Yucca Mountain: One Man Switches Sides

  • Yucca Mountain is the nation's planned repository for spent nuclear fuel (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)

Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:

Transcript

Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:

For twenty years Nevada’s tried to scuttle Yucca Mountain.

Along the way, it’s hired Robert Halstead to create a plan to soften the blow if it loses. He’s an expert on nuclear waste truck and rail transportation.

“My job would be to craft the safest, or least-bad, transportation system so that if Nevada got stuck with a repository they would at least have some control of the transportation system because the activity that most likely to injures people and the environment is transportation.”

Halstead didn’t start his nuclear career on Nevada’s side, though. Thirty years ago, he worked for Wisconsin. He says the federal government wanted states’ help in storing nuclear waste deep underground.

In 1982 Congress came to consensus about how to test sites. He trusted it – and built political support for it.

“There was a clear statement that safety was not enough and economic efficiency was not enough. You also had to deal with regional equity.”

The gist was that there’d be at least two nuclear waste repositories: one in the West, and one in the East.

“We were pretty optimistic. Unfortunately that all began to fall apart very quickly.”

Congressmen and even the public started getting cold feet about the site selection process.

There were rowdy protests, especially in states that may have had the right geology for a repository. That included Wisconsin.

“If there was an objective approach to picking the sites, we knew that we would be in the first tier of the sites that would be evaluated.”

After a few years, Eastern politicians got frantic.

“They asked for a fix.”

Halstead decided to help with this fix, because he’d lost faith in the system, too. He says he helped cut legislative deals to stop the nuclear waste law he’d supported just a few years earlier.

It worked.

In 1987, Congress ended the government’s search for a nuclear waste repository.

Yucca would be the only candidate.

“This law was written very carefully to ensure that Nevada got screwed. And you know what, it chilled my blood.”

Halstead realized he’d passed a law that broke that early consensus about regional equity.

He was disappointed, and nearly dumped nuclear politics, but then he got a call. It was from a chief nuclear official in Nevada.

“He said aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I would really like you to come out here and help us. And I said to him, ‘I’d just got done getting Wisconsin getting off the hook and if I help you get off the hook, I think it’s likely that they’ll have to come back to Wisconsin.’”

But Halstead took the job.

I’ve asked him why several times. Sometimes he’s said guilt. Sometimes, regret. Sometimes, for a job.

Right now, Congress is considering cutting Yucca Mountain’s budget, and President Obama says he’s against the project.

But the law to make Yucca the only choice is still on the books.

I ask Robert Halstead whether that will change. He’s not sure – it’ll be tough to build a new consensus even close to what he saw thirty years ago.

“If nuclear waste disposal in a repository were safe and profitable, someone would have taken it away from Nevada years ago, so there won’t be an amicable ending to this story.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Controlling Feral Cat Colonies

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:

Transcript

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:


It’s late at night and Donna Dunn and a couple of friends are sitting in a parked car in a suburban Detroit cemetery.


They’re smoking, eating fast food, and waiting for cats.


“There’s the pregnant female, right there under the truck…”


They’re hoping the cats wander into one of the dozens of live traps they’ve set up. The prize catch is a pregnant female.


“What’d you get? Is it a girl? Yeah, it’s a girl… a pregnant female. Yes! Alright!….”


Donna Dunn is a veterinary technician, who learned about feral cats through her job. She hooked up with a sprawling network of thousands of feline lovers who take care of feral cats living in cat colonies.


Dunn figures there are about 75 wild or abandoned cats wandering the grounds of this cemetery. Some of the cats live in tunnels burrowed in the dirt, or in buildings on the cemetery grounds. Wild cats can also live in vacant buildings or abandoned vehicles. And, Dunn figures, there would soon be a lot more cats if something wasn’t done about it.


“One female will have a minimum of two litters a summer, average litter is five kittens per litter. So you’re looking at 10 kittens average per female in here. The first nine females we took out of here, eight were pregnant. That would’ve produced 40 kittens.”


(Sound of trap)


The trapped cats will spend the night in cages stacked side-by-side in a volunteer’s garage. They’ll go the vet’s in the morning, before they are returned to their feral cat colony. Donna Dunn says the neutered cats are more content, and less likely to fight with other cats and wild animals.


She says “trap, neuter, and release” is a humane alternative to turning strays over to a shelter, where most of the cats would be killed.


But “trap, neuter, and release” is also controversial idea. Critics say it doesn’t really address the problem of feral cats roaming the streets. They say it’s simply not possible to sterilize millions of these cats.


Eileen Liska is with the Michigan Humane Society. She says wild cats have a profound effect on the environment. They can upset the ecological balance of a field or a neighborhood by killing off birds and other wildlife. They can also carry feline leukemia and other diseases. Liska says euthanizing un-adoptable felines is the most compassionate approach.


“Cats living out in the streets equals suffering. I mean, they are suffering. They don’t have proper food sources. They’re exposed to the weather and they’ve got the danger of being attacked, injured or killed by other wildlife, especially when they’re fighting for the same ecological niches. The cats absolutely are in competition with possums, skunks, and raccoons, and raccoons can grow quite large and be quite aggressive and we know that they kill cats that come, that get in their way.”


