http://www.nirs.org http://www.nrc.gov
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Dear Friend,
There’s still time to submit your comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to tell them not to license an unnecessary nuclear waste dump in West Texas that will cause thousands of shipments of deadly, cancer-causing, high-level radioactive waste to be transported on trains, trucks, and barges through major cities in your state, and across the country.
The window for public input will soon end!
Waste Control Specialists (WCS), in Andrews County, Texas, is seeking to expand its existing hazardous waste site to include high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across the country. If approved, 40,000 tons of irradiated fuel rods from nuclear reactors around the country could be transported through major cities and farmlands to be stored for 40 years or longer on a concrete pad, creating a de facto permanent disposal facility at a site that has not been designed or evaluated for permanent isolation.
This is the same WCS owned by Harold Simmons — one of Rick Perry’s, our recently confirmed Secretary of Energy, largest campaign contributors over the years. When Simmons wanted to open a nuclear waste dump, Perry jumped right in bed with the plan—his appointees at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved the dump over the unanimous technical opposition of TCEQ experts reviewing the license. Several of the TCEQ experts resigned their posts over the Governor’s disregard of their judgement that the site was not fit for radioactive waste. The TCEQ experts’ concern was about the inability to protect the drinking water from radioactive contamination. They found that groundwater was only 14 feet below the surface of parts of the site. This is of special concern since one of the largest underground freshwater aquifers in North America, the Ogallala Aquifer, the source of drinking water for six states and vast irrigation to US agriculture, is located in the area of the WCS site.
We need your comments to oppose the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) Consolidated “Interim” Storage waste dump site in West Texas now!
The NRC must conduct safety and environmental reviews before it decides whether to approve the dump application. Hundreds of Texas and New Mexico residents turned out last week to tell the NRC they don’t want a radioactive dump and nuclear waste shipments in their communities—now we all need to make our voices heard.
Public comments will be accepted through March 13th. Now is the time to make our voices heard loud and clear: No Consolidated “Interim” Storage Waste Dumps!
After decades of trying to force-feed the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump down the throats of Nevadans and the Western Shoshone Nation, Perry and other nuclear proponents now want to endanger us all by transporting high-level waste across our country to targeted communities in West Texas.
The NRC has given no consideration to the rights of future generations who will inevitably be affected, and the communities today who will be affected most! The NRC and the nuclear industry are eager to volunteer communities to take the waste absolving the industry of responsibility for managing the waste it creates before there is a proven solution for its long-term isolation. However, those who live near the site do not consent.
Submit your comments now!
And thanks for all you do!
Tim Judson
Executive Director
Contact Us:
Nuclear Information
and Resource Service
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Takoma Park, MD 20912
(301) 270-6477
