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New York and Vermont regulators demand review of nuclear waste spent fuel pools

nuclear-cooling-pondVermont, New York regulators urge review of storage of spent nuclear fuel, VT Digger, by Andrew Stein | January 3, 2013 Leading Vermont and New York regulators on Tuesday called on the Nuclear Regulator Commission to conduct a comprehensive environmental review of spent nuclear fuel storage.
Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell, the Vermont Department of Public Service and the New York Attorney General’s office issued a formal letter to the federal commission on Tuesday regarding the “scope of consideration of environmental impacts of temporary spent fuel after cessation of reactor operation.” The states’ plea comes roughly eight months after the U.S. Appellate Court struck down the commission’s so-called “waste confidence rule,” which authorized the storage of spent fuel at a reactor. The court called for more extensive environmental assessments of this practice, and in August 2012, the NRC suspended all licensing decisions for nuclear power plants until it can address concerns regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste.

“The NRC owes a legal obligation to the public to engage in a full and thorough review of the environmental impacts of storing spent nuclear fuel at reactors that were never designed to be long-term storage facilities,” Sorrell said in a public statement.

The letter from Vermont and New York politicians says it is time to begin exploring new ways to store high-level nuclear waste other than spent fuel pools at reactor sites across the country.

“After more than three decades of failing to address the very real and widespread concern with the continued production of nuclear wastes without a permanent, safe, and secure nuclear waste repository NRC now has the opportunity, albeit mandated by a Federal Court, to apply its considerable expertise to address these concerns,” the letter says…… http://vtdigger.org/2013/01/03/vermont-new-york-regulators-urge-review-of-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage/

January 4, 2013 - Posted by | 2 WORLD, wastes

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