Activists Object to DOE Plan

Question Why a Nuclear Industry Lobbyist is Heading
Department of Energy's Public Hearings on the Radioactive Metals "Recycling"

Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program Press Release 7aug01

OAKLAND, CA -Today Public Citizen and other citizen organizations are  speaking out at a Department of Energy (DOE) hearing against a plan to  allow radioactive waste to be recycled into consumer products or disposed  of in landfills. Even though there is no public support for allowing the  DOE to move forward with this scheme, they are continuing a "scoping  project." The hearings, which were announced with little public notice,  are being held to meet the agency's legal obligation of obtaining public  comments on their Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)  process on the recycling of nuclear waste for commercial products and  disposal as regular trash.

"It's obvious that the DOE doesn't want anyone to attend this hearing in  Oakland. If they really wanted public comments they would have held it at  an easy-to-reach location," charged Jane Kelly, Director of Public  Citizen's California office. "Instead they gave us less than a month's  notice and are holding the meeting at a difficult-to-reach hotel at the  Oakland airport."

The Department of Energy (DOE) is developing a program - under heavy  pressure from the nuclear industry - to unload vast quantities of  radioactive scrap metal into municipal landfills and to "recycle" it into  everyday household products and industrial materials. Currently, some  radioactive wastes and materials - except some metals - can be released  without restrictions from DOE nuclear weapons sites. DOE, in January and  July 2000, put bans on releasing some radioactive metals, but the policy  being discussed in the hearings would replace and supercede those bans.

DOE's process to authorize the release of radioactive metals from DOE  nuclear weapons facilities begins with the Programmatic Environmental  Impact Statement (PEIS) being discussed in the hearings. The PEIS process  has not had a promising start. The DOE initially contracted with Science  Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to perform the environmental  review. SAIC is one of the companies that would profit from radioactive  "recycling" at a major nuclear waste site in Tennessee. SAIC's history of  conflicts of interest on radioactive recycling led to the forced terminatio n of its Nuclear Regulatory Commission contract. In late July, Public  Citizen and others pointed out the current conflicts to DOE and the  contract to perform the PEIS was dropped.20

"If the DOE can get away with it, they are going to follow the polluters  golden rule: the solution to pollution is dilution," said Wenonah Hauter,  Public Citizen's Director of Energy and Environment. "That's the reason  they have selected a nuclear industry lobbyist to facilitate the so-called  public hearings."

Holmes Brown, who has been an employee of Afton Associates, Inc., is the  facilitator for the DOE's hearings, which are being held in locations like  Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mr. Brown and Afton Associates have been paid  advocates for the interests of radioactive waste producers for well over a  decade, even receiving some funding indirectly from DOE itself to promote  nuclear programs.

"DOE has also failed to supply records of what radioactive materials have  been and are currently being dumped into unregulated disposal and  'recycled' into everyday products," stated Kelly. "We are urging the  Department of Energy to stop dispersing radioactive materials - such as  concrete, soil, asphalt, plastics, wood, metals and more - into municipal  landfills and the open marketplace, and to strengthen and expand its  current bans on 'recycling' radioactive metal."

• To learn more about this and other issues Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program works on, visit our website at www.citizen.org email: cmep@citizen.org