nuclear-news

South Carolina stuck with a load of nuclear radioactive trash

  they should stop making the  stuff

SC Left Holding The Nuclear Waste Eric Connor, The Greenville News: March 3, 2014 A radioactive leak that has indefinitely shut down a New Mexico nuclear waste dump has left South Carolina holding a stockpile of weapons waste that had been scheduled to be shipped westward for disposa49 a.m. ESTl by the end of next year.

The plans to ship waste stored at the Savannah River Site are in limbo – and the government isn’t prepared yet to talk about what will happen next if the New Mexico underground dump no longer is an option. The U.S. Department of Energy said Friday it is “evaluating its options” after a mysterious leak two weeks ago at New Mexico’s federal Waste Is olation Pilot Plant exposed workers to radiation and shut down operations.

The department said more information will be presented next week.

Nuclear watchdogs say the government should be prompt in sharing information on the future of SRS waste slated for transport and should heed the unexpected leak as evidence not to allow further storage of nuclear spent fuel at SRS.

“Nuclear waste dumps leak — and they leak sooner than the experts predict,” said Tom Clements, Columbia-based nuclear adviser to the Sierra Club’s chapter in South Carolina. “Obviously this is going to have an impact on operations at Savannah River Site, and they should talk about it.”………

So far, about 12,000 cubic meters from SRS have disposed in the WIPP facility since 2001, according to a DOE report last May. About 700 cubic meters remain to be disposed, the report said.

The report said that the last transuranic waste shipment would occur by the end of 2015 if enough funds were allocated.

The DOE has raised the possibility, also, that New Mexico facility could be a permanent home for higher-level liquid waste from generating sites that have stockpiled since Cold War-era weapons production ceased years ago.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside of Carlsbad, N.M., accepted its first shipment of waste in 1999 after decades of planning. The plant hosts waste half a mile beneath the surface in salt beds formed by an ancient sea……..http://www.wltx.com/story/news/2014/03/03/nm-nuclear-waste-dump-leak-leaves-sc-holding-nuclear-waste/5967663/

March 4, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized