mobile Chernobyl accident are
mind-boggling. We could lose much of an entire major city--permanently. I have
been to Pripyat, Ukraine, and I can attest to the absolutely apocalyptic nature
of visking a city--once of 50,000 active people--in which there is no sound, no
movement, no life. I can assure you we don't want that to happen in the United
States. Or we could lose--permanently--hundreds to thousands of acres of prime
farmland, as did Ukraine and Belarus. We often hear, in support of this
legislation, that it is intolerable to have high-level radioactive waste sitting
at reactor sites across this country, near homes, schools and cities. A program
to move the waste, this reasoning goes, would be an environmental benefit for
these areas.
But high-level atomic waste cannot be moved at all for at
least five years (it must remain in cooling pools), so as long as nuclear
reactors continue operating, each of these reactor sites will remain an
"interim" atomic waste site. Creation of a centralized "interim" site merely
adds one more contaminated site to those scattered across the country--it does
not solve the problem, it merely expands it geographically. Further, if those
who make this argument truly were concerned about the safety hazards and the
quality of the environment at the reactor sites, they would be the most adamant
in insisting that reactors close now. After all, the reactors themselves--with
all of their valves, pipes and other components susceptible to failures--are
more dangerous than waste sitting in pools or casks. Again:who benefits? The 50
million Americans who live, shop, go to school and farm within 1/2 mile--just
one-half mile---of the likely transport mutes? No, it is only the nuclear
utilities. They just want this waste off their property, and they want the title
and liability for this waste to revert to the taxpayer, not the utility. Their
goal is transparent, and wrong. It is a direct repudiation of a long-held
American belief that one is responsible for the mess one makes, for the garbage
one creates, for the waste one generates. This tenet holds true for individuals
and for corporations; for everyone, apparently, except the nuclear power
industry.
II. YUCCA MOUNTAIN IS UNSUITABLE AS A PERMANENT
NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY
In November 1998, NIRS and 218 other environmental
and consumer organizations formally petitioned the Department of Energy to
disqualify the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
from further consideration. This action marked a watershed for the environmental
movement, which, until then, had never taken such a clear position on whether
radioactive waste ultimately should be moved to Nevada. However, persuaded by
the overwhelming onslaught of scientific evidence, the environmental movement is
now firmly opposed to Yucca Mountain as either a permanent or
"interim" nuclear waste storage site. It is clear that Yucca
Mountain cannot be licensed under existing regulations; only by
changing the regulations after the rules have been established can Yucca
Mountain even be considered as a long- term storage site. Changing
these regulations would be cheating the American people, would indicate a
reliance on politics over science, and would further diminish the credibility
of. both the Department of Energy and the U.S. Congress. Our petition to the DOE
focused on a specific issue:movement of water inside the mountain. Specifically,
10 CFR 960.4-2-1(d) states that a high-level nuclear waste site must be
disqualified if "pre-waste-emplacement groundwater travel time from the
disturbed zone to the accessible environment is expected to be less than 1,000
years along any pathway of likely and significant radionuclide travel."
