ML18162A152
| ML18162A152 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | HI-STORE |
| Issue date: | 05/21/2018 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| Caverly J | |
| References | |
| NRC-3721 | |
| Download: ML18162A152 (116) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement for Holtec International's Hi-store Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel Located in Lea County, New Mexico Docket Number:
N/A Location:
Gallup, New Mexico Date:
May 21, 2018 Work Order No.:
NRC-3721 Pages 1-115 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
+ + + + +
3 PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT 4
STATEMENT FOR HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL'S HI-STORE 5
CONSOLIDATED INTERIM STORAGE FACILITY FOR SPENT 6
NUCLEAR FUEL LOCATED IN LEA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 7
+ + + + +
8
- MONDAY, 9
MAY 21, 2018 10
+ + + + +
11 GALLUP, NEW MEXICO 12
+ + + + +
13 The Public Scoping Meeting was convened in 14 the Gallup Downtown Conference Center, 204 West Coal 15 Avenue, at 6:00 p.m., Chip Cameron, facilitating.
16 17 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
18 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 19 BRIAN SMITH, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Cycle 20 Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental Review, 21 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 22 Safeguards (NMSS) 23 JILL CAVERLY, Environmental Review Project Manager, 24 Environmental Review Branch, NMSS 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 JOSE CUADRADO, Licensing and Safety Review Project 1
Manager, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, NMSS 2
DAVID McINTYRE, Public Affairs Officer, Office of 3
Public Affairs 4
JOHN McKIRGAN, Chief, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, 5
NMSS 6
ANGEL MORENO, Congressional Affairs Officer, Office 7
of Congressional Affairs 8
CINTHYA ROMAN, Chief, Environmental Review Branch, 9
NMSS 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 P R O C E E D I N G S 1
6:02 p.m.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay, everybody, we're going 3
to get started. It's a little bit after six o'clock.
4 And my name is Chip Cameron, and I'm going to serve as 5
your facilitator for tonight's meeting. And in that 6
role I'll try to help all of you to have a productive 7
meeting. And I want to welcome you all to the NRC 8
public meeting.
9 NRC is for the United States Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission. And we're going to try not to 11 use many acronyms at all tonight, but one you are 12 going to hear is NRC, for Nuclear Regulatory 13 Commission. You're also going to hear NEPA, that's 14 National Environmental Policy Act. And you're also 15 going to hear EIS, that stands for Environmental 16 Impact Statement.
17 And the meeting tonight is about the NRC's 18 environmental review process to help the NRC to decide 19 whether to grant a license to the Holtec International 20 Company to construct and operate an interim spent fuel 21 storage site in Lea County, New Mexico.
22 And the NRC staff is here, and I'll 23 introduce them in a few minutes. The NRC staff is 24 here tonight to explain its license application review 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 process to you. Not only the environmental review, 1
but the safety review. Those are the two major 2
components of the NRC review process.
3 And after the NRC gives its presentations, 4
gives its information to you, then the NRC wants to 5
listen to your comments and your recommendations on 6
something called the scope of the EIS. And the scope 7
is a very simple concept. It's what should the NRC 8
consider in putting together the Environmental Impact 9
Statement, the EIS. What issues doesn't it have to 10 consider?
11 And that's where they're asking advice 12 from all of you. And it'll be clear, after their 13 presentations, what that's all about.
14 Now, your comments tonight are going to be 15 part of a formal record. We have Bruce Carlson right 16 here, he's our court reporter. He's taking a 17 transcript of the meeting tonight of all your 18 comments, of the NRC presentations. And that will be 19 publicly available to all of you within two to three 20 weeks, I think.
21 Now, I have a list of names of people who 22 want to comment tonight, and we got those basically 23 from the blue cards that people filled in when they 24 come in, came into the meeting. And I'm going to call 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 your name, and I'll ask you to join me up here at the 1
podium, and then we'll listen to your comment.
2 And I'll try to call four names at a time 3
so that you're prepared; you know when you're going to 4
come up next to comment. But because we have so many 5
speakers tonight, and that's really totally gratifying 6
that we have so many people coming out to talk to us, 7
but because we have so many, I'm setting a four-minute 8
time limit for each comment.
9 Fortunately, you can amplify on your 10 comment. You can amplify on anything you heard here 11 tonight in a written comment to the NRC. And they'll 12 be telling you how you do that.
13 And one of the useful things about these 14 meetings is not only for the NRC to hear your comment, 15 but you may hear other people in the audience say 16 something that'll make you think about, you know what, 17 I want to comment on that also. So even though it's 18 four minutes, you're going to hear a lot of useful 19 comments.
20 Now, the NRC staff is here tonight to 21 listen carefully to what you have to say. They're not 22 going to be responding to any of your comments, not 23 going to be responding to any questions that you have 24 in your comments. But they will evaluate your 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 comments and your questions when they prepare the 1
draft Environmental Impact Statement.
2 We do have some representatives of your, 3
the staff of your elected congressional 4
representatives. We have Jim Dumont, Jim. It's Jim 5
Dumont, who's with Senator Heinrich. And Brian Lee, 6
who's with Congressman Lujan. Brian, there's Brian 7
right back there. And thank the Representative and 8
the Senator for having you come here tonight.
9 There are also representatives of the 10 license applicant here tonight, Holtec International.
11 They'll be here after the meeting to talk with you if 12 you have any questions for them. And just let me 13 introduce Joy Russell from Holtec, right back there.
14 Let me introduce the NRC staff. First 15 we're going to hear from Cinthya Roman, Cinthya. And 16 Cinthya's the Chief of the Environmental Review Branch 17 in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 18 Safeguards. And she's going to open the meeting up 19 for us.
20 Then we're going to hear from Jill 21 Caverly. Jill is the Project Manager for the 22 Environmental review of the Holtec license 23 application. And you're going to hear a lot of 24 information from her.
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7 We also have Brian Smith here. He 1
shouldn't look relaxed because he was, his flight was 2
delayed, and then he had a flat tire coming here. But 3
he looks relaxed, okay. But Brian is the, he's our 4
senior NRC official. He's the Deputy Director of the 5
division where Cinthya's branch and Jill's branch is, 6
and it's the Division of Fuel Cycle Safeguards and 7
Environmental Review. So those are our three 8
speakers.
9 But let me introduce quickly a few others who 10 are here. We have Jose Cuadrado, who's right here.
11 Now, Jose's the Project Manager for the safety review 12 of the Holtec license application. And we have Jose's 13 Branch Chief, John McKirgan, here, and that's the 14 branch, he's Chief of the Spent Fuel Licensing Branch.
15 Now we also have Dave McIntyre back there, 16 he's from our Office of Public Affairs in Rockville, 17 Maryland. And we have Angel Moreno. Angel is right 18 back there, he's from our Office of Congressional 19 Affairs.
20 And a final point is just let's extend 21 courtesy to everybody. You may hear comments that 22 don't agree with your own, but let's respect the 23 person giving them. And I have to say, I have to 24 emphasize, we've done three meetings on this subject 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 in New Mexico, and we've had lots of people there.
1 And at every one of those meetings, people were very 2
courteous. So I know we're going to continue that.
3 But we did have a little kerfuffle at the 4
end of the Carlsbad meeting about timekeeping. So 5
tonight we have official timekeepers, rather than 6
unofficial timekeepers like myself. We have an 7
official timekeeper, Miriam Juckett, okay.
8 We're setting a four-minute limit, as I 9
said, for comment. And Miriam is going to hold up a 10 sign when you have one minute left, okay. And then 11 when your four minutes are up, she's going to hold up 12 that red sign.
13 Now, since we're doing the timekeeping, 14 we're going to have to be a little bit more 15 disciplined. When that time is up, I'm going to have 16 to ask you to stop and we're going to call the next 17 person up. So plan accordingly for your comments so 18 that you can get it all in in four minutes. If you 19 don't get it all in in four minutes, then send in a 20 written comment.
21 And with that, one other last important 22 thing is that there's a little sign here that says 23 restroom, well, it's because they're back there, if 24 you need to know. Okay, with that, Cinthya.
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9 MS. ROMAN: Can you hear me? Can you hear 1
me now? Can you hear me? First I want to say a 2
couple of things in Spanish.
3 (Foreign language spoken.)
4 MS. ROMAN: Good evening. As Chip 5
mentioned, the staff in my branch will be working on 6
the environmental review for the Holtec license 7
application. And our main goal today is to hear from 8
you, so I am going to be very brief.
9 First, I want to give you a very quick 10 overview of what NRC does, and our role in regulating 11 the Holtec project. Our agency is charged by federal 12 law to be the nation's only regulator of commercial 13 nuclear materials, independently ensuring these 14 materials are used, handled, and stored safely and 15 securely.
16 Our mission is to protect public health 17 and safety, promote the common defense and security, 18 and protect the environment by regulating the civilian 19 use of radioactive materials. To accomplish our 20 mission, we carefully review each license application 21 we receive before making a decision on whether or not 22 to grant an applicant's request. Next slide.
23 The NRC regulates the operation of 99 24 nuclear power reactors that generate about 20% of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 electricity in the United States. We also regulate 1
civilian use of nuclear materials, research reactors 2
at university, transportation of nuclear materials, 3
and storage and their disposal.
4 NRC strives to be open and transparent in 5
its review. As such, stakeholders will have many 6
opportunities to participate in public meetings on 7
environmental and safety issues. This scoping meeting 8
is one of those opportunities. Next slide.
9 So, what is the NRC role regarding the 10 Holtec proposed facility? As an independent 11 regulator, the NRC determines whether it's safe to 12 build and operate a storage facility at the proposed 13 site. The NRC does not promote or build any nuclear 14 facility. We do not own or operate the facilities.
15 Our mission and our regulations are designed to 16 protect both the public, workers, and the environment, 17 as I mentioned earlier.
18 Holtec is applying for a license to store 19 waste. Holtec is not asking NRC for permission to 20 reprocess or generate more nuclear waste. NRC does 21 not select the location for the storage facility; we 22 just evaluate the impacts of building and operating 23 the facility at the location proposed by the licensee.
24 As we will explain later in these 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 presentations, the results of our environmental review 1
will be documented in an Environmental Impact 2
Statement, which is a public document. This analysis, 3
along with other factors, will form the basis for the 4
staff decision on whether to issue a license or not.
5 This concludes my remarks. And now Jill 6
Caverly will provide additional information about the 7
environmental review process. Thank you.
8 MS. CAVERLY: Hello, I'm Jill Caverly, and 9
I'm going to be acting as the Environmental Project 10 Manager for this project.
11 The next few slides are going to be 12 specific to the Holtec review. Holtec has applied for 13 a license to construct and operate a storage facility 14 under 10 CFR Part 72, the NRC's regulations governing 15 the storage of spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related, 16 greater than Class C waste.
17 So if granted, Holtec would receive a 40-18 year license to construct and operate the consolidated 19 interim storage facility. The current application 20 before the NRC requests construction and operation of 21 only the first phase of up to 20 planned phases. In 22 the current application, Holtec is requesting storage 23 of up to 500 canisters of spent nuclear fuel.
