Plutonium Nuclear Waste + Savannah River = Potential GLOBAL DISASTER

To: Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader of the United States Democratic Party

From: Masako Michelle Williams Ellis Iwahori

Date: February 23, 2018

RE: 37 Million Pounds Plutonium Nuclear Waste + Atlantic Ocean= Global Disaster


Introduction/Executive Summary-


37 million pounds of high level plutonium nuclear waste sits on the Savannah River, just 100+ miles upriver of Savannah, GA. The Savannah River empties into the Atlantic Ocean where currents can quickly disperse the plutonium nuclear waste around the globe, creating a global disaster worse than Fukushima. Does America want to be blamed for such a major disaster? How much will we have to pay in reparations to other nations for destroying global waters? Trillions upon trillions of dollars that we do not have to spend.

Prevention is the key here. Immediate corrective action needs to be taken. Since there are fault lines in the area of the Aiken, S. Carolina location and this area is prone to hurricanes, this nuclear waste must be removed. The Surry Nuclear Station in Virginia has it's almost 2 million pounds of nuclear waste sitting on a concrete pad the size of a football field. The nuclear waste is behind the fence, right beside the bus stop. http://articles.dailypress.com/2010-11-13/news/dp-nws-cp-nuclear-waste-20101113_1_casks-nuclear-waste-policy-act-storage-site.

A perfect spot for a backpack bomber terrorist to toss a bomb or two over the fence and set off an explosion and fire, with almost 2 million pounds of nuclear waste to burn through. https://www.ocregister.com/2017/06/02/fire-in-nuclear-fuel-pools-could-cause-far-more-damage-than-regulators-acknowledge-study-says/.


The recommendation for a possible solution is to finish the MOX FUEL PRODUCTION FACILTY and start a thorium nuclear plant. The United States actually already built and tested two prototypes in the 1950's and 1960's. http://www.businessinsider.com/thorium-molten-salt-reactors-sorensen-lftr-2017-2.

A lot of the nuclear waste from other plants can actually be "burned off" in a thorium plant reducing or eliminating the amount of nuclear waste that needs to be stored at any facility. https://www.fastcompany.com/3043099/this-nuclear-reactor-eats-nuclear-waste. You can refer to the book: SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future (MacSci) by Richard Martin. We have the potential to EARN BILLIONS, IF NOT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS BY HAVING OTHER NATIONS SELL THEIR NUCLEAR WASTE TO US AND CONVERTING IT INTO FUEL AND BURNING IT UP IN THE THORIUM REACTOR. Thus, preventing disasters on a national and global levels. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy. We are now spending US Dollars to help China build this nuclear reactor when we need this built here and now in the US. So we are handing over the keys for China to start a huge money making reactor and the US will go into billions or trillions more into debt to sell our waste to them. All the while we could have been increasing our earnings and generating tons more low cost energy.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512321/safer-nuclear-power-at-half-the-price/ We already have literally tons of fuel sitting around as waste in our country. http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-china-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor/.


Background-


Deadly legacy: Savannah River site near Aiken one of the most contaminated places on Earth • By Doug Pardue dpardue@postandcourier.com • May 21, 2017 states that the government still can't agree on where to permanently bury the deadly radioactive remains that will last for a quarter million years and cost untold billions of dollars to safely contain.

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/deadly-legacy-savannah-river-site-near-aiken-one-of-the/article_d325f494-12ff-11e7-9579-6b0721ccae53.html.

The collapse of a tunnel containing radioactive waste at a former nuclear weapons production site in Washington illustrates the continuing dangers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nuclear-waste-filled-tunnel-collapses-washington-article-1.3150199.

Burying the nuclear waste is an option our government should not even consider. There is high risk for breaching and contamination of soil, air and water. This waste needs to be eliminated or converted into useful materials that help degrade the plutonium into other useful products, that will cause less environmental and potential human damage.

Looking at these blooming daisies near Fukushima you can see the massive genetic mutation of these flowers. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pictures-mutant-flowers-japan-viral-article-1.2301668. Now imagine a double-headed body-parts fused mutated human being. What you see happening to these flowers can happen to humans.

We have seen genetic mutations from Chernobyl and the animals exposed to those nuclear toxins. https://chernobylguide.com/chernobyl_mutations/. Radioactive waste is not something that we should leave sitting around on our govermental to-do list. We can not postpone this issue any longer. Our nation's security and safety is at stake.


Issue Analysis-


We are looking at the possibility of an incident worse than Fukushima where radiation has reached U.S. shores and traveled throughout the world's waters. Luckily, the levels are not tremendously high from Fukushima. If all of the plutonium waste from our area was leaked, we would be looking at a major world disaster. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/fukushima-radiation-continues-to-leak-into-the-pacific-ocean. This same problem is faced at nuclear reactors throughout the US, with toxic nuclear waste just sitting there and nothing being done about it!  Even California and the East Coast face potential nuclear waste disasters.   


