By John Buchser, Rio Grande Chapter Water chair
Southeast New Mexico has been targeted to become a Chernobyl wasteland! Our nation needs to constructively confront the radioactive waste our nuclear power plants are generating. We need a sound long-term disposal solution. There is not a need to ship waste to Southeast NM like Holtec is proposing, potentially getting stranded there forever.
We need your help to insure the strategy the US pursues is sound, and will keep us safe during the 100,000+ years it will take for this waste to become safe.
We need faster deployment of wind and solar. We don’t need nuclear power. Existing plants should be shut down when their licenses expire. New technologies like better battery storage are progressing quickly. Nuclear power plants generate radioactive waste that we do not have the technology to keep safe.
We lost our legal case questioning the legality and safety of Holtec’s near-surface ‘temporary’ storage facility near Carlsbad. We are appealing to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — but the NRC’s role is to promote nuclear energy. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard are objecting to this facility, please extend your thanks to them. Tribal governments in NM object to the movement of waste given the high risk.
There is pressure from citizens to move this radioactive waste away from their communities. The Club is finalizing recommendations to expand our nuclear policies to address the challenges we are facing. Minimizing movement of waste is one important recommendation. Many of the other recommendations mirror those of the Fall report of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board – there’s a lot to be done to insure safety, and we need time and money to do so.
To donate to the Rio Grande Chapter’s Holtec legal fund, please click here.