24 The spent fuel would come from shut-down 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 and operating nuclear power plants from around the 1
country. Holtec anticipates applying for up to 20 2
phases of construction and operation of 500 canisters 3
of spent nuclear fuel each, for a total of 10,000 4
canisters of spent fuel storage.
5 These additional phases would require 6
separate applications from Holtec and would be subject 7
to their own safety and environmental reviews. The 8
Environmental Report provides information on the full 9
build-out of the site for 10,000 canisters. Next 10 slide.
11 So this slide shows the approximate 12 location of the proposed consolidated interim storage 13 facility in southeastern New Mexico. And as you can 14
- see, the proposed facility would be located 15 approximately halfway between the cities of Carlsbad 16 and Hobbs in Lea County. Next slide.
17 Holtec plans to use a HI-STORM UMAX system 18 for the storage of the spent fuel. HI-STORM UMAX 19 stands for the Holtec International storage module 20 underground maximum capacity and is an NRC-certified 21 design, which means that we have evaluated it and 22 determined that it meets NRC regulations and can 23 safely store spent fuel.
24 This system is a dry, in-ground, spent 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 fuel storage system. Each of the modules holds one 1
canister of spent fuel, and Holtec has applied for 2
storage of 500 canisters of spent fuel. The 3
canisters' transfer facilities would be below ground.
4 This is a low profile design, and this is a conceptual 5
drawing from the application. Next slide.
6 So this a flow chart that provides an 7
overview of the license application review process, 8
which is generally described as a three-parallel-9 phrase process. After the application is submitted, 10 the NRC conducts an acceptance review to determine if 11 the application has sufficient enough information to 12 begin a detailed technical review. If so, NRC 13 documents the application, and that begins the safety 14 and environmental review paths.
15 From a safety standpoint, we work through 16 a separate review to decide if a license should be 17 issued. The results of the safety review phase is a 18 Safety Evaluation Report. This is graphically 19 represented on the left column of the flow chart, or 20 the steps in orange.
21 The environmental review results in an 22 Environmental Impact Statement, which describes the 23 impact on the environment of the proposed project. On 24 the right-hand side, you'll see the adjudicatory 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 hearings. That blue box on the figure refers to the 1
opportunity for the public to request a hearing on the 2
application.
3 These hearings would be held if a petition 4
to intervene was granted. So the results of these 5
three processes, a hearing if granted, the results of 6
an environmental review documented in an Environmental 7
Impact Statement, and the safety review, documented in 8
a Safety Evaluation Report, will factor into NRC's 9
final decision on whether or not to grant the license 10 to Holtec for the storage facility.
11 It's important to note that tonight's 12 focus will be on the environmental review process. So 13 this diagram outlines the environmental review in more 14 detail, or the middle column of the previous slide.
15 The opportunities for public involvement are 16 highlighted in light blue.
17 The NRC starts the environmental review by 18 publishing a notice of intent to inform the public of 19 our plan to prepare an EIS and conduct the scoping 20 process. The light blue box on the right side 21 identifies the current scoping process, of which this 22 meeting is included.
23 The purpose of this phase is to gather 24 more information to use to help us prepare the EIS.
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15 Comments gathered from this meeting, as well as many 1
other information collections, will be independently 2
evaluated for impacts of this particular project on 3
the environment.
4 We will document your comments today in 5
this meeting transcript. The public can also provide 6
written comments through the end of the scoping 7
period.
8 It's important to know that we analyze the 9
information gathered, we'll develop an EIS, and issue 10 it for public comment. At that time, we will again 11 invite the public's comment on the draft Environmental 12 Impact Statement, and that's the lower blue box on the 13 left side. At that time, we will schedule a meeting 14 to hear your comments on the draft EIS. NRC will 15 evaluate those comments and consider modifying the 16 draft EIS before issuing a final EIS.
17 The final EIS and the results of the 18 safety review, the Safety Evaluation Report, will 19 contribute to NRC's final decision on the application.
20 Next slide, please.
21 So our environmental review is based on 22 the requirements of the National Environmental Policy 23 Act, or NEPA. NEPA requires federal agencies to apply 24 a systematic approach to evaluate the impacts of its 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 actions on the environment. NRC will prepare the EIS 1
in accordance with those regulations. Next slide, 2
please.
3 This is a graphical representation of the 4
types and sources of information that NRC gathers when 5
preparing the EIS. We will conduct a site visit and 6
meet with local and state officials and other federal 7
agencies and tribes.
8 We are currently gathering information for 9
scoping to help us determine which issues should be 10 considered in our review. We also expect to request 11 additional information from Holtec following the 12 completion of these activities. Next slide.
13 The NRC will gather information on a wide 14 range of topics related to the environmental issues.
15 This slide shows many of the resource areas that we 16 will consider in our Environmental Impact Statement.
17 We typically include all of these in our impact 18 statement. Okay, next slide. Thanks.
19 This slide is a high-level timeline of our 20 anticipated environmental review. The stepwise 21 approach meets our responsibilities under the National 22 Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
23 We started the review with a notice of 24 intent to conduct scoping and prepare an EIS, and that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 started a 60-day scoping period. The NRC has since 1
received several requests to expand the scoping period 2
and did so. The revised scoping period will end on 3
July 30. We will continue to gather and analyze 4
information related to the review and develop and 5
publish a draft EIS.
6 At that point, we'll publish a notice of 7
availability that starts at least a 45-day period for 8
the public and other agencies to comment on the draft 9
EIS. Those comments, like I said earlier, will be 10 addressed, and analysis adjusted if necessary. Next 11 slide.
12 So the scoping process helps the NRC to 13 determine the scope of the EIS and identify 14 significant issues to be analyzed in depth. It also 15 identifies and eliminates issues which are not 16 significant.
- Finally, it identifies other 17 environmental reviews and consultation requirements 18 related to the proposed action. Next slide.
19 The NRC is requesting information and 20 input specific to the proposed facility regarding what 21 should be included or excluded from the scope of the 22 EIS. Some examples of the information NRC is 23 requesting are, are the local projects that are being 24 planned -- are there local projects that are being 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 planned or developed nearby? Have you identified any 1
wildlife or habitat that should be considered?
2 Are there cultural resources that should 3
be considered in the evaluation? Are there particular 4
populations nearby that should be considered? Are 5
there unique characteristics of the project site or 6
local communities that NRC should consider in its 7
evaluation? Next slide.
8 There are several ways you can submit 9
comments on the scope of the EIS. You may present 10 your comments orally or in writing at this public 11 meeting. You may submit comments through the 12 regulations.gov website by searching for the docket ID 13 listed here, and I'll say it for the record, NRC-2018-14 0052.
15 You also may mail comments to the address 16 on the slide. You may also email your comments to the 17 address listed on this slide. So we've extended the 18 scoping period until July 30, so please, if you choose 19 to provide comments in one of these four ways, please 20 do so by July 30. Next slide.
21 So for additional information on this 22 application and review, you can access many different 23 publications, including the federal rulemaking 24 website, NRC's public document room, and through the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 NRC's project-specific website for the Holtec 1
application, and that's listed on the slide here.
2 We've also asked that the public libraries 3
in Hobbs, Carlsbad, and Roswell to hold a copy of the 4
Environmental Report for your review. If you want to 5
be on our mailing list, please make sure that your 6
name and your email was provided to one of the NRC 7
staff in the back of the room. This is one way to 8
ensure that you'll be notified of upcoming meetings 9
and the issuance of the draft and final EIS.
10 So at the bottom of this slide are the NRC 11 points of contact, it's Jose and myself. Feel free to 12 contact us if you have any further questions. Please 13 remember to provide all those comments by July 30.
14 I'm going to turn it over to Brian for some closing 15 remarks.
16 MR. SMITH: Good evening, everyone.
17 Welcome, and thank you attending our public scoping 18 meeting tonight. We look forward to receiving your 19 comments. My name's Brian Smith, I'm the Deputy 20 Director of the Division of Fuel Cycle Safety, 21 Safeguards, and Environmental Review at NRC's 22 Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.
23 My division has the responsibility for 24 leading this Environmental Impact Statement review, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 and it's a responsibility that we take very seriously.
1 I know there's those of you in the 2
audience who may be supportive of the project and 3
those of you that may be against the project tonight.
4 We want to hear from both sides. But most 5
importantly, we want to hear from you what you think 6
is most important for us to review as part of our 7
Environmental Impact Statement review.
8 We treat all the comments the same, 9
whether submitted by one person or many. And as we 10 complete our Environmental Impact statement, we will 11 consider every comment that we've received.
12 Through the last few public scoping 13 meetings, there was a consent-based process that was 14 brought up by several commenters. I want to provide 15 a little bit of clarification on that. This was a DOE 16 initiative that they started a while back, and then 17 subsequently ended.
18 The NRC does not follow a consent-based 19 licensing process. The way the NRC process works is 20 we establish the regulations that applicants have to 21 meet. The applicants then choose a site and then 22 prepare a license application that is submitted to the 23 NRC for review. We do our review, safety, security, 24 environmental review. And if the applicant satisfies 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 all of our regulations, we then issue a license.
1 So once again, we look forward to hearing 2
your comments tonight. And with that, I'll turn it 3
over to chip.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you 5
all for that clear explanation of the process. Was 6
that clear to everybody, how the NRC process works?
7 Okay, well we're going to go to public comment now, 8
and I'll ask you to come up here. And we have a State 9
of New Mexico representative with us tonight, 10 Stephanie Garcia Richard. And I'm going to ask 11 Representative Richard to come up. Then we're going 12 to go to Mr. Norman Patrick Brown, Mervyn Tilden, and 13 then Jonathan Perry. So this is Representative 14 Richard.
15 REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD: (Native language 16 spoken.) Good evening, everyone. (Native language 17 spoken.) My name is Stephanie Garcia Richard. I 18 represent Los Alamos, so I am very familiar with the 19 NRC, with the process that we are considering here 20 this evening.
21 I am very gratified to see so many people 22 in attendance, because truly, this is a matter of 23 national importance that we are here to speak about 24 this evening. And so I'm happy to see so many New 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 Mexicans, so many local people here to give their 1
comments on this process.
2 It's my job in the state legislature to 3
represent my people and their concerns about safety.
4 And so that's the capacity that I'm here this evening.
5 I'm here to represent the people that I represent in 6
New Mexico and some of the concerns and health and 7
safety, environmental concerns that they have shared 8
with me with you all here this evening.
9 And I would really urge the NRC to take 10 into account the folks that are going to speak to you 11 tonight, because they have history of a long legacy of 12 nuclear matters. They live with a legacy uranium here 13 in this community, as we do in Los Alamos. We live 14 with the legacy storage of defense waste. And so I 15 really hope that you take into account their comments.
16 I learned on Friday, we had a legislative 17 hearing about this same matter, and I learned that 18 there was site that was approved in Utah over the 19 objections of the public there. And so I really hope 20 that, you know, that that does not become the case 21 here. Because I know that a lot of these scoping 22 meetings have had much opposition.
23 And so I hope that we are not going to 24 approve a license over the objections of New Mexicans.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 The site in Utah has actually not even been used 1
because there's so much opposition that they are 2
actually not even granting access to it or approving 3
the lease to access it.
4 So some of the concerns I have been sent 5
here to share with you this evening, these come from 6
about seven of my Senate colleagues and about 21 of my 7
House colleagues, and they include analysis of the 8
transportation routes that would be utilized, the 9
state permits that have been requested and what 10 permits would be required for this facility.
11 The potential liability to the state and 12 financial assurances to New Mexico. Emergency 13 preparedness and need for equipment and training.
14 Water contamination risks. Seismic concerns. The 15 stability and suitability of the site. Contamination 16 risks due to the oil, gas, dairy, ranching, and other 17 industry within the area that we are speaking of.
18 Longevity and viability of the 19 transportation of the storage casks and canisters, and 20 how damage or cracked waste containers would be 21 handled at the facility if there is indeed going to be 22 no hot cell or that kind of facility to care for these 23 casks should they rupture.
24 So that is my comment this evening. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 very much appreciate being included, and I look 1
forward to listening to the rest of the local 2
community and hearing their comments. Thank you very 3
much.
4 MR.
CAMERON:
Thank
- you, thank 5
Representative Richard. Mr. Brown. Then we'll go to 6
Mervyn Tilden and then Jonathan Perry. This is Mr.
7 Brown, Norman Patrick Brown.
8 MR. BROWN: I'd like to say good evening.
9 My name is Norman Patrick Brown, I'm a co-founder of 10 one of the largest grassroots organizations, the Diné 11 Bidziil Coalition, which means the people's strength.
12 I've been very honored over my lifetime to 13 speak on behalf of my grassroots community. I was 14 asked by Grandma to come here to speak my truth and to 15 speak her truths. As you know, we have suffered the 16 horrible uranium legacy. We call these crimes against 17 humanity. Earlier, I saw your logo saying that you 18 protect the environment and the people.
19 We believe that the Nuclear Regulatory 20 Commission, through factual history, their collusion 21 with energy corporations that come out to our land.
22 You are 70 years late in reaffirming your trust 23 responsibility to -- you have failed in your trust 24 responsibility to my people.
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25 Because of your failure, we have lost 1
thousands of our men. I'm speaking on behalf of my 2
mothers, my aunties, my sisters, my daughters and 3
nieces who've lost their fathers, their grandfathers, 4
their uncles and their brothers to uranium mining.
5 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew the effects of 6
uranium and they still allowed our Navajo men into 7
those mines.
8 So I'm here to remind you we are at the 9
front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. How are you 10 going to fix the DNA, the radioactive DNA in our DNA?
11 How are you going to fix the air and the water and the 12 land? There's a historical legacy here that you must 13 examine. You all are going to leave here. We are 14 stuck here.
15 I want you to listen to my people when 16 they come here and they tell you what is happening to 17 them and what has happened to them, and what is going 18 to happen to us in the future. There is no safe way 19 to store uranium. There is no safe way.
20 It's hard to
- believe, under this 21 administration, the Trump Administration, with all the 22 environmental rollbacks and the hard-earned fight and 23 struggle for these laws that we have now that protect 24 the land and environment. I just want to remind you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 that you have failed. If the Navajo nation or other 1
indigenous nations asks you not to transport this 2
garbage across our lands, will you adhere to them?
3 We made a treaty. In that treaty, you 4
promised us certain things, and you guys have failed.
5 I've been to dozens of scoping meetings over my 6
lifetime, US Forest Service, sacred sites issues, 7
uranium issues, the Rica issues. And each time, the 8
NRC has failed to install and has failed to initiate 9
our concerns into law. You and the uranium companies 10 to my people, to my elders, are one and the same.
11 MR. CAMERON: And Mr. Brown, I'm going to 12 have to ask you to --
13 MR. BROWN: I just want to say thank you.
14 I hope you understand this anger that we have. We are 15 the poorest of the poor. But we are the rich 16 guardians of this land. So I want you to acknowledge 17 that when you leave here. You're leaving, we're still 18 here.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you 20 very much, Mr. Brown. Thank you.
21 And Mr. Tilden, Mervyn Tilden is up next, 22 and then we'll go to Jonathan Perry.
23 MR. TILDEN: Good evening, everyone, I 24 want to thank everyone here involved that made this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 meeting possible. I want to point out one thing in 1
advance, the incorrect name that has been used for me.
2 My name is Mervyn Tilden, not Marvin.
3 This is a fact in everything that the NRC 4
or any uranium mining extraction company that comes 5
out to our land had been guilty of, and that's 6
providing misinformation from the outset. Again, my 7
name is Mervyn Tilden, I am a resident of Church Rock.
8 I'm also living here temporarily in Gallup.
9 I want to address several things that talk 10 about the safety or the transportation of nuclear 11 waste and nuclear, to the nuclear storage. The first 12 one is that there is no safe --
13 MR. CAMERON: And can you just back a 14 little bit off from the mic so they can hear you.
15 MR. TILDEN: Okay, sorry. There is no 16 safe transport or storage of nuclear waste. I 17 represent Eastern Navajo Dine against uranium mining, 18 which is comprised of 23 Navajo chapters on the 19 Eastern Navajo Agency, which is in the part of the 20 Four Corners Area otherwise known as the National 21 Sacrifice Zone.
22 I would like to know what kind of meetings 23 are going to be held in the Arizona chapters along the 24 I-40 route, the Navajo chapters. Are there going to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 be public meetings? This is a concern, safety, in 1
regards to the storage factor.
2 There was an incident in February 2014 3
where a single drum burst at the waste isolation pilot 4
project plant. And the chief soulistic was cat 5
litter, which is used to absorb liquid nuclear waste.
6 The canister was, it exploded. So what kind of safety 7
factors are going to be used for the transfer?
8 Everything that I've been reading, nuclear 9
transportation has gone through 43 states in the 10 United States. The Department of Transportation 11 regulates this. How is this regulations, these 12 regulations, being given to the Navajo people along 13 the way, beginning from -- oh, and also the Laguna of 14 Agua Pueblo People, what is their involvement?
15 But along the way, there are chapters that 16 are also going to be affected. And this goes back to 17 the fact that in July 16, 1979, there was the nation's 18 largest nuclear accident, which spilled radioactive 19 waste into the Rio Puerco that went down the Rio 20 Puerco past the Navajo chapters along the way. And 21 nothing was ever done for cleanup. Nothing was ever 22 done for cleanup in the Church Rock and Crownpoint 23 areas.
24 We have not heard anything from the NRC or 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 the State of New Mexico or any other agencies 1
regarding cleanup or reclamation of the mines that are 2
already there. So what's going to happen if there is 3
an accident along the way?
4 In the like one minute left, I want to 5
point out the fact that there needs to be inter-6 government relations with the Navajo Nation, the 7
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and any other tribe.
8 This includes public record inspections, protections 9
against radioactive waste spills, and the fact that 10 the nuclear industry is on a decline.
11 Also, the notice for this meeting here was 12 in the Gallup Sun, dated May 18. And also the 13 deadline of that notice was, to preregister, was May 14
- 18. So you're not giving them enough time, Nuclear 15 Regulatory Commission or anybody else involved in 16 promoting this deadly transport of nuclear waste.
17 The half-life of nuclear, of uranium-238 18 isotope is 4.5 billion years. In human terms, this is 19 forever. We've got to be careful, not only from the 20 extraction of the uranium but for the transport to the 21 storage. Thank you.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 23 Mervyn, thank you very much. And is Jonathan? Here 24 comes Jonathan Perry, he's coming up. And then we're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 going to go to Kimberly Wahpepah, Be Sargent, Lillie 1
Lane, and Rosemarie Cecchini.
2 MR. PERRY: Good evening, everyone.
3 (Native language spoken.) It's good to see everyone 4
here. I'd like to make a few comments. First off, 5
I'm very disappointed in the presentation, coming into 6
our area here. It would be much more courteous to 7
have translation, verbal translation for my people 8
here who don't really understand the full technical 9
terms of the presentation.
10 Number two, the presentation of our people 11 and how we conduct our business, we would like to be 12 respected. And four minutes is not long enough for us 13 to present and also to identify ourselves as people, 14 as Dine.
15 Now, I am a Council delegate for Eastern 16 Navajo Agency, I represent eight chapters. And I am 17 strictly, and I have always been against anything 18 regarding nuclear, nuclear development. The reason 19 being is that we have a long history here, as stated 20 by some of my people earlier, that we have many 21 generations are going to be impacted.
22 Today I was very disappointed to hear that 23 our Navajo Nation Government, Navajo EPA, was told not 24 to have these discussions with the Council delegates.
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31 Why is the federal government, why is NRC dictating to 1
the Navajo Nation how we can have these discussions?
2 That is a major disappointment.
3 So I'm asking my congressional 4
representatives and those with the state and the 5
federal level, please allow the Navajo Nation 6
Government to have these discussions internally, as 7
well as with our communities. It is very important.
8 Now, in terms of providing comments on 9
this particular project, we don't even know what the 10 project is specifically. There has been no detailed 11 information on this given to my community members.
12 Sure, we got the process at NRC, but how can we make 13 adequate comments if we don't even know what the full 14 extent of the project is going to be? That needs to 15 be shared.
16 Now, I ask for respect for the Navajo 17 Nation because of our laws, of course. That we have 18 a Radioactive and Related Substance, Equipment, 19 Vehicles and Person and Materials Transportation Act 20 of 2012. Different routes that will be used, 21 different transportation forms will be used to 22 transport these things to the location. And that's 23 going to be a big question as to the emergency 24 response.
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32 But also, can our infrastructure, of the 1
state, can we handle these type of transportation?
2 No, we are very, very inadequately set up in terms of 3
our railway, in terms of highways. It's going to be 4
a very dangerous thing to undertake, and I ask for you 5
to understand that.
6 The other one is the United States is part 7
of the Organization of American States, which adopted 8
the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous 9
Peoples on June 15, 2016. And there, there's two 10 articles I want to point out. The first article is 11 the right to protection of a healthy environment.
12 Indigenous peoples are entitled to be 13 protected against the introduction of and abandonment, 14 expiration, transit, and discriminate use or deposit 15 of any harmful substance that could be negatively 16 affect the indigenous communities, lands, territories, 17 and resources.
18 The second one is Article 12, Indigenous 19 law and jurisdiction. The indigenous law and legal 20 system shall be recognized and respected by the 21 national and regional, international legal systems.
22 Again, this is where I ask that we, as a 23 Navajo Nation, be allowed to have our indigenous laws 24 and jurisdictions respected, not only written laws, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 but our traditional law, the Navajo fundamental law 1
that exists that connects us to our land, to air, and 2
to our people, no matter where it's at on the face of 3
the Earth, it's still our mother. We have to respect 4
it and we have to protect her.