According to the DOE's Viability Assessment for Yucca Mountain,
radionuclides can be released from the Yucca Mountain site
through groundwater in as little as 500 years. Add this issue to the myriad of
other problems at Yucca Mountain:its active seismicity,
including last year's revelation in Science that the earth's crust at Yucca is
less stable than scientists previously had believed and is stretching some ten
times faster than expected; the January 1999 publication in Nature that the
migration of radioactive materials through groundwater moves faster than
previously realized; the December 1998 report by Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research that warm groundwater has flooded the Yucca region in
geologically recent times and the previously reported possibility of superheated
water coming up into the mountain. More recently, the Department of Energy's own
Peer Review Panel for the Viability Assessment raised numerous troubling issues
that should provide great caution to anyone relying upon this document as
evidence that Yucca Mountain should be, or ultimately will be
approved as a repository site. When it released the Viability Assessment, DOE
spokespeople described it as indicating there are no "showstoppers" for
Yucca Mountain. But the Peer Review Panel report indicates that
this show is likely to close early. Stated the Panel in its February 11, 1999
report, "...the Panel finds that a number of the components of the TSPA-VA
(Total System Performance Assessment--Viability Assessment) analysis were not
supported by adequate evidence that they are representative of the systems,
components, and processes they were designed to simulate. In addition, several
of the component
models are likely to be conservative and others
non-conservative .... For these reasons, it is unlikely that the TSPA-VA, taken
as a whole, describes the long-term probable behavior of the proposed
repository. In recognition of its limitations, decisions based on the TSPA-VA
should be made cautiously." _ It may surprise the Committee--and certainly will
shock the American public--to learn that the mountain itself is no longer
considered a primary barrier to prevent the release of radioactivity. So much
for deep geological storage as a concept... This is, of course, the concept that
originally brought us Yucca Mountain as a possible waste
repository. The thinking was a geological barrier was essential because no
man-made structures could contain the radiation from the waste for its hazardous
life. According to the Panel's report, "Since the projection of the performance
of the proposed repository by the TSPA-VAS is conditioned largely on the
effectiveness of the waste package and cladding, particular attention needs to
be directed to these components of the proposed barrier system. Important
examples of key issues include the possibilities that the buildup of corrosion
products from the outer carbon steel layer could cause early failure of the
inner corrosion-resistant layer of the waste packages, and that the credit taken
for spent fuel cladding may be optimistic, considering the potential effects of
hydrogen embrittlement." The Panel added, "Based on the TSPA-VA results, the
TSPA analysts have judged that the rate of waste package degradation is a
principal determinant of overall repository performance .... The waste package
contributes to the containment strategy in two ways:first it provides complete
isolation until such time as the package is fully penetrated and, second, it
provides subsequent retardation of the egress of radionuclides from the
penetrated package. The Panel concluded that the conceptual description and
analysis of the corrosion of waste packages are well underway and the needs are
well defined. The Panel notes, however, that the understanding and treatment of
how corrosion damage of a waste package evolves over time are not well
developed. There is a need for improvements in the conceptual description, in
the approach to the problem and in the completion of the necessary experimental
work. Once these improvements have been accomplished, the next step will be to
complete the necessary analytical analyses." In other words, a key protection
for the public and environment is not the mountain; it is the thin cladding that
surrounds the lethal waste, and the waste cask itself. Fuel cladding often has
failed inside reactors and in fuel pools in a matter of months and years;
relying on cladding-particularly after 2,000 miles or so of transport, as a
defense against radiation release is an act of desperation; not protection. This
leaves the casks themselves as the most important barrier. While these casks
undoubtedly will be strong, there will be thousands of them--perhaps tens of
thousands by the time the site is full. Further, these casks are to provide an
effective barrier for, literally, tens to hundreds of thousands of years. This
in itself, would be a remarkable time span for a man-made endeavor of any kind
and material. It also would require a level of 100% quality control, or absolute
perfection in design, materials, and manufacturing--a level unobtainable with
this quantity of product.
The Viability Assessment assumes only one failure
of a waste package in the first 1,000 years, but provides no basis for this
assumption. This certainly would be a remarkably (and unlikely) low failure rate
for materials that must sit in a mountain and be exposed to heat and constant
radioactivity. If the primary containment to protect the public and the planet
from high-level nuclear waste is to be fuel cladding and casks, then the waste
can be placed anywhere:from midtown Manhattan to downtown Juneau. The last place
one would want it to be placed, however, would be a site like Yucca
Mountain, with all of its blatant faults (both literally and
figuratively). It is time to stop wasting money and other resources on
Yucca Mountain, and to begin the search for new alternatives.
III. FUNDING FOR NUCLEAR WASTE ACTIVITIES
The funding mechanism proposed
in S. 608 (and in its companion bill, HR 45) is convoluted, unnecessarily
complex, and does not adequately alleviate the projected shortfall in the
Nuclear Waste Fund. Indeed, the legislation, by establishing an "interim"
storage site paid for from the Nuclear Waste Fund, virtually ensures that U.S.
taxpayers will bear the brunt of the long-term storage burden. This is
equivalent to a new tax on average citizens, especially those who do not receive
any benefits from nuclear-powered electricity. Moreover, it is our belief that
the shortfall in the Fund could grow so large as to imperil essential reforms in
basic social welfare programs such as Medicare. Consider that recent studies,
including one by the State of Nevada that is based on very reasonable
assumptions, conclude that a program such as that envisioned by S. 104 will cost
some $54 Billion, and that the Nuclear Waste Fund--if no more reactors close
before their licensed period, a highly unlikely proposition--is expected to
gross less than $28 Billion. By capping--and later reducing--utility fees to the
Waste Fund, S. 608 could result in an even larger deficit. Who will make up this
nearly 100% shortfall? And which elected officials will pay for this unmitigated
failure at the voting booth?
