Testimony transcript of Rep. Shelley Berkley to the Subcommittee on Energy and Power Hearing on H.R. 45 Legislation to Amend Nuclear Waste Policy, February 10, 1999 (4 pages)

February 10, 1999 REP. SHELLEY BERKLEY TESTIMONY Subcommittee on Energy and Power Hearing on H.R. 45, Legislation to Amend Nuclear Waste Policy Mr Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address the Subcommitee this morning. I come before you today to give voice to the well-founded fears and concerns of the citizens of the Las Vegas Valley? my home District? and the citizens of the entire state of Nevada. Over one million and a half millions Nevadans would live within an hour drive or so from the so-called temporary hi-level nuclear dump proposed by H.R. 45. This bill would dump over 70,000 tons of an incredibly lethal substance at one location... in southern Nevada. Those Nevadans?mothers, like me...fathers, sons, daughters, and grandparents deserve the same health and safety protections as every American. HR 45 would deny equal protection under the law to the citizens of Nevada and future generations. But I will also discuss how this bill places Americans in all parts of the country at risk. When you live in a state that has been singled out as the target for a nuclear payload, you give close attention to the issue. Nevadans know just how toxic, how dangerous, how menacing high level nuclear waste really is. A person standing next to an unshielded spent nuclear fuel assembly would get a fatal dose of radiation in just three minutes. Under H.R. 45,the concentrated level of deadly radiation at one place?in my home state-staggers the imagination. H.R. 45 would force virtually all of the nation's high-level waste on the people of one state...a state where there is not even one nuclear reactor. For nearly two decades the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy have tried to convince Nevadans that high level nuclear waste transportation and storage is safe. Now hold on a minute. What's wrong with that picture? If the canisters of nuclear waste are so safe....WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SHIPPED FROM ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES AND DUMPED IN NEVADA? That question has haunted Nevadans for years. And our concerns have again intensified with the introduction of H.R. 45. This bill would unleash high level nuclear waste on to the nation's highways and rail lines. It is this issue~the transportion of high level nuclear waste-that binds Nevadans with all Americans as potential victims of HR 45. Americans from all parts of the country who would be exposed to unacceptable and unnecessary risk....because they live near the highways and railroads where the nuke trucks and trains would roll. This sounds a national alarm. The deadly cargo will intrude on 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns. 50 million Americans live within just a half mile of the shipping routes. The waste will rumble through through Birmingham, Alabama and Laramie, Wyoming. Portland, Maine and the suburbs of Los Angeles. Miami, Florida and Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. In short, nuclear waste will be on the move all over the country..all the time...for 30 years. The Dept. Of Transportation counted more than 99,000 incidents in which hazardous materials were released from trucks and trains, from 1987 to 1996...causing 356 major injuries and 114 deaths. The Dept of Energy has described a plausible crash scenario involving high impact and fire that would contaminate an area of 42 square miles with radioactive debris. It is truly horrifying to picture this happening in a populated area. We've been repeatedly told that shipping nuclear waste across the country and stashing it at a dumpsite is safe. But let's take a brief look at the history of how the federal government has handled nuclear projects. The lands around nuclear installations at Hanford, Washington...Rocky Flats, Colorado...Oakridge, Tennessee... Fernald, Ohio are contaminated. The GAO concluded that 124 out of 127 nuclear facilities have been mismanaged by the DOE. Nevadans don't buy into the "don't worry, be happy" attitude toward radiation. And for good reason. I grew up in Las Vegas and I know that Nevadans were proud to volunteer for the patriotic chore of playing host to above and below ground nuclear weapons testing. But the federal government never levelled with us about the risks. The government produced films advising if people just stayed indoors as clouds of fallout drifted through communities, everyone would be safe. And for good measure, the government suggested . that a quick car wash would eliminate any pesky radioactive contamination. It seems laughable... if it weren't for the evidence of a disturbing increase in cancer that traumatized these communities. Laughable, perhaps, if above ground testing didn't spread radioactive elements across the country. Supposedly "safe" above ground nuclear tests were stopped when it was proved that radioactivity was winding up in the bodies of American children...from the milk they drank. Underground testing was supposed to be the safe answer...or so the government said. The radioactivity would be trapped underground? never to get out... except that some of the underground shafts burst open, spewing radiation into the air. And now, scientists are finding that plutonium, thought to be trapped in those test shafts? is moving through the ground water at alarming speed. So I have a healthy skepticism about federal nuclear programs. My healthy skepticism persuades me that H.R. 45 is in fact a Trojan Horse for permanently dumping high level waste in Nevada. There is nothing "temporary" about it HR 45. This bill is a political vehicle to get the waste to Nevada, to be conveniently parked next door to Yucca Mountain, the site of a foundering effort to justify a permanent dump. The past year has been marked by a quickening pace of scientific "surprises" that clearly eliminate Yucca Mountain as a safe place for nuclear waste. Water will saturate the dump. Those who assumed Yucca Mountain would be dry for 10,000 years are stunned to discover that water is filtering through at an alarming rate. Yucca Mountain has been, is, and always will be jolted by earthquakes. In recent days, seismologists described swarms of earthquakes that rocked the area. To visit Yucca Mountain is to feel the earth move. And, a growing number of scientists fear that a Yucca Mountain dump, intended to isolate deadly radioactivity forever, may one day be destroyed when volcanoes erupt. It is not nice to try to fool Mother Nature. Where earthquakes, water, and volcanic activity are permanent dangers, we must not build a high level nuclear dump. The nuclear power industry should immediately seek alternatives to Yucca Mountain. The billions of dollars coming from ratepayers would be better spent finding a sensible and safe solution to nuclear disposal. Instead, we have HR 45. This bill exists because the nuclear power industry sees that the only way to keep the Yucca Mountain Project alive is to build a temporary dump next door. With the waste stacked up at a temporary dump near Yucca Mountain, there would be a powerful motivation to make Yucca Mountain work out?somehow. Under those circumstances. I fear that the health and safety of current and future generations would be jeopardized for the sake of expediency. As the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has clearly stated, a temporary facility at the Nevada Test Site could prejudice the later decisions about the suitability of Yucca Mountain. HR 45 has its roots in expediency over public health and welfare. HR 45 throws out existing EPA radiation safety standards...and replaces them with dangerous levels of radiation exposure that would be quote "acceptable." The temporary dump can not meet the current standards, so HR 45 permits Nevadans to be exposed to 4 to 6 times the amount of radiation allowed at other waste sites. And HR 45 allows exposure 25 times the level set by the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA Administrator Carol Browner said HR 45 would authorize "exposures to future generations of Nevadans which are much higher than those allowed for other Americans and citizens of other countries." Congress, in 1982, called for 9 potential nuclear storage sites to be assessed. By 1987, due to political considerations...not scientific findings....Yucca Mountain alone was targeted for site characterization. As it became increasingly clear Yucca Mountain is not suitable under the stringent and responsible law Congress passed in 1982, the rules have repeatedly been relaxed in favor of Yucca Mountain and against health and safety. And now comes HR 45, a bill which achieves nothing but risks health and safety of current and future generations. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board advises that there are no compelling reasons to move the nuclear waste in the short term. HR 45 would be a terrible and needless mistake. If passed, it will be fought in court by Americans across the country. I would stand with them in court?or on the roads and rails, if necessary to stop this disastrous policy. Thank You