5 So I'm used to time limits, so I'm going 6
to say thank you for hearing my comments. But in 7
respect to my colleagues on the Council, especially at 8
Eastern, we do oppose any type of nuclear development.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Mr.
11 Perry. Okay, Kimberly, and then we'll go to Be 12 Sargent, Lillie Lane, and Rose Marie Cecchini.
13 MS. WAHPEPAH: (Native language spoken.)
14 Welcome. First of all, I've been born and raised 15 here. I was born west of Gallup, Granulito. That's 16 a tribal land. First of all, I would ask that the NRC 17 take accountability for the oil and gas, because 18 Standing Rock has happened. Who is going to protect 19 our Indian people? Who is going to stand up for us?
20 Because there's no law. There's police 21 officers across the street, and there's no one to 22 protect us here. A lot of our elders have mental 23 problems because of the uranium. There's no one to 24 help them, no doctors or nurses, but yet you guys 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 still come over here wanting to do this in a good way, 1
but really it's not solving nothing.
2 As being indigenous, it's very hard. We 3
live in poverty. Some of us have no transportation in 4
rural areas. But yet, we have no say in our own land.
5 And it's up to us to preserve the land as who we are.
6 We are not something as costumes, nor we're not a 7
joke. Nor we don't, we're not, we're mocked and we 8
shouldn't be discriminated against. We are not 9
puppets, we're not guinea pigs. We are human beings, 10 we have rights too.
11 And since this uranium thing has happened, 12 this has been going on since 1970 and nothing has been 13 resolved. And we sit here on our sacred lands trying 14 to plea for help throughout the corporations that are 15 coming just to make money off our lands. I don't 16 appreciate it, because most of them are dying.
17 At the same time, there's no medicine to 18 help those that are affected by uranium. Our Earth is 19 dying every day because of pollution, of gas. At the 20 same time, we have corporations coming here making 21 money off of our land and on sacred sites. We have 22 Bear Ears also to protect also.
23 And at the same time, it should not be 24 messed with, it should not be touched. Our land 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 should not be touched. Because many historical trauma 1
has been through us as we walk through this historic, 2
here on 66, the Long Walk. Also, our missing and 3
murdered have been affected by these oil camps, by the 4
man camps. They've been raped, sex trafficking also 5
with the oil companies. And much more needs to be 6
done.
7 So I ask all the legislature and their 8
leaders of New Mexico to help our people right now.
9 And at the same time, I ask for solidarity for our 10 community right now. Thank you.
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, thank 12 you. And Be, Be Sargent.
13 MS. SARGENT: So here we are again, 14 listening to the eloquence of ourselves. You know, 15 those sausages that they showed in the beginning, that 16 we're all going to follow these sausages, this 17 person's going to ask this person. And it's all going 18 to be fair in the end. It's absolute bullshit and we 19 all know it.
20 These companies, which never should have 21 been started in the first place, can't take care of 22 their own shit and they're bringing it here. It only 23 encourages other companies to start and be polluters.
24 The whole thing is so fucking bad, I want to scream.
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36 MR. CAMERON: Lillie Lane. This is Lillie 1
Lane.
2 MS. LANE: (Native language spoken.)
3 That's my introduction in Navajo. Navajo people, we 4
have clans, and that's why we're all connected. And 5
a lot of us native people in this audience, we 6
consider each other relatives. And so we are the 7
first, we are the first people on this continent.
8 And we have traditions, beliefs, songs, 9
prayers that connect us to places within where we 10 live. And here in the Southwest, we, the Southwest is 11 a native land to maybe 30 tribes or so. And so, and 12 we're the ones that have, like my brothers and sisters 13 talked before me, we're the ones that paid for liberty 14 in the United States.
15 And so Navajo people, uranium was mined on 16 lands. Those uranium, that uranium was used to build 17 bombs for the wars. And then Navajo people, they used 18 our language in the South Pacific. They used the 19 Navajo language to win the war against the Japanese.
20 And then, but our people died. Our people died in the 21 communities where there are a concentrations of 22 uranium mines.
23 And this is Monument Valley, these are 24 beautiful places. Cove, Arizona, Church Rock, New 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 Mexico, and Cameron, Arizona. These are where all the 1
uranium mines are. And they did not get cleaned up.
2 All the companies fled. They made their money. They 3
fled our beautiful people, our lands. And then now 4
we're dealing the sickness, and we're also dealing 5
with areas that are not safe for our people.
6 And so in my eight-to-five job for the 7
Navajo Nation, I work with uranium mines, I work with 8
communities to try to clean up these mines. And in 9
this, the president's, President Russell Begaye's 10 administration, they assigned me to be on the Tribal 11 Caucus for radioactive transport and radioactive 12 materials transport.
13 And so on behalf of the Navajo Nation, and 14 on behalf of those tribes who do not have a 15 representative, I am a member to the Tribal Caucus for 16 these issues that are being discussed tonight. And 17 so, and that covers my job. What I've learned covers 18 the whole lifetime of uranium, from extraction to 19 processing to now the spent nuclear fuel.
20 And so it's a new subject for me, but I'm 21 passionate about the work that I have done earlier, 22 and that's to advocate for the cleanup of over 500 23 uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. And this is 24 throughout the entire, the Nation. And so thank you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 for listening to me. (Native language spoken.)
1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you, Lillie 2
Lane, thank you. And this is Rose Marie Cecchini.
3 MS. CECCHINI: Good evening, everyone, I'm 4
Rose Marie Cecchini. I'm a Maryknoll Sister, and I'm 5
coordinating the Office of Life, Peace, Justice, 6
Creation Stewardship, under the auspices of Catholic 7
Charities of Gallup Diocese.
8 As concerned people of faith in 9
communities of New Mexico, we want our voices heard 10 regarding this Holtec Environmental Report to bring 11 100,000 metric tons of spent fuel, high-level 12 radioactive waste from nuclear power plants from 13 around our country to southeast New Mexico.
14 In light of our covenant relationship with 15 our creator, to be responsible stewards of God's gift 16 intended for the life and wellbeing of the entire 17 community of light, we strongly oppose plans to make 18 New Mexico a national radioactive waste dumping 19 ground, or to transporting up to 10,000 canisters of 20 highly radioactive waste, irresponsibly putting at 21 risk the lives, health, and environment of thousands 22 of communities throughout our country.
23 There are
- moral, ethical, and 24 environmental justice principles that must be included 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 in all decision making that threatens human life, 1
communities, wildlife, the environment that sustains 2
us all. We should not have to risk the death-dealing 3
contamination of our land, aquifers, air, the health 4
of vegetation, wildlife, livestock, endangering 5
present and future generations in our country.
6 This Holtec proposal is contrary to 7
current law. Current law only allows the US 8
Department of Energy to take title to commercial spent 9
fuel, quote, Following commencement of operation of a 10 repository, unquote, or at a DOE owned and operated, 11 monitored, retrievable storage facility.
12 The Holtec site meets neither requirement, 13 as it is a private facility. The Holtec plan is an 14 ill-fated experiment, a temporary stopgap measure that 15 contributes nothing toward a long-term strategy for 16 storing our nation's spent nuclear fuel and high-level 17 radioactive waste in a way that will protect public 18 safety and national security, that will preserve our 19 natural resources and environment.
20 A stopgap, temporary plan is not a 21 solution to the real challenge. It does not provide 22 the required long-term solution of verifiably safe, 23 permanent storage of lethal radioactive waste from the 24 over 99 nuclear power plants in the US.
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40 Nuclear waste should be stored in 1
hardened, secure facilities at or near nuclear sites, 2
radioactive, radiation sites until a permanent, 3
scientifically
- proven, publicly acceptable and 4
ethically chosen waste solution is implemented.
5 Ending the generation of nuclear waste is also 6
essential in addressing the challenge.
7 The environment report is inadequate and 8
incomplete because it does not analyze the impact of 9
the spent fuel being left at the Holtec site 10 indefinitely. Holtec is requesting from NRC a 40-year 11 license to store the waste in Lea County, with the 12 opportunity to extend the license for 120 years.
13 But Holtec stated in its license 14 application that the waste could be stored there for 15 300 years. More alternatives need to be analyzed.
16 Keeping the spent fuel cask in some form of hardened 17 onsite storage on the reactor sites must be analyzed.
18 The alternative of consolidated storage 19 being done at an existing licensed independent spent 20 fuel storage facility also must be analyzed. So we 21 must look at the 34 closed, shut-down nuclear power 22 plants with sizable territory and highly guarded as 23 sites for possible permanent storage. Thank you.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 and we're going to go to Roger Lewis next, here's 1
Roger. And then we're going to go to Oray and Casey, 2
Dennis Romero, and then Ed Mayer.
3 MR. LEWIS: Good evening everybody. My 4
name is Roger Lewis, I live up here near the impacted 5
area where all your mines work. Northeast Church Rock 6
area.
7 And let me go back. When I was in the 8
Military I served in a unit with the Persian Missile 9
that had a nuclear armament.
10 And it had a warhead that a nuclear, maybe 11 like 25 yield megaton and you could actually touch it.
12 And I think it was emitting radiation, we didn't know 13 about it.
14 Then when I came back I got hired by 15 United Nuclear Corporation and I worked for them for 16 about maybe 14 years. And I know how to extract the 17 uranium away from grinding all the way to packaging 18 and drying. I knew every step of the way, all the way 19 across. I knew how to do it. We knew how to do it.
20 And a lot of our people I guess were 21 affected by it today. And as we speak right now, 22 there is nothing good about it, nothing.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. LEWIS: I lost a brother, I lost a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 sister through all this scourge.
1 (Foreign language spoken.)
2 MR. LEWIS: Nothing will cure it. And 3
right now it has the hurt the Mother Earth down below 4
us. We don't see it. It's just how this inland is, 5
this flat area, there is nothing there. We'll never 6
see it. That's what it is.
7 It's so much, be able to do so much damage 8
maybe we'll never see it. That's the way it is.
9 That's the way I see it.
10 And the mines right now, the tailings, 11 everything, that's still piled up right there. The 12 wind was blowing today. I was out there watering my 13 livestock and it's still sitting there. What's it 14 doing there?
15 You know to people that left it there, 16 they never came back to pick it up.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. LEWIS: Yes. That's the way it is.
19 People just come here, they do studies, studies, 20 studies, studies, nothing is coming out, coming back.
21 At least they should say, can we help you 22 here, can we help you do this. No, they don't do 23 that.
24 We're trying to fight that radiation 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 Exposure Compensation Act today. They're still 1
fiddling around with. New Mexico legislature and all 2
this, the federal government, they don't want to pay 3
us back of all the ill effects from it.
4 I was a miller, so, a lot of miners are, 5
we're still trying to compete with the day in and day 6
out, nothing is ever done to us to help us back.
7 Nothing. So I'll just say:
8 (Foreign language spoken.)
