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Your presence is needed! A newly announced hearing will be held in Austin, December 9th – The time is yet to be determined.
Building E, Room 201
12100 Park 35 Circle
Austin, TX 78753
Map

• Read the proposed radioactive import rule here.
• Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission Action Letter

Texas is at risk of becoming the nation’s radioactive dumping ground. Governor Perry knew that Texans don’t want to be dumped on, and kept this issue out of the spotlight during election season. Now that the elections are over and the winter holiday season is underway, the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission is rushing to approve rules that would open Andrews County in West Texas up to radioactive waste from around the country.

Loopholes abound when it comes to laws regarding radioactive waste. While excluding radioactive waste from international sources, the proposed rule doesn’t require processors to document the origin of waste that they handle. International radioactive waste could get re-labeled as Tennessee waste if it was processed there. Texas could become the international radioactive waste dumping ground as well.

None of this makes sense. The Andrews County dumpsite is geologically inadequate. Water is too close beneath the bottom of trenches where radioactive waste would be buried. All the TCEQ staff members unanimously recommended denying the license because of the high risk of radioactive contamination of water. Three TCEQ staff members have resigned over the licensing of the site.

Texas would bear increased financial and environmental risks. The legislature has not had time to weigh in on whether waste from around the country should be allowed in, or whether it should be limited to the Compact states of Texas and Vermont, as originally portrayed. They have not yet had a chance to address Texas’ financial liability or emergency preparedness, including the increased risks from highway or train accidents, or contamination at the site.

Who would benefit from an expanded radioactive waste dump? Harold Simmons, a Dallas billionaire and owner of Waste Control Specialists (WCS), would reap profits. Nuclear reactors owners would also benefit by having lower disposal rates, through a volume discount approach. The Andrews County Compact dump site is mainly for disposal of the four existing Texas reactors and the existing Vermont Yankee reactor, which may be decommissioned soon due to public outcry over tritium leaks and contamination.

Very hot radioactive weapons waste from Fernald, Ohio is already buried at an adjacent dump at the WCS site, and PCB’s and other toxic and hazardous materials are at another portion of the site. It’s time to protect Texas and halt the nuclear madness. Take action now!

Call your Texas Representative and Senator today and urge that the Compact Commission vote on the radioactive waste import rule be halted until the Legislature has had time to review financial and environmental risks, and hearings have been held in communities that would be impacted by increased radioactive waste transport shipments. To find out who represents you, go to www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.

Nov. 23, 2010

By BETSY BLANEY
© 2010 The Associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas — A state advisory commission is recommending that Texas lawmakers clarify the funding mechanism for a commission that oversees the disposal of low-level radioactive waste disposal in Texas.

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission and its eight members — two from Vermont and six from Texas — are currently reimbursed for expenses through a contract with Texas’ environmental regulatory agency. The Sunset Advisory Commission said in a report released last week that Texas legislators need to instead establish a dedicated fund so the low-level compact panel has money to operate.

The compact commission is funded by its member states. Commission chairman Michael Ford said Tuesday that Vermont’s statute describes how money will flow to the entity.

"That facet of the (Texas) law is mute on the entire mechanism of funding," Ford said. "Right now the intent of the Legislature is not described on how that mechanism would occur, so we’re at a bit of a puzzle. The whole mechanism needs a lot of work."

In the early 1980s, the federal government started urging states to build low-level nuclear waste landfills, either on their own or in cooperation with other states in compact systems. Vermont, Texas and Maine formed a compact in 1993. Maine dropped out of the deal several years ago.

Earlier this month, the compact commission voted to publish rules that could be used to consider low-level waste from 36 other states that would be buried at a privately run facility in West Texas near the New Mexico border. There will be a 3-day comment period once the rule is published in the Texas Register, which should happen before the end of the month.

In the report released last week, the Sunset Advisory Commission recommended that revenue allocated by a yet-to-be-established waste disposal fee be sent to a newly created General Revenue Dedicated Account. The account would get only the portion of the fee allotted to cover the costs of the compact commission operations from the state’s licensed disposal facility, Waste Control Specialists.

