A state finds courage - loud huzzahs for Nevadans - Nullification Rules!

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. From Wikipedia

 
August 13, 2014, from TurnItOffNow!

Nevada Beats Feds By Turning Off Their Water on Yucca Mountain

By Lori Rardon

Whenever I explain the OffNow Project to someone, they initially respond enthusiastically.  Something to the effect of, "Wow!  That's cool! The federal government shouldn't be spying on us!"  But when I further explain that the idea behind OffNow includes shutting off state supplied resources to NSA facilities – like the water necessary to cool the super-computers at the Bluffdale, Utah spy facility – those same people get nervous. "Shutting off the water seems like an extreme move.  Can we even  do that?" they ask.

Yes, we can do that.

And it will work.

It's been done before at a place called Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Yucca Mountain is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.  It was originally selected as a nuclear waste dump site for the country in 1987, but it wasn't until 2002 that President Bush and Congress officially approved the site and moved to make the dump a reality.

This was not a popular move in Nevada. The Governor filed an official Notice of Disapproval of the site selection with Congress, but Congress overrode it.

In the years leading up to 2002, it became clear that Yucca Mountain would not meet EPA standards required for a nuclear waste dump.  The area is prone to earthquakes and even some recent volcanic activity.  Moreover, the nuclear waste repository would be located above the water table in an oxidizing setting that would corrode the waste containers over time.  Obviously, Yucca Mountain was not a safe place for nuclear waste. But the federal government apparently had its heart set on the site.  Instead of telling the Department of Energy (DOE) to abandon the proposed nuclear waste dumping site, the EPA just changed its standards so the project could move forward.

As a result, Nevada filed several lawsuits against the the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) disputing the EPA's standards for the site, as well as asserting  the NRC's duty to uphold public and health safety standards.

But the state didn't simply count on the federal courts to protect it. It took some action of its own.

In addition to these lawsuits, Nevada denied the DOE's five applications for the use of water to construct and operate the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain . The federal government wanted to continue taking soil samples from the site despite all of the negative results it had already obtained.  To run the drill rigs necessary to take soil samples as well as other operations , the feds needed to pump 430 acre-feet of water to the area each year.  But state law governs the use of groundwater.  So, the Nevada State Engineer rejected the applications on the basis that the intended repository was detrimental to the public interest.  Nevada still allowed DOE officials to use a limited amount of water at the site for showers, restrooms, and fire emergencies, but effectively blocked the drilling operation, slowing progress on the project to a crawl.

Of course,  DOE filed suit against Nevada in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, arguing that federal law preempted state water law.

The court ultimately sided with Nevada.  In its 2007 ruling, the court found that the issues presented by the DOE did not involve federal preemption of state water law.  In the U.S. District Judge's opinion, "The validity of Western states' groundwater rights and the right to regulate water in the public interest is not a right to be taken lightly, nor is it a right that can cavalierly be ignored or violated by a federal agency."  Regarding the federal preemption argument he wrote,  "At present…the only public interest issue is whether state officials can be precluded from exercising their lawfully mandated duties, or whether a federal agency can run roughshod over a state's rights  or interest without specific authority and mandate to do the precise activities it wishes to do."

In 2010, after many years of legal wrangling, President Obama announced that the federal government planned to kill the project.  As a result, the Energy Department withdrew its application to the State of Nevada for access to water at the site.

Today, it appears that the Yucca Mountain project is dead.

The Yucca Mountain saga illustrates the power of state action. Nevada exercised its right to exercise control over its own resources and refused to provide them to the federal government. Essentially, Nevada said, "We are not going to help you complete a project that we believe will prove detrimental to the people of our state."

It worked. The feds didn't just march up the mountain and take the water. The court upheld the state's right to refuse cooperation under the anti-commandeering doctrine. And the state action ultimately forced the federal government to scrap its plan.

It was a major win for the state.

We plan to use the same tactics Nevada employed at Yucca Mountain against the NSA to turn it off and shut down its unlawful spying on American citizens.

We can do it. And it will work!

After $40 Billion, America’s Biggest Nuclear Dump Is Still Leaking

Other state legislatures are just as irresponsible for not expelling federal agencies, ie, FEMA, EPA, NSA, CIA, DOE, and so on from their respective sovereign state lands. The citizens are just as resentful of dogs who hike their cheeks and leave you a deposit on your front lawn.Why aren't the state representatives carrying out their lawful mandates? Git it done, or Git 'Em Out! Malingerers and hangers-on need not apply.

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By Les Neuhaus on Jul 14, 2014

Washington State Ghost Town —Hanford.
Courtesy of photographer, Clane Gessel.

It's cost $40 billion so far to clean up America's biggest nuclear waste site—half the size of Rhode Island—and it's going to take another 40 years and $100 billion to finish the job.


In the meantime, workers from the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State are still getting sick from exposure to any one of 1,400 chemicals identified there, while allegations of mismanagement, negligence and secrecy over what may be life-threatening risks persist.