9 MR. LEWIS: No matter how you look at it, 10 it will never come up to anything good. That's the 11 way I see it.
12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And, 13 Ovray and Kasey, do you want to come up? This is 14 Ovray and Kasey.
15 PARTICIPANT: We are hurting Mother Earth 16 a lot by this radioactive waste. We don't see it 17 because it's radioactive.
18 It can hurt your DNA. It can do a lot of 19 things beyond what we know. And people just leave it 20 there, they don't move it, it just stays in one place.
21 And when the people move it, it starts 22 spreading to towns, cities, and it starts to ruin how 23 we live.
24 (Applause.)
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44 PARTICIPANT: The only reason I came is 1
because of my son. If you have children you 2
understand, if you have a future, you understand.
3 Thank you.
4 (Applause.)
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 6
much. Dennis. Dennis Romero. There's Dennis and 7
then we're going to go to Ed Mayer and then Thompson 8
Bell and Teresa Lowry. Thank you.
9 MR. ROMERO: Good evening. So, thank you 10 for coming here, thank you for allowing the public to 11 speak. I'm going to give you a little background 12 about myself and then I'm going to go straight to the 13 point here.
14 So, I have a BS in civil environmental 15 engineering, I am a licensed engineer, master's 16 degrees in geology and chemistry from Mexico Tech and 17 a certificate of waste management from your DOE and 18 work program out of New Mexico Tech. I worked for Los 19 Alamos National Lab for ten years and I was an NMED 20 employee for ten years.
21 And, you're not going to find a more 22 supportive person than nuclear technology and the 23 promise it holds. And that being said, I'm going to 24 tell you, I would strongly recommend that the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 Applicant withdraw its application.
1 (Applause.)
2 MR. ROMERO: I've done a dime in the Nuke 3
Navy. Here's the beautiful thing about the Nuke Navy.
4 Close to 60 years with zero accidents. They do it 5
right.
6 You work for the NRC you'll nothing but 7
the upmost respect for you and your profession and 8
your agency. But, privatizing waste storage does not 9
seem to be a wise choice.
10 You have had, for example, I look at, I 11 worked on the WIPP project, I've worked on the Yucca 12 Mountain project, I analyzed TRUPACT I and II 13 containers.
14 Here is the bottom line, those were 15 beautifully designed facilities, beautifully designed, 16 and you know what, you still had an accident. Okay.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. ROMERO: I'm not here to put down Los 19 Alamos National Lab, my former employer. I love the 20 people that worked up there, they're good people, 21 okay. Everybody in the world has some element of 22 goodness and kindness, but you still had an accident.
23 One error ladies and gentlemen.
24 So I urge, as part of your scoping, please 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 examine all risks associated with the packaging at the 1
sites, with the transport, the risk associated with 2
the transport of the material coming into New Mexico 3
as well as the offloading and the storage.
4 I know NRC is huge on risk assessment, you 5
do a beautiful job in every document I've ever seen, 6
I ask you not just to look at the small footprint of 7
the facility, but to look at the entire operation from 8
the time it goes from a nuke plant to the time it 9
arrives in New Mexico. Okay, so that's the first 10 thing I'll ask you to do is to properly assess risks.
11 I will also ask that you require the 12 Applicant to do something very similar to what DOE did 13 with WIPP. They had to pay for a neutral third party 14 analysis.
15 I understand the NRC has some great 16 technical people. What DOE did is they paid for the 17 environment interim research institute, PhD level 18 folks to adequately assess the technical feasibility 19 of WIPP, the TRUPACT containers contact handled waste.
20 I ask that you require the Applicant to do that.
21 I ask that you require the Applicant to 22 provide a full-fledged economic analysis. They are 23 doubting the fact, and I have no reason to doubt them, 24 they're probably great people at a good company, but 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 they're saying, we're going to bring 135 jobs in New 1
Mexico.
2 I'm here to tell you, unless you raise 3
Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs or WIPP, you are 4
not going to get those people, so you're going to have 5
train them up or even have to bring them in from out 6
of state.
7 I'm also going to ask to look at certain 8
political issues. You know, the top priority should 9
be public health, welfare and safety. And I go to a 10 friend of mine, Steve Zappi, who was the WIPP manager, 11 the program manager for New Mexico Environment 12 Department.
13 He did a beautiful job. He knew his 14 stuff, technically competent, and he didn't back down 15 from anybody.
16 Unfortunately, and I won't say this to 17 make this political, but it is political. The 18 Martinez Administration came in, they wanted LANL to 19 move more waste to WIPP. They made Steve Zappi a food 20 inspector. He went to restaurants.
21 Within two years of removing Steve Zappi 22 from that position, WIPP had an accident from a 23 packaged stored, drum at LANL, packaged at LANL, that 24 I guarantee you Steve Zappi would not have left in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 package.
1 So what I am saying is, I'm a proponent of 2
nuke power, I'm a proponent of nuke technology and I'm 3
asking you to seriously consider this application and 4
possibly deny it. And I thank you all very much for 5
your time. Thank you.
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 8
much. We're going to go to Ed Mayer now and then 9
Thompson Bell and Teresa Lowry. This is Ed Mayer.
10 MR. MAYER: Thank you. Good evening, my 11 name is Ed Mayer and I'm a program director at Holtec 12 International.
13 And specifically, I'm a program director 14 for this project. And I appreciate the complements to 15 the Nuclear Navy.
16 Before I joined Holtec I served the 17 Nuclear Navy for 27 years. I served on submarines and 18 I commanded two of them. And I have a deep 19 understanding of Holtec's technology and their very 20 high standards. It's the safest and most secured 21 technology on the planet.
22 Thanks, Chip. Well, I'll just start over.
23 My name is Ed Mayer and I'm a program director at 24 Holtec International. And I appreciate the comments 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 to the Nuclear Navy.
1 Before I came to Holtec I served in the 2
Nuclear Navy for 27 years on submarines and I 3
commanded two of them. And I have a deep 4
understanding of Holtec's technology, HI-STORE UMAX.
5 And it's the safest and most secured technology on 6
earth.
7 So, I'll start today by saying it's a 8
pleasure to be here. And first, I'd like to provide 9
Holtec's commitment to the NRC to provide quality 10 responses in a timely manner to ensure, first, the 11 accuracy of our submission, but also to meet the 12 schedules for the NRC's review.
13 And I'd also like to provide some facts 14 about HI-STORE. It's a consolidated interim storage 15 facility, and ask for your support.
16 The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, also known 17 as ELEA, is our partner. ELEA was formed in 2006 with 18 the expressed mission of providing economic benefit to 19 New Mexico.
20 All of its members are long time proud 21 residents of New Mexico. And the power teaming with 22 them, it's a public-private venture, is that they 23 understand the community and they understand the local 24 area. And that's what they bring to the table for us, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 as Holtec International, that deep understanding.
1 Holtec International is a
strong 2
technology company and our core business, for the past 3
32 years, is the safe and secure storage of nuclear 4
fuel. All the equipment supplied by Holtec is 5
designed, engineered, fabricated and most cases, 6
operated by Holtec employees.
7 And we're an American company. We 8
fabricate everything in the United States. We have 9
three production facilities. One in Orrville, Ohio, 10 one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and where we're 11 located, we, as myself, Stephan and Joy, are located 12 in Camden. That's the third production facility.
13 And we have an impeccable safety record.
14 None of our equipment has ever experienced the safety 15 issue, has leaked or caused injury.
16 And to get back to ELEA, the members of 17 ELEA asked Holtec to be their partner in 2013 after 18 careful evaluation of the safety and security of our 19 used fuel storage and transportation of equipment.
20 And that transportation is the HI-STORE 190 and the 21 storage is the HI-STORE UMAX.
22 Holtec, without standing support from 23 ELEA, will obtain the NRC license to construct and 24 operate the consolidated interim storage facility.
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51 And the name is HI-STORE, so that's what we call it.
1 Once appropriate contractual and funding 2
provisions are in place, Holtec will construct and 3
operate a facility. Local residents and local 4
businesses will be hired to construct and operate the 5
facility.
6 And we're going to bring high paying jobs 7
to the area and we categorize --
8 PARTICIPANT: I have to interrupt.
9 MR. MAYER: -- and we have to categorize 10 11 PARTICIPANT: This is public comment, why 12 is Holtec allowed --
13 MR. CAMERON: Will you sit down.
14 PARTICIPANT: -- to talk during public 15 comment?
16 MR. CAMERON: Fair enough. Now, please 17 sit down --
18 PARTICIPANT: They're not a member of the 19 public.
20 MR. MAYER: Actually, I am a member of the 21 general public and that's why I am here. You'll note 22 that I'm not sitting in the front row and I have a 23 desk in the back -- up front.
24 So, we're going to hire local residents 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 and companies and we're going to provide high paying 1
jobs to the area. High paying $60 to $70,000 jobs.
2 The people in New Mexico are rich in 3
technical knowledge, especially in nuclear technology 4
with two national laboratories, three Air Force bases, 5
an Army base and URENCO and also the waste isolation 6
processing plant.
7 The geology site characteristics, 8
environment and other factors on the proposed site are 9
ideal for the storage of used nuclear fuel.
10 Our mission is to offer a temporary, safe 11 and secured storage facility for the nation's nuclear 12 waste.
13 And a temporary is measured in decades.
14 So, I heard 300 years, it's not 300 years, it's 15 measured in decades and it will be permanently stored 16 in a deep repository, either Yucca Mountain or 17 something like Yucca Mountain. But again, interim 18 storage.
19 We're going to be good stewards to the 20 environment and good neighbors to the local 21 communities with our safe technology that will 22 minimize impacts to the environment. And will help 23 diversify the economy by providing well-paying jobs to 24 New Mexico.
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53 So, I close by saying, if you have any 1
questions, myself, Stephan, who is our vice president 2
for engineering, and Joy, our vice president for 3
external communications and mark development, we'll be 4
in the back, we'll answer any questions you have. So 5
thank you.
6 MR. CAMERON: All right --
7 PARTICIPANT: Boo. We don't want it.
8 MR. CAMERON: -- we're going to go to 9
Thompson Bell. Now, Thompson.
10 PARTICIPANT: We don't want your waste.
11 MR. CAMERON: And then we're going to go 12 to Teresa Lowry. This is Thompson Bell. And after 13 Teresa we'll go to Terry Sloan and Larry King and 14 Talia Boyd.
15 MR. BELL: As you said, for four minutes, 16 I felt like I was back on a long walk trying to get 17 out of the time, you know.
18 (Laughter.)
19 MR. BELL: So, I just want to show you my 20 family here that involved in this Red Water Pond, this 21 community. And my daughter is actually part of the 22 design team with the --
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. BELL: -- what do you call it, the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 dump site. Where they're going to move the uranium.
1 Like I said, my name is Thompson Bell, 2
this is my little boy's and my wife Rose. And my boy 3
is 12, 11, 10 and a 4-year-old. And my oldest 4
daughter.
5 We know what it means to be impacted, 6
right there. As you live close to the uranium mines 7
and be ignorant enough to work in it also.