Lawmakers could then appropriate funds from the account to the compact commission through the environmental agency’, the report states.

"Clearly the issue of the mechanism of funding the compact commission has to be clarified by the legislature," said Chuck McDonald, spokesman for Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists. "No one would dispute that."

The advisory commission’s report says the compact commission could have another problem if legislators don’t act in the upcoming session, the report states. If Waste Control Specialists were to give waste disposal fees directly to the commission, the panel potentially making decisions on importations of radioactive materials would hold its own purse strings, the report states.

"This situation puts the Compact Commission in the conflicting position of impacting total disposal volume of commercial low-level radioactive waste that directly affects its revenue source .," the report states.

If left as is, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would still reimburse the compact commission, a move the reports says "inappropriately places" the TCEQ in the position of deciding what expenditures are suitable.

One commissioner isn’t so sure the Legislature, which is facing a budget shortfall that may reach $24 billion, will make the changes the advisory commission suggested.

"I can’t predict what the Legislature is going to do," Bob Wilson said. "I don’t know how this is going to work out. My judgment tells me that we are not going to have sufficient funding in the next two years to do what we need to do."

Design plans for construction of the compact’s disposal site have not yet been approved by environmental regulators.

Once the disposal facility accepts the low-level waste — worker clothing, glass, metal and other materials currently stored at nuclear power plants, hospitals, universities and research labs — Texas owns it and is liable for any possible future contamination after the facility closes.

Environmentalists are largely worried about toxins from the Texas site leaking into groundwater beneath the scrub brush land that’s brought oil prosperity to arid West Texas for nearly a century.

Waste Control Specialists contends it’ll be safe, and many local residents applaud any expansion as a way to bring more jobs and prosperity to the West Texas scrubland.

November 22, 2010

Peter Wynn Thompson
The New York Times

The north reactor building at the retired Zion Nuclear Power Station in Zion, Ill.

ZION, Ill. — Twelve years ago, Commonwealth Edison found itself in a bind.

The twin-unit nuclear reactor known as Zion Station has been in limbo for more than a decade, and Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon, paid about $10 million a year to baby-sit the defunct reactor.

The Zion Station, its twin-unit nuclear reactor here, was no longer profitable. But the company could not afford to tear it down: the cost of dismantling the vast steel and concrete building, with multiple areas of radioactive contamination, would exceed $1 billion, double what it had cost to build the reactors in the 1970s. Nor could Commonwealth Edison walk away from the plant, because of the contamination.

The result was that Zion Station sat in limbo for more than a decade, and Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon, paid about $10 million a year to baby-sit the defunct reactor.

Now, though, the company is trying out a radical new approach to decommissioning the plant that promises to make the process faster, simpler and 25 percent less expensive — instead of hiring a contractor, it has turned the job and the reactors over to a nuclear demolition company that owns a nuclear dump site. The cost will be covered by the $900 million that Exelon accumulated in a decommissioning fund.

If the approach is successful, it could have implications for 10 other nuclear plants around the country that are waiting to be decommissioned, and for the 104 reactors that are still in operation but will eventually be torn down. It will also save money for electricity customers, who often end up paying for the cleanup of nuclear plants through their utility bills.

The decommissioning operation at Zion, which began on Sept. 1, will skip one of the slowest, dirtiest and most costly parts of tearing down a nuclear plant: separating radioactive materials, which must go to a licensed dump, from nonradioactive materials, which can go to an ordinary industrial landfill.

The new idea is not to bother sorting the two. Instead, anything that could include radioactive contamination will be treated as radioactive waste.

Exelon could never have done this on its own, because the fee for disposing of radioactive waste was too high. But the company has given the reactor to EnergySolutions, a conglomerate that includes companies that have long done nuclear cleanups, and which also owns a nuclear dump.

"This is a first-of-a-kind arrangement," said Adam H. Levin, director of spent fuel and decommissioning at Exelon.

He added that others could do the job for less than Exelon and acknowledged, "utilities in general are not very good at tearing plants down."

Government regulations require that nuclear reactor sites be thoroughly decontaminated, so that they can be released for re-use — often a lengthy process. The plan is to return Zion’s site, in the midst of parkland on the Lake Michigan shore north of Chicago, to re-use by 2020 — 12 years earlier than expected under Exelon’s original plan, which was to begin in 2013 and finish in 2032.