IV.
IV.
COURT DECISIONS
Much
has been made of recent court decisions which some have interpreted as mandating
that the DOE must take possession of nuclear waste immediately. That is a
misreading of these decisions. No court has ruled that DOE must literally take
possession of atomic waste for which it has no means of storage. The issue is
one of liability for potential economic damages, not possession of the waste,
and an interpretation that a facility, interim or otherwise, must be built
quickly is simply wrongheaded. The court decisions of relevance are three in the
U.S. Court of Claims, which ruled that the DOE is liable--for closed reactors,
since these are the only reactors for which the Court has heard claims--for lack
of waste storage. No monetary damages have yet been assessed by this Court.
There is little reason to believe that this Court will rule similarly for
operating reactors which are still generating radioactive waste, and therefore
still require onsite storage of radioactive waste for at least five years under
the best of circumstances. There is no nuclear-waste crisis, there is no need to
rush to judgement on nuclear waste issues. And the "crisis" has dwindled even
over the past two years. As just one example, consider the Millstone nuclear
complex. In 1997, I argued in my testimony that Millstone-1 would run out of
onsite storage space in 2011, contrary to the 2004 date Northeast Utilities (NU)
had stated to the DOE. Millstone-2 also was projected by NU to be out of space
by 2004; I argued 2005. And Millstone-3 was projected to fill by 2003; I said
2004. Since then, Millstone-1 has closed permanently. Millstone-3 finally got
back on line in the summer of 1998, leaving its fuel pool available until at
least 2006, although it could also take advantage of Millstone-l's untilled fuel
pool. Millstone-2 is still not operational, extending its date until at least
2007. The few utilities with reactors that actually may be running out of space
in their fuel pools can pay to build their own dry casks, or they can close
their reactors and save themselves--and their ratepayers--the expense and burden
of additional atomic waste storage. The special privileges given the nuclear
industry for its lethal by-products are unwarranted. Should the taxpayers
suddenly be required to take Dupont or Monsanto's chemically hazardous waste if
those companies no longer feel like taking responsibility for their own garbage?
V. THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE In the two years since I last spoke to you, I
have visited Germany twice to witness radioactive waste transports there. In the
first instance, high-level waste was moving from a southern nuclear power plant
to an "interim" storage site at Gorleben. In the second instance, high-level
waste was going from various points in the south of Germany to an "interim"
storage site at Ahaus. I can say, without hesitation, that you do not want to
repeat the German experience in the U.S. As a high school student in the
Washington area in the late 1960s, I attended the large anti-war demonstrations
here. But I have never seen a police presence such as that presented in Germany.
It quite literally required establishment of a police state and a virtual war
zone to allow the waste shipments to reach their destinations. It is not
surprising, given what I saw, that these shipments, and the police presence,
played a major role in the election of Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic
government last year, and subsequent alliance with the Green Party. Senator Reid
has spoken at some length in floor debate about these transports; I would be
happy to provide you with additional information about them. Obviously, these
were not the only issues that led to Schroeder's election, but they were among
the initiating issues. Schroeder's base is in northern Germany--site of the
"interim" dumps. His constituents were those most affected by the transports,
and they were not about to tolerate any more shipments. They were farmers
protecting their fields and townspeople protecting their villages. Among the
first actions of Schroeder's new government was an end to work on the proposed
Gorleben high-level waste site, and an end to transports to such "interim"
sites. While the new German government has been all over the map on other
nuclear-related issues, such as when to phase out nuclear power, its commitment
to the above principles has never been in doubt.
