Video + updated fact sheets about EJ burden of nuke waste dumps, transport

Four-minute video about the environmental justice (EJ) aspects of high-level radioactive waste, including the fact that Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income communities are most often the ones targeted for dump-sites (such as so-called consolidated interim storage facilities), as well as such EJ communities also burdened by highly radioactive waste’s transportation along the nationwide routes from reactors to such dumps. The video features verbal remarks by Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation, as well as by Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, who formerly served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as an EJ advisor during the Obama administration. The video also features quotations from New Mexico resident Patricia Cardona, as well as from Laura Watchempino, who works with the Laguna-Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment. Please share the link to this video far and wide!

Beyond Nuclear’s updated/revised fact sheets opposing Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities:

(1.) 90,000 Tons of Nuclear Waste are Currently Stored at Nuclear Power Plants Throughout the United States––Why is this Dangerous?

(2.) Maximizing Health and Environmental Protection: Permanent Geologic Disposal of Nuclear Waste Far Outweighs Surface Storage

(3.) Consolidated “Interim” Storage of Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste: A Dangerous Dead-End Detour Away from a Repository

(4.) The Challenge of Effectively Isolating High-Level Radioactive Nuclear Waste

(5.) How Can the U.S. Achieve Success on the Road to a Repository? Consent-Based Siting

(6.) Amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the Atomic Energy Act to Ensure Success

(7.) Impediments to Success: The ISP and Holtec “Interim” Storage Facility Licenses

(8.) Opposition to “Interim” Storage

The intended audience for the fact sheets are Members of Congress and their staff, as well as other officials at all levels of government — federal, state, county, local, and Indigenous. (Please feel free to use the fact sheets as hand outs in your meetings with officials, whether face-to-face and hard copy, or Zooms and links to PDFs!) But the fact sheets can also serve as important educational tools for citizens and activists concerned about highly radioactive waste, the general public, as well as the news media.

The author of the fact sheets is Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps. Legal support for the fact sheets was provided by Diane Curran of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, L.L.P.

Beyond Nuclear would also like to thank numerous respected colleagues who provided peer review on these fact sheets. However, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear remains responsible for any errors of commission or omission.