HBO’s satirical “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday gave over much of its 30-minute broadcast time to the potential threat posed to the United States by its growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
Using data from sources including the Nuclear Energy Institute and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, host John Oliver called attention to more than 71,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial reactors and over 100 million gallons of liquid waste from U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing.
“You may live closer to nuclear waste than you think,” Oliver warned. “One out of three Americans live within 50 miles of high-level nuclear waste, some of which, like plutonium, is lethally dangerous and will be around for an incredibly long time.”
Congress in 1982 demanded that the Department of Energy build a permanent repository for U.S. spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste, and five years later directed that the facility be built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Subsequent presidential administrations have alternately advanced or halted that project, with the Trump administration most recently requesting funding for licensing the facility. In any event, it remains years away from realization – a point “Last Week Tonight” emphasized by airing a clip from a 1990 television news report on the lack of agreement on where to store radioactive waste.
Disposal measures over the decades have included sealing radioactive waste in barrels dumped off the East Coast (per the Tampa Bay Times’ “The Atomic Sailors”) and considering sending it into space (a dismissed idea illustrated by video of a rocket spectacularly coming apart after launch), Oliver said.
Leaks of waste from locations such as DOE’s Savannah River and Hanford sites create their own environmental danger, according to the host – for example, two radioactive alligators in South Carolina.
The clip was widely tweeted out by industry and others throughout the week — House Energy and Commerce Committee senior adviser Jordan Davis highlighted the segment to call attention to legislation intended to finally force Yucca Mountain into being – Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017.
Others took Last Week Tonight to task for misrepresenting the issue. In a Thursday article published in Forbes, titled “Please, John Oliver, Please Talk To A Real Nuclear Scientist,” writer and energy consultant James Conca said nuclear waste is not a major threat to humans and the environment and that Oliver failed to note the distinction between commercial and defense nuclear waste.
About half the workers with the Savannah River Site’s security contractor remained on strike this week as the result of failed negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement, though traffic conditions at facility entrances affected by the strike had improved, the company said Thursday.
“All barricades except one have been open since last Wednesday and the traffic congestion has dissipated,” Rob Davis, a Centerra-SRS spokesman, wrote in a Thursday email to Weapons Complex Monitor.
About 337 Centerra-SRS employees are represented by the United Professional Pro-Force of Savannah River (UPPSR). Most, though not all, went on strike Aug. 15 after negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement stalled. The old agreement expired in April.
“Site security functions are being maintained by Centerra employees who are not represented by the UPPSR, Protective Force personnel from other DOE locations, and over 40 employees (a number that has increased since the strike began) represented by the UPPSR who are not striking,” Davis wrote. “We are fully confident in the capabilities of the contingency force employees and every one of them is doing an outstanding job.”
According to a press release from the Department of Energy last week, talks on a new collective bargaining agreement with Centerra-SRS continued through the summer. On July 19, Centerra-SRS provided a final offer, which has not been made public.
“On July 31 and August 1, the Union voted to reject Centerra’s proposal and subsequently chose to exercise their right to strike,” DOE wrote in the release.
The strike began at 4 a.m. Aug. 15 and, at least last week, caused some traffic jams near the site.
Centerra-SRS holds a 10-year, $1 billion security contract that expires Oct. 7, 2019. In July, DOE issued a request for information for parties interested in taking the follow-on contract. An industry day was slated for Aug. 14.
A discrimination lawsuit filed in April against the liquid waste contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been recommended for dismissal because the plaintiff failed to respond by Aug. 15 to the defendant’s request to quash the case.
U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs ultimately will decide whether to dismiss Jimmy Rouse’s case against his former employer, Savannah River Remediation (SRR).
In the federal lawsuit filed on April 24, Rouse, who is African-American, said he was wrongfully fired after an 11-year tenure with the Department of Energy contractor as a carpenter. Rouse said he had regularly received praise and pay increases prior to being terminated, proving he was a quality employee.
The lawsuit revolved around an illegal drug transaction Rouse reported to Savannah River Site security in February 2016. While his employer later said his fingerprints were found on a bag of marijuana found by security, and that the employee failed a drug test, Rouse denied all accusations.
Rouse was seeking reinstatement, back pay for time missed at work, and payment of his legal fees. On June 8, SRR asked that the suit be dismissed, saying Rouse refused to take a polygraph test and that his case was not built on facts.
Rouse first had until July 10 to file a response. When he failed to do so, U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges extended the deadline to Aug. 1. When that deadline passed with no response, Hodges on Aug. 1 officially recommended dismissal, giving Rouse another two weeks to file a response. That deadline has passed and Hodges has now elevated the issue to Childs, who can decide at her discretion if she will dismiss the suit.
In a brief phone conversation, Rouse said he still plans to continue the suit, but did not verify if he has been in conversations with either of the judges.
Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA), of New Mexico, said Tuesday it has secured a contract to build a groundwater treatment system for the site of the onetime uranium processing plant at Fernald, Ohio.
The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management completed remediation of the site more than a decade ago, shifting 1,050 acres to the Office of Legacy Management in 2006. It is now the Fernald Preserve, and remains under environmental monitoring, oversight and maintenance, and other measures.
The new fixed-price contract calls for teardown of present parts of the groundwater treatment system, constructing “a smaller groundwater treatment train,” updating electrical and control components for 16 extraction wells, and delivering the system’s instrumentation and controls, according to a LATA press release.
The press release did not offer additional details of the contract, including its value and the period of work.
LATA is conducting the work as a subcontractor to Navarro, which has designed and will operate the groundwater treatment system as part under its broader management and support contract with the Office of Legacy Management.
