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Rally at U.S. Capitol to Stop Yucca Mountain	Current rating: 0
by nuclearneighborhoods.org Email: info (nospam) nuclearneighborhoods.org (unverified!)	03 Jul 2002 Modified: 11:03:02 PM
Environmental Activists Rally at the U.S. Senate to Protest the Shipping of Nuclear Waste to Yucca Mountain Nevada.
Environmental Activists Rally at the U.S. Senate to Protest the Shipping of Nuclear Waste to Yucca Mountain Nevada.
Caravan of Mock Nuclear Waste Transportation Casks Converges at Capitol to Join Lawmakers and Activists in Fight Against Yucca Mountain Senators and Environmental Leaders Urge Rejection of Dangerous Nuclear Transportation Scheme ILLINOIS CITIZENS ENCOURAGED TO TAKE ACTION AT NUCLEARNEIGHBORHOODS.ORG Washington, D.C. - With giant replicas of radioactive waste transportation casks as a backdrop, national environmental, public interest and consumer groups joined lawmakers and activists at a press conference and rally to urge the Senate to reject the dangerous proposal to transport high-level nuclear waste to a dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. A final vote in the Senate is expected within the next month. The caravan of six casks converged at the Capitol today after a three-week national tour across the country in an effort to alert citizens who live near the projected nuclear waste transportation routes. Each dumbbell-shaped cask is 20 feet long and seven feet tall, a life-size replication of the actual casks that would be travelling on the nation's highways, railways, and waterways for up to 38 years if the Yucca Mountain Project is approved. "We have been overwhelmed by the response of local communities as we've driven through town after town in the last few weeks," said Amy Shollenberger, an activist from Vermont who drove one of the casks through New England and the Midwest. "We've come to Washington to deliver the message that people across the country are worried about the prospect of regular shipments of deadly nuclear waste through their communities." Activists presented a statement endorsed by more than 200 citizens groups opposing the Yucca Mountain Project. Leaders of national environmental and public interest organizations emphasized the dangers of transporting high-level nuclear waste and problems with the Yucca Mountain site itself, calling last Friday's earthquake in southern Nevada "a wake-up call from Mother Nature." "The Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain recommendation fails to address transportation concerns," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "Shipping tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste in untested casks to a questionable site, as currently proposed, poses risks that cannot be justified. An accident or attack involving just one of these shipments could be catastrophic." "We are extremely concerned that these mobile Chernobyls-- more than 100 thousand shipments of waste-- will move across America for four decades, past our homes and past our children's schools," said Gene Karpinski, executive director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Senators Harry Reid, assistant majority leader from Nevada and John Ensign (R-Nev.) spoke at today's event. Other participants included representatives of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Clean Water Action, Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, League of Women Voters, National Environmental Trust, Nuclear Information Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Safe Energy Communication Council, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and Women's Action for New Directions. Lisa Gue, Public Citizen, 202-454-5130 Kevin Kamps, NIRS, 202-328-0002
See also: http://www.nuclearneighborhoods.org

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YUCCA UPDATE, 7/3/02
by Michael Mariotte (No verified email address)	Current rating: 0 03 Jul 2002
Although circumstances could change, it still appears nearly certain that the U.S. Senate's vote on the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, high-level atomic waste dump will occur on July 9. Please do everything you can in these next few days to keep our momentum going. We are within striking distance of winning this thing! With your help, we can make this vote a surprise from which the nuclear industry will never recover! Please take these steps: 1) Send a letter to the editor of your newspapers. Because of the time crunch, you will need to e-mail or fax it to them. A sample letter is below; you can take from this or use your own arguments against Yucca Mountain and the Mobile Chernobyl transportation program. 2) Please send us, as soon as possible, any signed postcards and/or letters to Senators. We will be delivering these to each Senate office on Monday, July 8. Note: we can provide you with 4-color brochures for use at July 7 events you may be doing IF you contact Lisa Gue at Public Citizen (lisa_gue (at) citizen.org), 202-454-5130 by Friday afternoon, July 5. 3) If you have not done so already, please ask the mayors in your area to sign the mayoral letter against radioactive waste transportation (copy was sent in last e-mail NIRS sent out, if you need another copy, please let us know). 