nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

What about Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste? Or dealing with it?

Famette/Rice: And the nuclear waste?    12 Aug 20, 

What about Vermont Yankee’s nuclear waste? Or dealing with it?

High-Level Nuclear Waste (HLNW) is a byproduct of nuclear power plants and is extremely dangerous for thousands of years. The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, in Vernon, has been shut down since 2014 and the HLNW it produced over the years of operation has been transferred into stainless steel and concrete dry casks stored onsite. Currently, our federal government has not come up with a permanent site to store HLNW safely over time.

NorthStar, the corporation which now owns Vermont Yankee, wants to transport that waste to a Centralized “Interim” Storage (CIS) site that it owns in Texas. To transport this waste is a dangerous proposition since an accident would likely result in great damage to the environment and the life forms in the surrounding area. We should only move the material once to a permanent repository. Also, if Vermont Yankee’s HLNW is allowed to be transported across the country on our highways, railways and waterways to a temporary open-air storage site, such a precedent would likely result in thousands of shipments across the country as other nuclear plants are shut down during the coming four decades.

Communities in the Southwest are speaking out in opposition to accepting our toxic waste. As members of the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance (VYDA), we support their concerns and are against the transportation and interim storage of Vermont Yankee’s waste at a CIS. We feel it is safer to keep our waste within our state in monitored, hardened, onsite storage in stainless steel and concrete dry casks while a scientifically-based permanent storage site is located.

For the above reasons, join us in contacting U.S. Rep. Peter Welch and urge him to vote against any bill that would authorize Centralized Interim Storage of High-Level Nuclear waste? https://www.timesargus.com/opinion/commentary/famette-rice-and-the-nuclear-waste/article_436e1a1b-deb3-5b6a-87a9-228cfb16afbc.html

Audrey Famette lives in Montpelier. Nancy Rice lives in Randolph Center.

August 13, 2020 - Posted by | election USA 2020, USA, wastes

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

« Previous | Next »