But Liska also says the growing number of wild cats shows the current approach isn’t working. She wants to raise more money to fund new animal control programs. But she’s not finding a lot of support for a tax to do that among Michigan’s politicians.


Michigan, like most states, requires dogs to be on a leash or fenced in when they’re outside. Farmers demanded the laws at the beginning of the twentieth Century because wild canines were attacking livestock.


There’s no similar cry yet to do something about feral cats, and no one seems to think that licensing cats would begin to get at the problem. Wisconsin proposed allowing hunters to shoot strays. That idea was tabled after animal rights groups protested.


“Right there. See it? Right out here. That’s a little one. Judy, is there food in there? Should I check it?”


Donna Dunn and her friends would like to see every state to adopt trap-neuter-and-release for dealing with stray cats. Until then, she says, her cohorts will try and deal with the problem one cat colony at a time.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Mining vs. Old-Growth Forest

  • Dysart Woods in southeast Ohio is an old-growth forest. Many of the trees are more than 300 years old. (Photo courtesy of dysartwoods.org)

The need for cheap energy is coming into conflict
with efforts to preserve a forest. Coal mining companies are using a technique that causes the land to subside and sometimes changes natural underground water systems. Environmentalists say mining underneath a forest preserve could destroy the ecosystem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports on environmental activists who are defending the
forest:

Transcript

The need for cheap energy is coming into conflict with efforts to preserve a forest.
Coal mining companies are using a technique that causes the land to subside and sometimes
change natural underground water systems. Environmentalists say mining underneath a forest
preserve could destroy the ecosystem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports on environmental activists who are defending the forest:


For decades, the coal mining industry has been using a technique of extraction called
long wall mining. Industry officials say it’s the most effective way to get the bituminous
coal out of the ground. In traditional room and pillar mining, the land above is not disturbed.
But the long wall machine leaves no support for the 1000-foot tunnel created in its wake. After
the coal is extracted, the ground caves in, causing the land to sink.


Dysart Woods, in southeastern Ohio, is slated for such a fate. The conservation group,
Buckeye Forest Council, wants to block the woods from mining. Its members believe long
wall mining will destroy the old-growth forest. The four hundred and fifty acres, fifty-five
acres of the trees are more than 300 years old. Fred Gittis is an attorney who has volunteered
his services to protect the woods.


“And these woods are precious, and they are among the last old-growth forest areas remaining,
not only in Ohio, but in this part of the country. Recently a documentary was filmed in Dysart Woods, because it has some of the conditions that would have existed at the time of George
Washington’s life.”


Gittis argues state should repeal the mining permit granted for Dysart Woods. Ohio Valley
Coal was granted the permit in 2001. As steward of the woods, Ohio University disputed the
permit for three years. But last November, it agreed to drop its appeal, in exchange for $10,000 from the state to study the forest’s water, as it is undermined. Ohio Valley
Coal Company would drill the wells needed. But the Buckeye Forest Council says a study doesn’t
solve the problem.


“First of all it is just a water monitoring project. It offers no protection to the woods.
Second of all, they don’t have the base line data right now to compare to what it normal.”


That’s Susan Heikler, Executive Director of the Buckeye Forest Council. When Ohio University
accepted the mining permit, her organization took up the fight. The group worked with lawyer
Fred Gittis and nationally known experts to review the science of the Coal Company’s mining
plan. Gittis says the Council’s experts were not impressed.


And, both hydrogeologists and mining experts have indicated that the basic science related
to this mining permit is, not to be insulting but, junk.”


The plan calls for long wall mining within 300 feet of the old-growth forest. However,
experts from the Buckeye Forest Council say a 1500 foot buffer around the woods
is the only way to insure the protection of the hydrology – the natural water system that
sustains the forest.


In a major concession two years ago, the Coal Company agreed not to long wall mine directly
under Dysart Woods. Instead, room and pillar mining is planned. The Company says that will
delay subsidence for centuries to come. Attorney Fred Gittis says without core samples from
directly under the woods, the company doesn’t have the data to back up this claim.


“If you don’t know what that rock is, if it’s soft like claystone or shale, it can collapse.
And so its pretty basic stuff.”


Attorneys for the company declined to be interviewed for this story. In statements, the
Company defends its lack of data by pointing to exemptions they were granted by the Department
of Mineral Resources. The Company stands by its assertion that, quote, “trees and other surface
vegetation will absolutely not be affected by mining.” But in September, the story changed. In
court, a mining consultant for the company, Hanjie Chen, testified that the forest floor would
sink 5 inches. Attorneys for Ohio Valley Coal abruptly stopped his testimony after this
statement. But Gittis says the damage to the coal company’s case is already done.


Although Buckeye Forest Council rested its case in July, the defendant, Ohio Valley Coal is
still adding witnesses and dragging out the case. Fred Gittis says the Company is trying to
exhaust the Buckeye Forest Council’s legal funding. He adds that this is why he volunteers his
expertise.


For the time being, mining under the old growth forest has been pushed back until the hearings
conclude in November.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links