By Mark Halper April 18, 2013 -- 05:07 GMT (22:07 PDT) | There's a growing movement to make nuclear power safer, more efficient and less weapons-prone by replacing today's uranium fuel with another element, thorium. And within the thorium push, there are different technological ideas for how to deploy.

Some thorium pragmatists, however, advocate that thorium could get onto the power scene sooner: Put it into existing reactors. That's the message coming from the University of Cambridge in England, where PhD candidate Ben Lindley has discovered another potential advantage: Reactor operators could burn a thorium fuel that is mixed with plutonium and thus would provide a useful way to eliminate troubling nuclear waste. Fabricators can already mix uranium with plutonium into a fuel called "MOX" (mixed oxide), which France uses in some of its nuclear reactors. http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-thorium-can-burn-nuclear-waste-and-generate-energy/.

AUDIT REPORT Treatment of Salt Waste at the Savannah River Site OAS-L-15-09 August 2015 U Department of Energy Washington, DC 20585 August 6, 2015 -Mismanagement of Funds, FRAUD AND MISALLOCATION OF FUNDS HAS CAUSED HUGE DELAYS IN THE PROJECT. Here is the link to the report: https://energy.gov/ig/downloads/audit-report-oas-m-15-06. Shocking! I felt like I was reading a tabloid full of bad gossip news stories...it's really that scandalous. Everything from funds being used to buy collector's coins to a contractor being charged for child pornography. The link to the actual report is at the bottom of the page I have linked to.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FROM: Rickey R. Hass Deputy Inspector General for Audits and Inspections Office of Inspector General INFORMATION: Audit Report: "Treatment of Salt Waste at the Savannah River Site" BACKGROUND The Savannah River Site (Savannah River), a Department of Energy (Department) site located near Aiken, South Carolina, was constructed during the 1950s to produce materials used in fabricating nuclear weapons in support of our nation's defense programs.

Quoting directly from the report "RESULTS OF AUDIT: (ALARMING!) August 2015:

We found that the Department's key salt waste processing facility, SWPF, was not operational and that the project experienced significant cost increases (about 1.4 billion to date) and 2 schedule delays, pushing the start date out to at least December 2018. As a result, the Department had treated only minimal amounts of saltwaste at Savannah River. Further, the Department plans to decrease the amount of waste treated through its interim saltwaste processing facility, ARP/MCU, to an average of 40 percent of its maximum capacity from fiscal years (FY)2014 through 2018.

Finally, the Department has suspended plans to deploy its supplemental saltwaste processing capabilities, SCIX, that had the potential to provide significant additional treatment capacity. Primary SaltWaste Treatment Facility SWPF, the Department's key waste treatment facility designed to provide high volume treatment capacity for longer term saltwaste processing, is now 9 years behind schedule and nearly 1.4 billion over budget with an estimated total project cost of 2.3 billion.

15 years later the nuclear plutonium waste is still sitting there in aging tanks needing to be treated. Indeed, an unsafe scenario. In 2004, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board requested that the Department redesign the SWPF to provide adequate natural phenomena hazard protection to confine radioactive materials during seismic events. Faulty welds, discovered in early 2009, were found on piping used in floor drain lines for the SWPF. About one-third of the welds made by an equipment supplier had to be repaired due to poor quality work.

Nuclear Waste Piling Up Across US: 138 Million Pounds and Counting ... And nowhere to put it. Written by Brian Merchant
https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/nuclear-waste-piling-up-across-us-138-million-pounds-and-counting.html.

This article also provides valuable information where nuclear waste is literally sitting in concrete casks outdoors in the open susceptible to weather or attack. What happens to all that radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants? Not much. In 1982, Congress mandated the construction of a national nuclear waste repository. It's been nearly 30 years since then, of course, and there's no such repository. Planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada, it was scuttled by the Obama administration due to NIMBY issues -- and there's no rush to find an alternative to Yucca. As a result, nuke plants are still required to keep their waste on site. So, they do.

There are also fears that nuclear waste is leeching into groundwater after years of storage -- tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen, was discovered in groundwater near North Anna. It doesn't pose any immediate health risks(?), officials say, but the occurrence does point to worrying possibilities. National security hawks worry that the policy of leaving so much nuclear waste onsite could be exploited. And environmentalists have long been concerned about the effects of radioactive waste on nearby wildlife and ecosystems. There's some 138 million pounds of nuclear waste piling up at power plants around the nation. It's probably time we found someplace to lock it up. End of Article. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/01/16/thorium-future-nuclear-energy/#.WpCtTt9Ok1I.