Any money left over from the $900 million in the plant’s decommissioning fund goes back to electricity customers in the Chicago area.

On Sept. 1, Exelon transferred ownership, along with the license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to EnergySolutions, which is based in Salt Lake City.

The company owns a one-square-mile area of desert about 70 miles west of there, in Clive, Utah, where most of the Zion plant is supposed to be shipped. The dump in Clive already has parts of several other defunct nuclear plants — including Maine Yankee in Wiscasset, Me., and Yankee Rowe in Rowe, Mass.

In those two cases, the reactor owners tried to sort the radioactive materials from the nonradioactive, in order to dispose of ordinary concrete and steel at recycling centers or industrial landfills. It turned out to be a costly mistake, many in the industry now say.

Workers used a device like a pneumatic drill to "scabble" the concrete, knocking off the surface layer.

"It got to be very, very complicated and nasty work," said Andrew C. Kadak, a nuclear consultant who at the time was president of the company that operated Yankee Rowe. Often, he said, a survey would find that the concrete was not clean, or worse: that a tiny bit of radioactive material was mistakenly shipped to a "clean" landfill.

"It’s easier to suppose everything is radioactive," Mr. Kadak said.

Sometimes a contractor hired to decommission plants would also find radioactive material in unexpected places or at unexpectedly high levels, other experts said.

Crowds of workers would stand idle while the contractor sought the plant owner’s authorization to deviate from the procedures specified in the contract — a costly proposition at a site with 500 workers paid collectively "$30,000 to $50,000 an hour," said John A. Christian, president of the Commercial Services subsidiary of EnergySolutions.

At Rowe, managers finally gave up and shipped vast amounts of concrete, much of it clean, to the repository in Clive.

The new plan for Zion, by far the largest nuclear power plant to be decommissioned and the first twin-unit reactor to be torn down, eliminates the relationship between contractor and owner. EnergySolutions has hardly any internal cost for burial, beyond shipping.

Mark Walker, a spokesman for EnergySolutions, said that the dump could accommodate all 104 of the nation’s operating nuclear plants, "with space left over."

It could also absorb plants that are shut and awaiting decommissioning, like Indian Point 1 in Buchanan, N.Y.; Millstone 1 in Waterford, Conn.; and Three Mile Island 2, near Harrisburg, Pa., the site of the 1979 accident.

Not everyone is delighted with the idea of Exelon turning the job over to EnergySolutions.

Tom Rielly, the executive principal of Vista 360, a community group in nearby Libertyville, Ill., said that with a monopoly provider of dump space also functioning as the contractor, it would be difficult to determine what was being charged for disposal and whether electricity customers were getting a good deal.

But approval from utility regulators in Illinois was not required for the deal, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave its assent, so the work is going forward.

EnergySolutions cannot dispose of all the waste.

Clive is licensed only for the least contaminated material. And the spent nuclear fuel is in the same situation as used reactor fuel all over the country: the Energy Department is under contract to take it, but has no place to dispose of it.

Until a permanent repository is built at the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada or another location, the waste will stay at the Zion site in steel and concrete casks built to last for decades.

Frank Flammini, a control room operator, has worked at the Zion Station since before it shut down.

The room, filled with 1970s-style dials, used to have at least six people around the clock, but on a recent afternoon he sat alone in the control room with his coffee cup, next to the one modern piece of equipment, a flat-panel display showing the temperature, water level and humidity of the room housing the spent fuel.

Mr. Flammini, 54, said he was called on now and then to make sure equipment was "tagged out" so that workers could safely dismantle it. But hours go by with little to do.

The parking lot of Zion is so quiet these days that the raccoons and skunks have been joined by shy species like coyote.

Mr. Flammini said he knew his job here was not permanent.

"It’ll get very busy for about four years, and then it’ll go away entirely," he said.

Oct. 28, 2010

By Bob Cox
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Opponents of a plan to expand the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant told a panel of administrative judges Thursday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should take more time to address their objections to a study on environmental issues surrounding the proposed expansion of the facility.