Moreover, opposition to
such transports has now spread to France, to Bulgaria, to Moldova and Ukraine,
and to Russia. It is simply naive to believe that similar activities will not
take place in the U.S. Indeed, wherever I travel--in the U.S. and
abroad--radioactive waste transport and ways of expressing opposition to it are
the number one topic of conversation and activist trainings. There is a growing
ethic, in this country and abroad, that states it is simply immoral to transport
atomic waste to a non-reactor community. This ethic is especially prevalent in
reactor communities--the exact places one might expect to see the greatest
support for moving the waste. And this ethic is particularly sensitive to
environmental justice issues:to the disproportionate impact of transport through
rural, and urban minority, neighborhoods and to the impact of waste storage on
Native American land. I honestly believe that, if you are ever successful in
initiating radioactive waste transport in the U.S., you will be required to fill
jails from Maine to Nevada with non-violent, but determined protestors.
VI.
THE FUTURE OF THE WASTE ISSUE
In 1992, NIRS believed, as we believe now,
that our nation's radioactive waste policy is ineffectual and untenable. In
November of that year, we suggested formation of an Independent Blue Ribbon
Commission on Nuclear Waste to completely re-evaluate our radioactive waste
polices and to come up with some new possible solutions. That idea quickly won
the support of some 150 environmental groups, as well as some 50 member of
Congress, and numerous other official bodies. However, it did not win the
support of the U.S. Congress. Apparently, many members of Congress viewed this
recommendation as some sort of "delaying tactic." I daresay that if the U.S.
Congress had adopted our suggestion, we would not now be considering a "Mobile
Chernobyl" bill for the third Congress in a row. Rather than a simple "delaying
tactic," such a Commission already would have reported back, and by now we would
be seeking ways to implement its findings. Clearly, as a "delaying tactic," the
independent commission idea was less effective than the actual "interim" storage
legislation favored by the nuclear utilities. We acknowledge that since our
Independent Commission proposal, the environmental movement has not made any
specific recommendations about either "interim" or long-term atomic waste
storage. We have been content, and successful, at merely saying NO to "interim"
storage and Mobile Chernobyl. On the other hand, the nuclear industry has
offered nothing new either. We are at an impasse. Legislation does not get
enacted and effective policy does not get promulgated when neither side offers
new alternatives, new ways to break the deadlock.
That is beginning to
change. Secretary Richardson already has suggested one new proposal. We do not
agree with it, but at least it's new. Various environmental groups are now
preparing new ideas and approaches to begin addressing the fundamental problems
of current radioactive waste policy. I urge you not to take action on S. 608
until you hear some of the alternatives. The first set of recommendations, I am
told, will be released in the next few weeks; you can expect more new policy
suggestions over the next several months. We are all Americans here, we all want
what is best for our nation. We have different starting points of looking at
issues, I hope we can reach some common ground toward achieving acceptable
answers. We are doing the best we can to address your concerns about radioactive
waste issues; we hope you realize that, and that you recognize our very
legitimate concerns about S. 608 and its ramifications. The debate over S. 608
is not about the future of the nuclear power industry. Economics and competing
generating sources, utility restructuring, the quality of reactor operation--all
of these will determine the industry's future, not interim storage or
Yucca Mountain. Indeed, as the German nuclear industry learned
the hard way, premature waste transport to unpopular "interim" storage sites may
be the fastest method of turning the public against nuclear power. Rather, NIRS
and every environmental group that has taken a position on the issue, oppose S.
608 because it is fundamentally flawed and environmentally destructive. It
continues the ill-fated Congressional conceit that because the radioactive waste
program isn't working, Congress must act to fix it. While this sounds reasonable
on the surface, in fact every time Congress inserts itself into the issue,
long-term solutions fall further behind. That's because Congress does not have
the expertise, or perhaps patience, to make scientific decisions and thus has
made purely political decisions. Congress already blundered by establishing
dates that could not be met, on either scientific or safety grounds, and by
requiting that atomic waste be moved to Nevada, regardless of whether that site
is suitable for long-term waste storage. If Congress is indeed interested in
resolving the radioactive waste issue, it will remove Yucca
Mountain from the list of possible repositories. Second, Congress will
direct the DOE to consider a wide range of alternatives. Third, Congress will
seek to minimize the extent of the radioactive waste problem by explicitly tying
access to off-site atomic waste storage facilities to cessation of waste
generation. Most importantly, Congress will begin its quest for a just,
scientificallydefensible, publicly-acceptable radioactive waste policy by
defeating S. 608 and thereby not exacerbating the problems of the past.
END
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