According to the report prepared for the Pen Branch facility in Aiken, S. Carolina, 1989 was at no risk for seismic activity. Contract Number: AC09-89SR18035 Resource Type: Technical Report Research Org: Westinghouse Savannah River Co., Aiken, SC (United States) Sponsoring Org: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States) Country of Publication: United States Language: Paleogene extension (Johnston, 1989 #2039; Johnston, 1994 #2040). They stated the liklihood of a 2+ earthquake was once every 5,000 years. Note here in 1993, there was a 3.2+ https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/article-abstract/67/3/43/142101/august-8-1993-aiken-south-carolina-earthquake?redirectedFrom=PDF. Then again, in 2014 Edgefield, SC was hit by a 4+ earthquake, http://m.wfxg.com/wfxg/pm_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=od:ZFoEEoNz. In June 2017, Augusta was struck by a 3.2 earthquake, http://www.wrdw.com/content/news/Magnitude-30-Earthquake-reported-in-South-Augusta-429675133.html.

These are all in close proximity to Aiken, S. Carolina. The point being there is repeated seismic activity in the area which could actually be pre-tremors for a much bigger earthquake soon to come. With this much activity, it is apparent that compressional activity has re-activated the faultline. There have been other ongoing quakes near to the area in the last decade.

USGS stated, Mesozoic extensional faults like those that bound the Dunbarton basin may be susceptible to modern compressional reactivation and thereby may have elevated earthquake potential. Indeed, post-extension, reverse offsets of Late Cretaceous and younger horizons on the Pen Branch fault decrease upward, indicating a prolonged compressional history as a growth fault (Snipes and others, 1993 #1896). This is the USGS stating that the fault is in fact capable of seismic activity.

Airborne radioisotopes can be harmful if inhaled or swallowed. Nuclear Information and Resource Services (NIRS) said exposure to even small amounts of radiation can cause cancer and other health problems in an over 700 page report. https://www.nirs.org/press/06-30-2005/. Franco stated in this article that the minute amounts detected above ground posed no threat to people or the environment, but an investigation was ongoing. This is misleading to the public. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-radiation-newmexico/elevated-radiation-found-in-air-near-new-mexico-waste-site-idUKBREA1K04320140221. That sounds fairly safe until the properties of plutonium are considered. Scientists and Doctors have stated being exposed to even a minute amount of plutonium can cause cancer.


Conclusions/Recommendation-

According to the US Governmental Accountability Office we now have 198+ million pounds of nuclear waste sitting around our nation. http://nerdgeeks.co/map-of-nuclear-waste-sites-in-us.html. The nation's decades of commercial nuclear power production and nuclear weapons production have resulted in growing inventories of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear waste. This highly radioactive waste is currently stored at sites in 35 states because no repository has been developed for the permanent disposal of this waste.

https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear_waste/issue_summary.

The Department's Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for the treatment and final disposal of the waste generated by these operations, including approximately 37 million gallons of high level radioactive waste stored in 45 aging underground tanks at the Aiken, S. Carolina site. To maintain tank storage space at a safe level, evaporation is used to reduce the waste volume into crystallized salts (salt waste) that must then be disposed of.

Removing and treating the salt waste, which fills approximately 90 percent of the space in the site's 45 aging underground tanks, is an essential step to enable closing the site's liquid waste tanks that currently contain about 37 million gallons of waste. Salt waste removal and treatment is the central process within the site's Liquid Waste System and is instrumental for the successful completion of the liquid waste mission and overall environmental cleanup at Savannah River." https://www.osti.gov/biblio/10131537. Radioactive releases at the Savannah River Site, 1954--1989. An Environmental Protection Department summary.

Considered to be the single largest environmental threat in the state, the Department manages its high level radioactive liquid waste inventory through legally enforceable agreements with the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of South Carolina. Substantial fines and penalties can be levied for missed milestones.

Rather than just levying fines, the EM should install an overseer directly at the Operations Site to monitor activity and make sure that goals and progress is continually being made. We have multiple states where nothing is being done with the nuclear waste at all. We have a potential national crisis at stake, if we don't work to neutralize these very harmful radioactive toxins.

Turning the nuclear waste into MOX fuel that can be sold to France or utilized in our country for a thorium reactor. We, as a nation, have the capability of earning billions of dollars by allowing other nations to sell their nuclear waste to us, convert it into fuel and burn it off. Thus, protecting the globe from the nuclear waste problems of other nations. If we could convert a nuclear reactor into a thorium reactor to burn off the plutonium and other nuclear waste products, sitting around our nation, we will protect our citizens, our beautiful land and waterways, the river and ocean life and all the businesses that depend on the waterways for their livelihoods.