8 As you know that as I was working, I was 9
inside the mine 1,670 feet down, as you are 10 contaminated day-by-day as you work, and you take it 11 home, you don't know what you have given your family.
12 So, because of that, right now as you see me, I have 13 four limbs but yet you don't see the torment that I 14 have with things I have health wise.
15 It hurts, it itches and things like that 16 just, you don't see it. So, when you have these 17 effects, you have contaminations that penetrates. And 18 penetrations that you can't see.
19 And these things that our body takes that 20 most people, not even the medical groups don't even 21 know about. They just think it's all lumps. But the 22 thing about it is, like you said, they always pinpoint 23 the lumps, but it's the whole body.
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55 is that it is dangerous and deadly when you get 1
contaminated. I don't know how many things that were 2
named here, of all the contamination done, this Arroyo 3
that was flooded, all of that hasn't even been 4
touched.
5 Second of all, I'd say the structure. We 6
all know about the second law of thermal dynamics, 7
things wear out. Things that can't hold together 8
after so many years.
9 When you are born you're already dying, 10 right? Things that we make, it comes apart. And as 11 a mechanic I see things hold back by 2,000 psi by a 12 little O-ring. But when it breaks, what happens, it 13 makes a mess.
14 And things about structure. When you have 15 to open it, guess what, it has a hinge. Don't they 16 get rotten and rusted also? Things that we make is 17 actually no good.
18 And also, one of the things that EPA did 19 to us, as a family, they told us we're going to be 20 involved but yet here, everything was already 21 determined before we even argued about it. So, being 22 things that we say, I don't know if it's going to be 23 told.
24 And so, these things that I'm trying to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 tell you is that, I don't know if we're going to be 1
hurt just because of us, as Navajo Nation, as people 2
here.
3 And I can't imagine every one of you take 4
a can tonight and throw it to your neighbors, 5
neighbor's backyard, and see how it likes it. When 6
you throw that can into our backyard with those cans 7
bigger than our trucks.
8 That's what I think it is, trash in our 9
backyard. Thank you.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
12 Bell. And is Teresa, Teresa is coming up. And then 13 we'll go to Larry King and Talia Boyd.
14 MS. LOWRY: Hello, I just wanted to speak 15 to some personal experience that I've had lately and 16 that is, in the last four weeks going down I-40 I have 17 been run off the road by semis twice. Completely off 18 the road.
19 So there is no way any vehicle coming 20 through this town can be guaranteed to pass through 21 safely. There are a lot of trucks on our highway and 22 I am totally against this.
23 You need to keep that stuff wherever it's 24 at and not traveling on the highway. Not any highway.
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57 Somebody created it, let them deal with it in their 1
own backyard. Thank you.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Teresa. Mr.
4 King. Larry King, okay. And then you go ahead and 5
then Mr. Sloan, did you want to --
6 Okay. Go ahead.
7 MR. KING: Oh, did I go --
8 MR. CAMERON: No, no, don't worry about 9
it.
10 MR. KING: Good evening everybody. My 11 name is Larry King. I live up near the old Church 12 Rock site.
13 Back in '96 there was an aggressive 14 organization that was formed to challenge the NRC 15 license, that NRC granted a license to a mining 16 company from South Texas. And the grassroots 17 organization that I joined, we challenged more than 18 five issues that they mining company had on their EIS.
19 And for close to 20 years we went through 20 court with NRC and all of the hearings were always 21 held in D.C. Away from the community defective sites.
22 And each one NRC sided with the mining company.
23 NRC is always with the mining company.
24 Any industry, any polluters. So they won't listen to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 us. But I plead with you, listen to the community.
1 There is an outstanding objection to this company, 2
Holtec.
3 I can guarantee you, there are going to be 4
some accidents. Our roads in New Mexico aren't the 5
best in the nation. It's bad.
6 There's always barrels, orange barrels, 7
when I go from here to Albuquerque. There is always 8
orange barrels.
9 Roads are being repaired all the time.
10 There wasn't any discussion on the roads that were 11 going to be taken.
12 There is more than 60 years of uranium 13 legacy that's in our area. There's one right behind, 14 in my own backyard. And also, where my cousin's 15 brother live, Thompson Bell and the family, Red Water 16 Pond.
17 They're sandwiched in between two 18 abandoned mines. And they've been dealing with EPA, 19 another government agency.
20 And they've been told that the mine legacy 21 was going to be cleaned up 2010, '12, '16. Now it 22 goes all the way up to 2022. What are they waiting 23 for, people to die off?
24 So, NRC, are you going to listen to the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 people and all these objections? It seems like it's 1
a no-brainer, everybody is objecting to this new 2
proposed plan.
3 So we need to, our area is already dealing 4
with a mine legacy for more than 60 years left by a 5
mining company. Okay, one minute. But I always go 6
over, let me tell you that.
7 (Laughter.)
8 MR. KING: But we can't allow another 9
proposed waste to come into our area, we need to 10 address our local legacy first. We need our elected 11 officials to stand with the public and say no to this 12 new company.
13 And also, on your slide it says that 14 you're going to keep the tribe in the loop in the EIS 15 process. And I just heard my, one of elected 16 officials says that Navajo Nation EPA was told not to 17 make any comments. Why? But yet you showed us up 18 there that the Navajo Nation, the tribal's, are going 19 to be included in these input.
20 So, I plead with you, keep it out of our 21 area. Keep it out. And just like the lady before me 22 said, keep it where it's being planned. Keep it 23 there.
24 (Applause.)
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60 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Mr. King.
1 Thank you very much. We're going to go to Terry Sloan 2
and then we're going to go to Talia Boyd and then Anna 3
Rondon. This is Terry Sloan.
4 MR. SLOAN: Can you hear me okay? Okay, 5
thank you very much for allowing me to say a few 6
comments.
7 The reason I am here is I'm a small town 8
internist. I've provided care to Native Americans for 9
40 years. Thirty years in Gallup.
10 I have a long track record of fighting for 11 my patients. And I consider health to be my passion, 12 and it is the passion for need for this community.
13 Radiation itself is simply incompatible 14 with life. It damages all living organisms. We know 15 that biologically.
16 I was the medical director here when the 17 Church Rock spill occurred. Our entire medical staff 18 was totally aghast that this happened. Because 19 everybody said it was safe, that stuff wouldn't 20 happen.
21 And yet, it really was one of the largest 22 oil spills in the history of this country. The 23 response was inadequate.
24 And currently, actually, I have a list of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 families that may have been exposed. And that list 1
actually has never been revealed because they won't 2
allow me to reveal it for patient confidentiality 3
issues.
4 But needless to say, one of the things 5
that I've noticed in my practice of internal medicine 6
is the surprising and alarming increase in renal cell 7
cancer in this region. I've seen more renal cell 8
cancer in each year than most internist see in a 9
lifetime.
10 We don't know exactly why. It's in the 11 Four Corners area, and I actually have a graph. And 12 Senator Udall has this graph, but it really shows a 13 striking increase in the Four Corners area compared 14 with the rest of New Mexico.
15 We don't know why, but we think it may be 16 related to either radiation or petroleum product 17 contamination and exposure.
18 I talked about the unintended consequence 19 of radiation exposure. I had a young man, 18 years 20 old, star track athlete who came in with a small 21 lesion in the perirectal area. And in fact, what it 22 turned out to be, because he had a nodule in his 23 groin, was an aggressive form of amelanotic melanoma.
24 He died in three months.
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62 He was a runner for Shiprock High School 1
and he ran a lot. I mean, he really trained hard.
2 This man had so much courage I've never forgotten him.
3 And I actually started running because of him.
4 Needless to say, what we found out later 5
is that the track that he practiced on in fact had 6
high radiation levels. And there he ran for years.
7 That's where he practiced, that's where he became 8
good.
9 And so what I'm saying is, once radiation 10 exists, and where it is, it in fact can have 11 unintended consequences. And so why, what I say is, 12 why New Mexico?
13 Why can't they just keep the waste of 14 local sites that produce it and they can handle that 15 waste and develop contracts or whatever to take care 16 of it.
17 I think the reason New Mexico is picked is 18 because it's a small state, it's impoverished. They 19 feel like there is wide open areas, just like here.
20 But they don't realize that doctors see 21 patients with cancer and sometimes we have no 22 explanation. And in the back of our mind it's the 23 Church Rock spill, the radiation exposure in this 24 area.
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63 And all I can say is, as part of a 1
physician here, that I really think you should deny 2
this application.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. SLOAN: -- so that our state, my 5
state, New Mexico, is not contaminated with radiation 6
inadvertently. Thank you very much.
7 (Applause.)
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
9 PARTICIPANT: We don't want it.
10 PARTICIPANT: We don't want it.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, is Talia, Talia Boyd?
12 And then we're going to go to Anna Rondon, Erin Lorenz 13 and Karthik Kavasseri.
14 (Foreign language spoken.)
15 MS. BOYD: Welcome to Indian land.
16 Welcome to Gallup.
17 God, there is so much to say and I want to 18 reiterate what everybody has said but, we want health 19 studies, we want clean water, we don't want waste.
20 New Mexico has been a nuclear sacrifice 21 state for tomorrow. We want water testing, we want 22 real answers and real solutions to what we've been 23 dealing with for decades.
24 Our people are sick and our sacred sites 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 are being desecrated on a daily, a lot by extractive 1
industries. And our people are sick for those 2
reasons.
3 We depend and we know how to utilize the 4
land and the power that exist within in it, but when 5
it's compromised by such things as extractive 6
industries and colonialism, then it compromises our 7
particular selves.
8 I would like the NRC to take that into 9
consideration, the cultural impacts, the significance 10 of the land, the indigenous people that live down 11 there. These are all things that aren't included in 12 the EIS.
13 We want to talk about water, we want to 14 talk about air. Everything that is nuclear is 15 invisible. We can't see it, we don't know how we're 16 being, what pathways we're being exposed.
17 So, there's so many things that aren't 18 included that we would like to have real answers to.
19 And again, I'd like to just reiterate and appreciate 20 everything, especially what Council Delegate Jonathan 21 Perry mentioned.
22 Everything that he mentioned was on point.
23 Everything from under the united declarations of 24 indigenous rights of indigenous people.
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65 The transportation routes include the 1
freeway and the railroads. All of our rural 2
communities will be impacted on some way.
3 Again, we don't have any answers as far 4
emergency response teams if anything should happen.
5 Our communities are very well aware of the detrimental 6
impacts, again, with the 1979 uranium Church Rock 7
8 So, these are the answers that we want.
9 We want health studies, we want some real solutions.
10 And we don't want the waste, you can keep the waste.
11 We've dealt with enough already, we've 12 been traumatized, and we're trying to heal. We need 13 to heal. Thank you.
14 (Applause.)
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 16 Talia. Anna, Anna Rondon. And then we're going to 17 Erin Lorenz and then to Karthik Kavasseri.
18 MS. RONDON: Greetings relatives.
19 (Foreign language spoken.)
