Nuclear Waste: Coming soon to a community near you?

The Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) wants you to think about proposed plans to move tons of nuclear waste around the nation via roads, rails and waterways, so they are staging a tour of a "mock" nuclear waste cask. CAN is a regional environmental group based in Western Massachusetts concerned about the health, environmental and social justice implications of the nuclear industry. The following is from CAN's website:

Although the nuclear industry & federal government committed to create a solution for high level nuclear waste (HLW) disposal, no acceptable solution exists. Federal legislation mandated a repository; Nevada was targeted—billions expended to establish Yucca Mountain. As the wrangling over Yucca continues, the industry has a pressing need to create some solution since dangerous waste piling up at reactor sites undermines its position that nuclear is clean and safe.

Interim storage sites do not have to meet the strict environmental standards that have plagued Yucca Mountain. The sites targeted for “disposal” like the sites selected for operation, are routinely low income, rural, people of color and Native American communities. The industry pits nuclear communities against each other; reactor communities fear inadequate casks, lack of onsite protections and HLW abandonment by the Feds. Targeted communities for nuclear waste disposal don’t want dangerous nuclear waste in their backyard, particularly given the abysmal record of leaks and inadequate environmental protections. Waste communities face unconscionable choices-short term economic survival or long-term health and safety.

It is essential that reactor and waste communities work together to create effective strategies and actions to defeat industry initiatives to target vulnerable communities and provide protections for reactor communities forced to be guardians of the world’s most toxic and long-lasting waste.

Click here for more information on fall dates and locations of the tour, which organizers plan to bring to the Seabrook area next spring.