August 23, 2016
by Lynda Schneekloth and Pamela Hughes, Sierra Club Niagara Group
The Sierra Club is one of seven organizations filing an injunction against the Department of Energy to keep liquid radioactive waste off the highways. The coalition lawsuit charges that the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) failed to provide a thorough public process as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to fully analyze the hazards of transporting liquid highly radioactive waste.
An Environmental Impact Statement must be prepared and made available for other federal agencies and citizens to review and comment on, including a discussion of alternative ways to deal with the nuclear waste. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, requests preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the import and transport of this waste, which violates US federal environmental, atomic energy and administrative procedure laws.
DOE approved shipment of one hundred fifty truckloads of inherently dangerous liquid radioactive waste through Canadian and US communities and across major waterway crossings, from Chalk River, Ontario, Canada, to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The shipment of liquid, weapons-grade waste is unprecedented, high-risk, and unnecessary. Coalition members have been requesting the required environmental review for over three years, with support from Congressman Brian Higgins and the NYS attorney general’s office. These efforts have been unsuccessful and this injunction action was taken to prevent the shipments from beginning as early as this September.
Experts from the international coalition have testified that the shipments are unwarranted, ill-advised and entirely unnecessary. Allowing highly radioactive liquid waste from Canada to be shipped through communities and over major waterways in Canada and the United States, to be dumped in South Carolina without the deliberative NEPA procedures will set a dangerous precedent for decades to come.