20 MS. RONDON: As a Navajo woman, a private 21 citizen, I wanted to recommend during the scoping 22 meeting that you let the public know on why this a 23 rush process and why in 2012 Department of Energy was 24 getting some lawsuits from the utility companies that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 owned this waste onsite.
1 So, it's because it's going to save $15 2
billion from the government on lawsuits. I would like 3
to have the NRC explain the history since 1988 when 4
this process began.
5 And also to look at the fracking that's 6
going on in Texas. There's a lot of earthquakes 7
happening and I think that needs to be looked into as 8
potential threats.
9 Because those earthquakes are getting more 10 and more as our earth is becoming more unstable.
11 Because of the extractive industries.
12 I believe that the communities in Hobbs 13 and Carlsbad strongly oppose this burial site.
14 Because it's going to contaminate in the future, the 15 livestock. The cows, the dairy farms that provide 16 food for this country.
17 So we stand in solidarity with the people 18 from Ennis County, Eddy County. And we hope to 19 converse with them and stand in solidarity louder and 20 more forceful.
21 And I appreciate our state representative 22 that speaks so truthfully to this issue. Because New 23 Mexico is tired of being nuked, we're tired of our 24 children being exposed to radioactive nuclides that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 have infiltrated into our children.
1 Through the Navajo birth cohort study, we 2
have evidence that newborn babies that were in our 3
study have burden in their bodies equivalent to a 30 4
year old adult that has lived by a uranium mine waste 5
tailing site.
6 I appreciate our doctor that provided 7
information on one example of why our people are 8
dying. And to Norman Brown to how our miners, our 9
elders who have mined uranium since, for 70 years.
10 I've heard that Nuclear Regulatory 11 Commission made a statement that it's in morale to 12 leave the waste at these utility company sites. It 13 was in morale, it was filthy, it was like a dirty 14 White man to come to our land and dig up our earth and 15 leave us with filthy drinking water that's 16 contaminated this state now throughout the country.
17 We will not continue to be silenced with 18 the Nuclear Regulatory industrial complex. It began 19 here and it's going to end here and we're going to say 20 no to nuclear waste of any kind.
21 (Applause.)
22 MS. RONDON: We fought the Nuclear 23 Regulatory Commission in 1998. They were trying to 24 put waste through here, the same project.
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68 And we feel that deprivatization of this 1
to these companies, somebody else is getting rich over 2
this $2 billion that's going to go into Eddy County, 3
supposedly.
4 I would like to know who are these 5
politicians in Washington and in this state. So with 6
that --
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
8 MS. RONDON: -- thank you.
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: And this is Erin Lorenz.
12 MS. LORENZ: Hi, my name is Erin Lorenz 13 and I'm a physician that works here in the Gallup 14 community. I want to make clear that I speak on 15 behalf of myself and not for any institution.
16 Folks in this community were reassured 17 that uranium mining was safe 70 years ago. It turns 18 out that the mining itself and the residue nuclear 19 waste has taken a toll on this community in the form 20 of kidney disease, lung disease, cancer. There's also 21 evidence that in utero exposure affects the most 22 vulnerable among us.
23 There is radioactive waste in the water, 24 in the dust, the air, the livestock and even in the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 plants growing on Navajo Nation.
1 This is a direct result of private 2
companies and our complicity prioritizing financial 3
gain and winning the nuclear arms race above the 4
health and safety of the indigenous communities who 5
still reside here.
6 How do you remove uranium, radon, arsenic, 7
lead and other heavy metals from every part of your 8
environment?
9 If you have an answer, perhaps our time 10 would be better spent cleaning up the mess we already 11 have. And if you don't have an answer, maybe we 12 should consider the wisdom in welcoming more nuclear 13 waste into our community.
14 Two generations after the commencement of 15 uranium mining on Navajo nation, many of the mining 16 communities no longer exist. And those tasked with 17 cleaning up the mines have not done so as you have 18 heard from several members of those communities this 19 evening.
20 What will happen in 100 years, will Holtec 21 still be around?
22 What happens if Holtec can't find a 23 storage place in Yucca Mountain or something like 24 that?
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70 Who is responsible? I'm not asking for 1
myself, I am asking for our kids and grandkids. Thank 2
you.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Karthik 5
Kavasseri. And then we'll go to Terracita Keyanna, 6
Kathryn McGill Peters and Joe Pacal.
7 MR. KAVASSERI: Hi, I'm Karthik Kavasseri, 8
I'm a family physician that works in this community.
9 It looks like we have a handful of physicians here.
10 I'd like to first of all just kind of 11 highlight the fact, the NRC came here and we spent 12 the, half of this time talking about the mess that's 13 already here rather than the mess that's about to 14 come. Or potentially come.
15 And I want the NRC to pay attention to 16 that because we don't know how else to get a hold of 17 you. We don't know how to tell you that we have fears 18 in this community that uranium waste is already here.
19 And there's a preponderance of evidence at 20 this point that there are ill effects to the health of 21 this community. To my patients.
22 I think Talia Boyd brought up the Navajo 23 birth cohort, which has yet to be published. It's a 24 study that's coming out with researchers from UNM.
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71 And we'll be finding out a lot of things 1
about the extent of exposure in this community. And 2
hopefully some of the health effects that are 3
happening because of it.
4 But so far, in the preliminary results 5
that everybody here can find online, we know that 83 6
percent of dust collected in this area has uranium in 7
it. About 15 percent of pregnant women, fathers and 8
then their infants have urine uranium level in the 9
95th percentile. Among many other things.
10 And there are animal studies, population 11 studies and in vitro studies that show that there are 12 links of uranium exposure to kidney disease, cancer, 13 autoimmune diseases.
14 There are a lot of questions still, like 15 Dr. Sloan brought up. I've also seen way more kidney 16 cancer here than I ever saw before and I can't explain 17 that. It's a total mystery to me.
18 Well, maybe it's not a mystery to 19 everybody. But we don't have that smoking gun proof.
20 And while I have the ear of the NRC I ask for help 21 with cleanup, research. And then of course to help 22 prevent another disaster.
23 So that's really why we're here. Or at 24 least why we were brought here.
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72 Nothings disproves that scientific factor 1
will be considered a fact today, like time. And I 2
think one of the, Mervyn it was, who brought up the 3
fact that the half-life of uranium is four and a half 4
billion years. That's not a length of time that I can 5
even comprehend.
6 And I just don't think that there is any 7
way that we can safely store the waste from uranium 8
that will last for that long. I mean, I think that's 9
just insane to think that we could, we can't even 10 pretend that that's a possibility.
11 But he did say, how many years was it? It 12 was 300 years in this last string, so I don't know 13 what the plan is for after that, but I can't imagine 14 that it stretches 4.5 billion years.
15 What I do know is that there is plenty to 16 clean up, there is plenty of work to do. And working 17 on more ways into this state is just, it's an absolute 18 travesty.
19 Last little point I want to make, I got 20 invited out to the Red Water Pond Community, there 21 have been a few speakers here from there. And like 22 they were saying, they're sandwiched between three 23 radioactive sites.
24 The EPA is involved in one of them. And 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 the plan is to move radioactive waste from one place, 1
move it down the road and dump it into another place 2
that's technically outside the Navajo Nation.
3 It's incredible to me that we're able to 4
transport waste from across the country but we can't 5
even move it out of this site here, down the road.
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Is 8
Terracita, Terracita. And then Kathryn McGill Peters 9
and Joe Pacal.
10 MS. KEYANNA: Good evening everybody, my 11 name is Terracita Keyanna and I come from the Red 12 Water Pond Road Community Association. And our 13 community is half a mile away from two uranium mines 14 and a mile away from a uranium mill.
15 I have dealt with uranium issues my entire 16 life. And it started before I was even born. So, my 17 children have to deal with that also.
18 So now I have seen differences between my 19 children. I was away for school during one pregnancy 20 and my daughter was completely okay. My son on the 21 other hand, I was at home the entire pregnancy and he 22 was born with a hole in his heart.
23 I mean, how can you not see some evidence 24 like that. I mean, that's concrete evidence. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 didn't do anything else out of the ordinary. I didn't 1
change my diet, I didn't do anything differently. I 2
was just in my community.
3 So, now my kids all have to deal with 4
this. We have impacts in our health, our mental 5
health, our physical health, our emotional health.
6 And it impacts our environmental health.
7 And it infringes onto our native cultures 8
and our native religion. We no longer can have our 9
traditional use of our herbs.
10 We can't even go to, we can't even 11 practice certain things that we used to do because 12 morning prays used to be offered to the east in the 13 morning and for our community, the east is a big pile 14 of uranium. Why do we want to offer prays to that.
15 So, I mean, even our rights of freedom and 16 religion is infringed upon just because of uranium 17 issues. And all over New Mexico.
18 We don't need more uranium issues brought 19 into the State of New Mexico, we're not a dumping 20 site. This is a beautiful place. We've had enough.
21 I
watched my grandmother die from 22 pulmonary fibrosis. I basically watched her 23 suffocate.
24 She used to work. She was just a janitor.
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75 She wasn't even somebody who worked inside the plant, 1
she was just cleaning their office. And I watched her 2
suffocate and die that way.
3 How many lives do we have to lose to 4
uranium issues? When is it enough? How much is a 5
human body, how much is a human life, how much do you 6
guys need?
7 You know, isn't that enough? You have 8
taken my grandmothers, you have taken some of my 9
grandfathers. My aunts and uncles are suffering from 10 it. And I suffer from it too. My children are 11 suffering from it too.
12 I have lost three babies. I didn't even 13 get to see these three beautiful children because of 14 them.
15 I had a whole statement prepared but now 16 I have to go, I have to just condense everything into 17 what I really wanted to say on my heart. Because I 18 have to go home because my other son has medical 19 issues that need to be addressed.
20 So thank you and just please, I mean, this 21 is a plea to just say no, no more. We can't take this 22 anymore.
23 Like my father said, we suffer and you 24 can't see it. You can't see what we're suffering 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 from. It's a lifelong. So please, just hear our 1
pleas, understand that we don't want it. Thank you.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you.
4 Kathryn? Kathryn McGill Peters and then we're going 5
to go to Joe Pacal. And I apologize if I'm 6
pronouncing that incorrectly.
7 MS. PETERS: Hi. I just wanted to say 8
that I do not support this in any way. This seems to 9
be a pattern that happens over and over around here 10 that companies come from other places, they say, oh, 11 we're going to make a lot of money, we're going to 12 bring jobs and we're going to help people. And 13
- instead, people around here get environmental 14 disasters and those companies disappear and we're left 15 to deal with the problems.
16 I'm worried about the risk of derailment 17 because my mother used to work for a railroad and I 18 know they derail all the time.
19 I'm worried about the harm to the 20 environment, I'm worried about who's going to pay for 21 the cleanup when there is an accident because there 22 will be one. I guarantee it.
23 Okay, we as -- people keep saying we have 24 a lot of old uranium mines around here. We have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 people on the Navajo Nation with no water because they 1
can't drink the drinking water where they live because 2
it's contaminated with uranium.
