And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In a message dated 4/16/99 2:54:16 PM Mountain Daylight Time, the following
article was sent by the author. Forwarded by Paula Elofson-Gardine,
Environmental Information Network.
A little preamble note: On June 8, 1989, while the FBI was conducting an
unprecedented raid on Rocky Flats, we were all at a WIPP transportation EIS
hearing...and while this is not discussed much in the news, one of our
primary concerns about transporting these nuclear wastes through the heart of
Denver, is the potential for those sitting in traffic around these transports
to be "dosed" with unseen and unwanted radiation (such as stray neutrons)
from the casks. This is in addition to possible accidents that historically
DOE has been loathe to warn the public about when they've happened. They
"party line" is that they've trained "x" amount of first responders, which is
great, but the public notification has been (and will probably continue to
be) lacking. eg: Think about the alleged one (1) metric ton of plutonium
being burned up in the 1969 RF fire (according to the Church Lawsuit of 1978)
with a visible plume from the Denver-Boulder Turnpike, and the public was
never notified to even close their windows. According to DOE, there were no
radiation releases! Sure. We trust them, they've given us plenty of reasons
to do so. - Paula E-G/EIN
====================================================
Nuclear waste to roll next week
First shipment from Idaho will move down Denver's I-25
By TERJE LANGELAND
Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Watch out -- a truck carrying more than 2,300 gallons of radioactive waste is
scheduled to come rolling down Interstate Highway 25 next week, straight
through the heart of Denver.
The Department of Energy has announced that a week from Saturday, it will
send the first shipment of waste from the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, an underground
nuclear-waste dump near Carlsbad, N.M.
The waste will consist of graphite molds used in the production of plutonium
"pits" -- triggers for nuclear warheads -- which originated from Rocky Flats
but have been stored in Idaho since the 1970s and '80s. The DOE's
announcement immediately drew protests from WIPP opponents, who said the
shipment would violate federal hazardous-waste laws and a notification
promise made by the DOE.
Don Hancock, a leading WIPP critic in Albuquerque, N.M., said the DOE had
promised the Western Governors Association an eight-week advance notice of
any nuclear waste shipments. However, the affected states, including
Colorado, were only notified in the past week. "Now they've decided eight
weeks means two weeks," Hancock said. "(It's) one of the many promises the
DOE has broken."
Moreover, the DOE has gotten into a dispute with the state of New Mexico
Environment Department after turning down a request from the state agency to
provide detailed information about the nature of the waste. Under federal
law, the state of New Mexico has the authority to regulate shipments of
so-called "mixed" transuranic waste, which consists of both radioactive and
other hazardous materials.
The DOE says the Idaho waste is non-mixed or "pure" radioactive waste, but
Nathan Wade, a spokesman for the New Mexico Environment Department, said the
DOE needs to hand over the documents that prove it. "There is reason to
believe it may be mixed," Wade said of the waste. "We want proof that it is
not." The waste was classified as mixed when it left Rocky Flats, Wade said.
The DOE has since reclassified it as non-mixed but won't share the
information upon which it based that decision, he said. In a letter Monday,
the DOE stated it was "unaware of any requirement or precedent" to submit the
information.
On Thursday a DOE official, who requested not to be named, said the state of
New Mexico's request was "under consideration" following a conference
call with state officials earlier in the day. The official also said the
parties "understand each other better" after the conference call, but Wade
disagreed. "There was no movement," Wade said. "We are still seeking the
data." Wade said his department would consider taking legal action to block
the Idaho shipment if the DOE didn't submit the information.
Meanwhile, Brad Bugger of the DOE's Idaho office said that even if the waste
were mixed, a judge has ruled that WIPP has "interim status," which means
it can receive mixed waste while the state permit is pending. "Technically,
the department could ship mixed waste if it wanted to, so it's really a moot
point," Bugger said.
"That's entirely wrong," Wade countered, saying the waste is still subject to
state regulations.
Bugger said the eight-week notification to which Hancock referred had been
intended as a "courtesy" only, and said legal requirements only call for a
two-week notice.
The DOE didn't have time for an eight-week notice, he said, "because we have
an April 30 deadline here." Bugger was referring to a legal settlement from
1995 in which the DOE agreed to ship transuranic waste from Idaho by the end
of April 1999.
According to Hancock, the DOE will probably make just one shipment out of
Idaho this year to meet the deadline. After that, the department may shift
its focus to Colorado, where there is great political pressure to get waste
moved out of Rocky Flats, he said. "It's more important, politically, for the
DOE to show that they're shipping out of Colorado," Hancock said.
The Colorado Legislature recently passed a resolution urging the DOE to
"immediately" start moving waste from Rocky Flats to WIPP.
Bugger confirmed that next week's shipment was the only one currently planned
from Idaho, although he added, "there could be more later."
Shipments from Rocky Flats would almost certainly face legal challenges from
WIPP critics, who contend that Rocky Flats waste also hasn't been proven to
be non-mixed. After 20 years of legal and regulatory hurdles that had
prevented WIPP from opening, the facility recently received its first two
shipments from Los Alamos National Laboratories, N.M. A federal judge last
month lifted a 1991 court injunction against the opening of the facility --
the world's first of its kind, excavated in salt beds 2,150 feet beneath the
desert.
The shipments from Los Alamos also consisted of non-mixed transuranic waste,
according to the DOE. The DOE reportedly plans to complete a total of 17
shipments from Los Alamos before starting to ship 9,000 truckloads from Idaho
and 2,500 truckloads from Rocky Flats.
Anti-WIPP activists in Boulder said they didn't know yet whether they would
take action against next week's shipment. "There are people talking about it,
but there are no plans in place yet," said LeRoy Moore of the Rocky Mountain
Peace and Justice Center. The peace center has been offering "nonviolence
training" to activists in preparation of possible confrontations with
authorities when WIPP waste begins rolling from Rocky Flats.
Critics of WIPP contend the facility will leak and argue that transuranic
waste should be stored where it is, in a safe and retrievable form, until
a better solution is found for disposing of it. They say transportation
of the waste places millions of people along the highways in danger due to
potential accidents. Some 28,000 truckloads are scheduled to come through
Colorado on I-25 over the next 35 years, most of them from Idaho and the
state of Washington.>>
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