4) Please call both of your Senators on Monday, July 8 (202-224-3121). Even if you have called before, please call again and remind them to vote against Yucca Mountain. Make clear that their position on this issue will determine how you will vote next election. Please ask all of your friends and colleagues to call too-every Senator's phones need to be buzzing with anti-Yucca phone calls all day long! Calls can continue on Tuesday morning-Tuesday afternoon may be too late. Note, you also should urge your Senators to prevent the nuclear industry from overturning 200 years of Senate tradition, and vote with the Majority Leader on the important procedural vote that will occur before the Yucca vote. Brief explanation: Normally, the Senate Majority Leader is the only member of the Senate who can bring legislation to the Senate floor. The Majority Leader is also the one who determines the timing when legislation comes to the floor. In this case, Majority Leader Tom Daschle thinks the Senate has more important things to do than vote on Yucca Mountain, and sees no reason the Yucca issue should ever come to the floor. If the Senate does not explicitly overturn Nevada's veto of the Yucca project by July 26, the project will cease. But the Nuclear Waste Policy Act includes a provision that allows any member of the Senate to force the Yucca veto to the Senate floor. A nuclear industry supporter (probably either Trent Lott, Frank Murkowski or Larry Craig) will try to do so on Tuesday, July 9. Although the Act allows this, doing so would violate Senate tradition and precedent. The first key vote will be on this procedural issue, and there are some Senators who may vote with the Majority Leader on the procedural issue, but not on Yucca Mountain itself. Thus, your phone calls to your Senator should include the position that your Senators should vote with the Majority Leader on this procedural vote. If the procedural vote fails, then Yucca Mountain will not be brought to the floor. If it succeeds, there will then be 10 hours of debate, and the final vote on Yucca will take place. This would happen either late July 9 or early July 10. Please call your Senators even if you think they may be hopelessly pro-nuclear. There are a surprising number of Senators who remain undecided or who have not taken a public position on the Yucca issue. Please don't assume they will vote against us-your calls may well make the difference; we are seeing this happen in many states! And, please don't assume that normally strong "environmental" Senators will vote against Yucca-they need to hear from you too. But if a Senator's office tells you a Senator will definitely vote against Yucca, don't forget to thank them! We will provide an update if it appears the vote schedule may change. Otherwise, keep it up! And thank you for all your help and support! Let's stop Yucca Mountain! Michael Mariotte Executive Director Nuclear Information and Resource Service >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sample letter to the editor (1) Dear Editor, The nuclear power industry claims, in its push to open the flawed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, nuclear waste dump, that it is better to consolidate the nation's waste at one site, rather than leave it at nuclear reactors across the country. The industry also argues that it is essential to get the radioactive waste out of Illinois. The problem is that even if Yucca Mountain opens, high-level nuclear waste will remain at every operating reactor site (unless the industry plans to permanently close its reactors-an unlikely scenario), including in Illinois. According to the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact Statement, there currently are 6,073 metric tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste in Illinois. Following a 24-year waste shipment program, which would include anywhere from 11,900 shipments (if primarily by rail) to 67,000 shipments (if primarily by road) in Illinois, we still would have 4,841 metric tons of this waste within our borders! This is because Yucca Mountain is limited, by law, in how much waste can be placed there. Clearly, Yucca Mountain would not solve the nation's radioactive waste problem, it would just spread it across our highways and railways. The Senate should reject the earthquake-prone Yucca project and begin work on a real solution to nuclear waste. Sincerely, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Note: while this sample letter is for Illinois, it can be adapted for any state. Simply go to http://www.mapscience.org, type in an address for your state (your address for example), and you can find out how much waste is in your state now, and how much would be left when Yucca is legally full. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sample letter to the editor (2) In the wake of Sept. 11th and recent headlines about "dirty nuclear bomb" threats, the U.S. Senate should put the brakes on rash plans to launch many tens of thousands of high-level radioactive waste shipments onto the roads, rails, and waterways of 45 states. To protect against terrorist attacks upon highly radioactive waste shipments, Senators should vote no on the imminent motion to proceed with the Yucca Mountain, Nevada nuclear waste dump. Wastes stored on-site at reactors across the U.S. must be immediately fortified, bunkered with thick concrete to guard against attack. Waste shipments by truck, train, and barge through the 100+ major cities between the reactors and Yucca cannot be fortified: they'd be too heavy to move. Tests at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground and Sandia National Labs have shown that atomic waste shipping containers are vulnerable to shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and high explosives, weapons readily obtainable on the black market. Terrorists would not have to steal radioactive material and smuggle it into a population center; they could wait for the Energy Dept. and nuclear industry to do the hard part for them. Release of even a fraction of the deadly contents of these containers would spell catastrophe, a "Mobile Chernobyl."