And delays keep piling up even though at least a third of the aging tanks storing 56 million gallons radioactive waste have leaked or are leaking, pouring some of the world's most dangerous contaminants into the Columbia River.


Yet the treatment plant to create safe storage for all that waste—which will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years—still isn't built. It should have been finished three years ago. And the Environmental Protection Agency  is skeptical that the plant's current completion date of 2022 will be met.


Only Another 40 Years to Go


The plant is a crucial part of a wider remediation job that's decades from being done, according to Dennis Faulk, the EPA's program manager for Hanford


"I think we have another 40 years to go," Faulk told WhoWhatWhy. "And another $100 billion will be needed over that time." It costs about $2 billion a year to keep cleaning.


The EPA oversees and enforces the cleanup efforts, which are carried out by the Department of Energy and the contractors it hires. Both Congress and the Department of Energy itself have given those efforts a failing grade.


The Department of Energy's internal watchdog last year blamed the department and the contractor that's building the plant, Bechtel National Inc., for the delays. The Department of Energy's oversight lacked focus and Bechtel implemented scores of design changes without subjecting them to the required nuclear safety review, according to a report from the department's Inspector General.


Congress' Government Accountability Office was harsher. It recommended shutting down construction until the design work is completed safely, and said the Department of Energy was prematurely awarding millions in performance incentives to Bechtel. 

Most critical work on the plant has been shut down.

Columbia River, White Bluffs, part of Hanford

Meanwhile, Bechtel and another contractor are fighting whistleblower lawsuits from two former employees, and guess who's paying for their legal fees? The Department of Energy is.


All of those complications are worsened by the fact that the search for waste keeps turning up surprises, like nearly 100 pieces of spent fuel found in Native American burial grounds. So as the Herculean task creeps forward, occasional new contamination findings like that add time to the clock, which means the projected completion dates are really only theoretical.


Hanford wasn't built with an abundance of forethought. The job of making weapons-grade plutonium came first. Everything else, like planning for the waste and telling people about the release of radioactive materials, came second.


Hanford was one of the country's primary production centers for nuclear weapons, from the 1943 to the end of the Cold War. 

Located along the Columbia River, Hanford supplied plutonium for hundreds, if not thousands, of bombs for America's Cold War stockpile, and for the Manhattan Project, which helped end World War II while ushering in the nuclear age.


The War Department needed secrecy for the Manhattan Project and Hanford's remoteness afforded that. So in 1943, it evicted the 1,500 or so farmers living in the towns of Hanford and White Bluffs and relocated six Native American tribes who'd lived there for centuries.


Hurry Up With the Nukes, Already


After World War II, the government decided that one reactor at Hanford wasn't enough and built eight more to ramp up production of plutonium a material with a 24,000-year half-life. Hanford ballooned to 586 square miles in size. To put that in perspective, that's nearly half the size of Rhode Island. And a bigger site meant there was more nuclear waste to deal with.

"Low Level" Nuclear Waste 

Disposal, Hanford, 1950. 

Department of Energy Photo

As much as a million gallons of radioactive waste have leaked from Hanford's underground tanks—more than all of the leaks from all other nuclear facilities in the U.S. combined, according to Tom Carpenter, an attorney and the executive director of Hanford Challenge. The watchdog group represents Hanford workers and whistleblowers.


In a letter to Washington State Attorney-General Bob Ferguson in April, Hanford Challenge alleged that 38 workers had been exposed to vapors since March and urged the state to act where the Energy Department hasn't. There are currently about 11,000 workers at the site.



Another 20 Years of Failure


Further, contractors at Hanford have had a string of problems, from corruption to failing to meet deadlines. That kind of performance by the Department of Energy and its contractors is why there's no end in sight to the cleanup, he said.


"The one common denominator there is the Department of Energy and until you change them out as the manager of the cleanup, we're going to see another 20 years of failure out there," Carpenter said.


The delays are mainly due to the discovery of new waste, said Cameron Hardy, spokesman for the Energy Department's Richland, Washington, office. He said most of the contractors now are "high-performing. There was the potential for a lot of abuse in the early years, but things have changed since then."


Environmental Group: River Loaded With Contaminants


Contamination levels in and along the Columbia River—an outdoor Mecca for sporting enthusiasts and backpackers—are unsafe for people living and recreating downstream, not to mention a major Chinook salmon spawning point close to Hanford, according to conservationists.


The river is full of some of the most dangerous contaminants in the world, says one environmental monitor. The site's tanks are leaking into the soil, which ends up in the groundwater and eventually, the river, according to Dan Serres, conservation director with the Oregon-based environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper.


"In 25 years we've accomplished a lot in the cleanup, but the most difficult challenges lie ahead and the river is loaded with contaminants," he said.

Part of the challenges ahead included finishing the waste treatment plant, and sealing up the nine reactors so they can be dealt with when the technology exists. Hundreds of support buildings have to be demolished, too.


"Once these reactors get cleaned up, there's really not much left on the landscape," the Energy Department's Hardy said.


What's on the landscape, however, isn't the problem. It's what's going to be left in it.

Hanford and the Columbia River

​source via whowhatwhy​