The three-judge panel headed by Ann Marshall Young heard arguments from attorneys for groups opposing Dallas-based Luminant’s plan to add two new reactors at the Comanche Peak plant near Glen Rose, southwest of Fort Worth.

NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding said the panel will review the legal and technical merits of the objection raised to the draft environmental impact report prepared by the agency’s staff.

The preliminary ruling contained in the draft report found that there were no environmental issues that would preclude the NRC from issuing a license to Luminant to build and eventually operate the two new reactors.

Uselding said it could be two months or more before the judges rule on the validity of the objections raised by opponents of the project and whether to hold a full hearing on the issues.

Opponents of the Comanche Peak project argued that the NRC staff failed to address issues such as alternatives to building additional power plants and whether nuclear power is economically feasible.

Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin-based Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, said it wasn’t clear that the objections would get a thorough hearing from the NRC.

"They seem more interested in creating hoops to jump over than getting real information" in the environmental impact report, Hadden said. "This kind of research upfront is what they’re supposed to do to protect the public."

Bob Cox, 817-390-7723

October 21, 2010

Media Release

Oral Argument Oct. 28th In Granbury, Texas

Download this press release in pdf format for printing

Contacts: Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481
David Power, Public Citizen, Energy Expert 830-660-7557
Robert V. Eye, Attorney, 785-234-4040

Granbury, Texas Opponents of two proposed Comanche nuclear reactors will present their case at an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel on Oct. 28th. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. in the Hood County Justice Center, 1200 West Pearl St. in Granbury.

Attorney Bob Eye will represent SEED Coalition, Public Citizen and the Ft. Worth based True Cost of Nukes organization. Among the concerns that will be raised in the Combined License (COL) proceeding is the failure of Luminant to analyze cleaner, cheaper and safer energy alternatives in their license application, a glaring omission considering that Luminant and Shell are exploring compressed air energy storage. "Today Texas has excess energy capacity and leads the nation in wind generation. Solar costs are plummeting. Energy storage and cheap gas can be used to back up renewable solar and wind power. The proposed reactors are a hazard to our health, safety and our pocketbooks," said energy expert David Power, who submitted a report regarding DEIS contentions.

Six new contentions based on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) were filed in September. They include concerns that the DEIS analysis of the need for power is flawed, that the carbon emissions analysis is distorted, that global warming impacts are understated, that reactor cooling ability could be impacted by higher water temperatures, and that wind and solar were not adequately considered as alternatives to nuclear power.

"Radioactive waste, safety and security issues, economics and the vast consumption of water are all reasons to avoid more nuclear reactors," said Karen Hadden, Executive Director of SEED Coalition. "The water level at Lake Granbury would drop which is of great concern to many local citizens."

"Nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate electricity. The proposed Comanche Peak reactors could reach $22 billion or more, roughly equal to the budget shortfall for the entire state of Texas. This is before cost overruns from delays and construction problems and the added costs of radioactive waste disposal and decommissioning. Nuclear reactors don’t make sense financially," said Karen Hadden, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.

"Constellation Energy just withdrew their license application for a Maryland nuclear reactor due to high costs. Ruminant’s parent company, Energy Future Holdings, has been struggling financially, and shouldn’t even consider taking on extensive additional debt, which is sure to result in skyrocketing electric bills and could result in the collapse of the company," said Hadden.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) 2009 State of the Market report says "Estimated net revenues for nuclear and coal resources were also insufficient to support new entry in 2009."

The Associated Press recently reported, "Even companies that are finalists for federal loan guarantees, NRG Energy and Constellation Energy, announced recently that they have nearly stopped spending on their projects… Analysts say low natural gas prices are making the project uneconomic. NRG chief executive David Crane said he will not pursue the company’s two-reactor project in South Texas if gas prices stay low, even if his project is offered a loan guarantee."

The ASLB is the independent body within the NRC that presides over proceedings involving the licensing of civilian nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants.
The Oct. 28th oral hearing is open for public observation, but participation will be limited to the parties admitted to the proceeding – NRC staff, the public interest groups, and Luminant, the applicant.