cmeeplogo.gif (4190 bytes)

Action Alert! President Clinton: Stop the transportation of nuclear waste to Utah!

Background

Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of 8 commercial nuclear utilities, is preparing to transport 40,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste ("spent fuel") across the country to an interim storage facility in Utah.

Spent fuel (high-level nuclear waste) is a waste product from nuclear power plants. It is both thermally and radioactively hot and remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no known way to dispose of nuclear waste; it can only be stored. Currently, most spent fuel is stored on site, near the reactors where it was generated. But the PFS utilities are running out of space on site to store their radioactive garbage, so now they want to dump it in Utah!

The PFS facility would be located on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, approximately 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. The facility would consist of above-ground, dry-cask storage for up to 4,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel. PFS hopes to begin shipping radioactive waste to Skull Valley as soon as 2003.

The PFS facility is being proposed to temporarily store nuclear waste for a period of 20-40 years. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement presumes that the waste will then be transported (again!) to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain Nevada. But although Yucca Mountain is now being studied as a potential nuclear waste repository, the decision on whether to open a permanent facility is still pending!

Transporting high-level radioactive waste is inherently dangerous because it exposes people along transportation routes to the risk of radiation release in areas where emergency responders may not be equipped for a nuclear accident. The PFS interim storage facility would unnecessarily increase this risk by requiring waste to be transported more than once over long distances.

Because the PFS proposal is a private industry initiative, it does not require the consent of Congress. But, private industry should not be permitted to transfer liability for its dangerous waste to residents of Utah and people living along potential transportation routes!

Take Action!

President Clinton has on numerous occasions issued statements opposing the transportation of spent nuclear fuel to an interim storage facility. In April 2000, President Clinton vetoed Senate Bill 1287 which, among other things, would have opened an interim storage facility in Nevada. Ask Clinton to issue an Executive Order to block nuclear waste transportation to the PFS interim storage facility in Utah!

Write: Sample letter with address follows
Call: (202) 456-1414
Fax: (202) 456-2461
E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov

Also contact:

Linda Lance, White House Center for Environmental Quality
722 Jackson Place NW, Washington, D.C. 20503
phone: (202) 395-5750; fax: (202) 456-6546

Scott Beale & Matt Bennett, White House Department of Intergovernmental Affairs
Old Executive Office Building, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20502
phone: (202) 456-6220; fax: (202) 456-7060

. . . and your Representatives in Congress!

 

For more information, contact Public Citizen at (202) 454-5130; e-mail: lisa_gue@citizen.org. View our website at www.citizen.org/cmep

SAMPLE LETTER

President Clinton
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500 

Dear President Clinton,

I am concerned with the proposal of Private Fuel Storage (PFS) to transport high-level nuclear waste to an interim storage facility in Utah. Transporting high-level nuclear waste is inherently dangerous because it exposes people along transportation routes to the risk of radiation release in areas where emergency responders may not be equipped for a nuclear accident. The PFS interim storage facility would unnecessarily increase this risk by requiring waste to be transported more than once over long distances.

In addition, the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the PFS facility explicitly assumes that nuclear waste stored in Utah would eventually be moved to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This assumption, at a time when no final decision has been made about the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, puts undue pressure on and undermines the integrity of the Yucca Mountain site characterization and licensing processes.

It is clearly unacceptable to allow PFS to proceed with this flawed proposal, which places the economic interests of the nuclear industry above the safety of citizens along potential transportation routes and the integrity of democratic process in setting national energy policy.

President Clinton, I appreciate your strong statements in opposition to previous proposals to transport high-level radioactive waste unnecessarily to an interim storage facility. I applaud your veto last spring of Senate Bill 1287, which would have allowed for temporary "back-up" storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Now, I urgently request that you issue an Executive Order to prohibit the transport of high-level nuclear waste to a PFS interim storage facility in Utah.

Sincerely,

Your name

 

cc. Ms. Linda Lance, White House Center for Environmental Quality
Mr. Scott Beale, White House Department of Intergovernmental Affairs
Mr. Matt Bennett, White House Department of Intergovernmental Affairs