3 I'm involved in this, well, I'm not 4
involved in it but I'm trying to help raise money for 5
this project to some wells out in the eastern Navajo 6
Nation. And it's going to cost $500,000. And they 7
have to dig thousands of feet into the ground to find 8
water that is not contaminated.
9 So, that is wrong that people in the 10 United States live today without water because their 11 water is contaminated and there is no one out there 12 helping those people. We've got the federal 13 government and the state and everyone is arguing about 14 who should build these wells.
15 And meanwhile, we have some charity that 16 normally digs wells in Africa that has come to the 17 Navajo Nation to try to help people get water. And 18 that's ridiculous in the richest nation in the world.
19 So, I'm opposed to this and I just wanted 20 to say that, and that's all I have to say. Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Now, please 23 pronounce your last name for the transcript.
24 MR. PACAL: Okay. Hello everybody, my 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 name is Joe Pacal. I've lived out in the Navajo 1
Reservation for the past 18 years.
2 And everybody has made some great points 3
up here. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is 4
that, if a project like this is improved, whether it's 5
here in New Mexico or Utah or Nevada, that's going to 6
be seen as a solution to a real problem for the 7
nuclear industry.
8 And the uranium mining companies and 9
private investors are going to see this as a green 10 light for expanding uranium mining. And there are 11 uranium, New Mexico, we're going to have to deal with 12 a whole another era of new uranium mines popping up 13 all over the place.
14 And right now, that's been kind of held 15 back. Things are set to go off and then Fukushima 16 happened and that kind of slowed things down. But I'm 17 just really concerned that if this kind of solution 18 goes forward we're going to see a lot more uranium 19 mining popping up all over here and have a lot more to 20 deal with so thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 23 Mr. Pacal. Our next speakers are Hamilene Yazzie, 24 Simone Jones, Holly Herr Stravers and Janene Yazzie.
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79 So, Ms. Hamilene. Hamilene?
1 MS. YAZZIE: It's two r's. Harrilene. I 2
apologize, I wrote my r's together. I am not a 3
Hamilene.
4 (Laughter.)
5 MR. CAMERON: So, Harrilene.
6 MS. YAZZIE: She was actually before me, 7
but --
8 MR. CAMERON: Oh, okay.
9 MS. YAZZIE: -- but I'll take her spot.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 11 for clarifying.
12 MS. YAZZIE: Harrilene, thank you.
13 (Foreign language spoken.)
14 MS. YAZZIE: Just a few points. As said 15 earlier, as a lot of professionals that came up to the 16 podium this evening to speak, this is somewhat my 17 profession as well, is NEPA.
18 I work as an environmental protection 19 specialist. But I here am representing myself as a 20 private citizen as well as a mother.
21 Given what was displayed earlier on the 22 slide show, it's my understanding that this is 23 basically a yes/no proposition. That the application 24 has been submitted and is being evaluated for an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 approval or disapproval, and doesn't necessarily open 1
its way to alternatives.
2 Most processes that I have seen, there is 3
a purpose and need. And in this case, interim storage 4
of spent rods in some location that would be feasible 5
for storage.
6 I would assume that that would be the 7
purpose and need from the NRC. And meeting that need 8
would be based on economic or technical viability.
9 So, again, I'm not familiar, too familiar 10 with the NRC process but that's my take is, this is a 11 yes or no approval, disapproval. And alternatives, 12 whether they're technically or economically viable, 13 are reason for dismissal.
14 It would have been nice to know that in 15 the presentation, to the public, so they understood 16 exactly what NRC is making a decision on and if it's 17 a yes or no versus alternatives with purpose in need.
18 Secondly, the application is riddled with 19 data. I see how, I think, made by councilmen earlier, 20 that there was very little information presented to 21 the public to formulate a very detailed scoping 22 comments. You guys know locations, you know the sites 23 that you're going to be receiving the rods from, 24 potentially what kind of waste you're going to be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 receiving.
1 Is it, I don't know, plutonium, is it, I 2
have no idea what you all may potentially be storing.
3 And each of those activities have different half-4 lives. So what does that mean?
5 Human health risk assessments, this is 6
what I want, in the record. Human health risk 7
assessments that take into consideration the 8
synergistic elements described earlier.
9 We, as Natives, we eat, hunt, sleep, 10 smoke, digest almost anything and everything from 11 prairie dogs to yucca plants. We have no shame.
12 (Laughter.)
13 MS. YAZZIE: And we do have no shame 14 because we had to survive. And survival does mean 15 using what we have.
16 So, the social, again, the synergistic 17 impacts associated to human health should be 18 considered in the human health risk assessment. As 19 well as an ecological health risk assessment.
20 Like I said, we still eat prairie dogs.
21 It's not anything new to our family, I was raised on 22 prairie dogs. I also eat sheep and horse.
23 Geez, what else do we eat. What are those 24 little ones that you use for your teeth?
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82 (Foreign language spoken.)
1 MS. YAZZIE: I don't know what they're 2
called but, yes, I eat those.
3 Okay, the alternatives, proponents provide 4
the application. And I would like to see those 5
applications in Window Rock and Crownpoint as well as 6
the Gallup library. In addition to the ones that were 7
listed earlier.
8 Seismic activity related to fracking, how 9
does that impact the area. I know that they're 10 looking at that.
11 Transportation corridors important, but 12 most importantly, I think, as said earlier, we've 13 given, we've taken uranium, you've used the energy and 14 now you're sending the waste back. You don't see a 15 nuclear power plant on Navajo at all or in New Mexico 16 period. Those are comments, thank you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
18 (Applause.)
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And I 20 think that there was some relevant comments there that 21 I'm going to ask Brian Smith from the NRC to come up 22 and just tell you about the NRC efforts with 23 communicating with the Navajo Nation. Go ahead Brian.
24 And then we're going to go on to Simone 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 Jones and the rest of the speakers.
1 MR. SMITH: All right. So, I'll be quick.
2 Jonathan Perry was one of the first speakers --
3 PARTICIPANT: Can't hear you.
4 MR. SMITH: Sorry. Jonathan Perry, 5
Council delegate for the Navajo Nation was one of the 6
earlier speakers, he's back there. You may have seen 7
me walk out with him because I wanted to follow-up on 8
one of the statements that he made regarding 9
limitations on the amount of discussions that we've 10 held on this project within his nation.
11 We have sent a letter, we, the NRC, have 12 sent a letter to the Navajo Nation as part of our 13 consultation process. Which is kind of just the 14 opposite effect. We're reaching out to them to 15 communicate with them on this project.
16 So there was nothing in the letter asking 17 that they limit any type of discussion on this 18 project.
19 So, I just wanted to try to clarify that.
20 So, if anybody has any questions on that, just let me 21 know.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay, that's good. Let's go 23 on to, thank you, thank you, Brian. This is Simone.
24 (Foreign language spoken.)
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84 MS. JONES: I'm here as a mother, as a 1
citizen. I don't live too far from here. I live just 2
a couple blocks from here as a matter of fact.
3 And also, my profession, I just put it out 4
there, I'm in Indian real estate services. But I'm 5
trying to kind of keep my comments here to the kind of 6
input that you're seeking.
7 First off, your materials in Navajo are, 8
I think your OCR might have gone really bad, is 9
completely unreadable, not understandable. It has 10 number digits, so you might want to correct that kind 11 of going forward if there is any future scoping 12 sessions.
13 As far as local issues, everybody has 14 pointed out, Church Rock, I actually live in, was born 15 and raised in Lepton, which is a community just down 16 river. I went to school in Sanders, they found 17 arsenic in the water recently.
18 I didn't realize this happened until I 19 went to college. Recently everyone was passing away 20 with cancer, David Bowie and what not.
21 I reached for my neck and I found my 22 thyroid was enlarged. Had that biopsies, all of that.
23 And one of the things the doctor asked me was, where 24 are you getting additional exposure, are you using 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 your microwave, all these different things. And I 1
thought, well, just look at my backyard.
2 I think you guys are really remiss and not 3
really understanding just the extent of this AUM mine 4
cleanup project that we have out here. We also have, 5
as people pointed out, we have a community north, 6
south and to the east of us. It's a huge community of 7
the Navajo Reservation.
8 Certain projects that we have ongoing out 9
there, such as the Navajo Gallup water supply to bring 10 some waters to community. It's a huge environmental 11 justice issue out here, I think that you've heard.
12 One of the things, me living just a couple 13 blocks from here that I'm very concerned about, 14 hearing about 10,000 transports at some point in this 15 project. That's like 10,000 shots at the wheel.
16 This
- town, we really have limited 17 responses, we have limited hospitals. We have two 18 here, we have one in Fort Defiance.
19 Actually, my son got sick on me about a 20 year ago, it was very serious and we almost didn't 21 transport him to Albuquerque because of fog. I mean, 22 we're talking about a huge community and in terms of 23 a historic properties, we have Chaco.
24 Ninety percent of the Navajo Reservation 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 has not been archeological surveyed. You've heard of 1
the Code Talkers just down the road, this Fort 2
Wingate, where a lot of them were trained.
3 South of us is a community called Zuni 4
where it was actually the point of contact with the 5
Spanish conquistadors. So we have a lot of history 6
here.
7 The other thing that I just want you to 8
just be very aware of, again, is just the fact that we 9
don't have a lot of facilities out here. People have 10 talked about dust in the air.
11 We don't have improved roads, we have a 12 lot of earth and roads out here and people drive on 13 that. And that's that particulate that comes up every 14 day.
15 You see in the community, you drive here 16 in Gallup you see it hang, you drive out to 17 Albuquerque you see it hang. I've driven, I've lived 18 in this community my whole life. I've probably lived 19 along the route in my whole life.
20 And one of the things that I've also 21 noticed is the I-40 track has gotten really bad. You 22 used to be able to just drive on it, hit your cruise 23 control. You cannot do that anymore, the truck 24 traffic is immense.
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87 Railroads, I live, again, just up the 1
road, you hear it night and day coming in there. And 2
I think about it. I think what if something was to 3
happen.
4 You hear that, my kids hear this all the 5
time, I say Murphy's Law. You know, something is 6
going to happen, Murphy's Law.
7 I sometimes game Murphy's Law. Sometimes 8
I think, okay, if I go to this light, I'm pulling my 9
phone out and it's going to turn green. It happens 10 sometimes.
11 But again, as a mother, as a citizen, as 12 a person in this community I just really implore you 13 to really consider alternatives. Like, my friend and 14 colleague I pointed out, we don't know a lot of this 15 information.
16 Where is the source of this material, what 17 is the material. I think you really have to take a 18 look at this community, you have to take a look at 19 whose here.
20 In terms, part of input your seeking is 21 historic properties. You know, there's 500,000 22 members if my tribe, we're not replaceable. And we 23 live to the north, to the south and to the east of 24 Gallup.
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88 And so I really implore you to consider 1
that in your decision making as you go forward. And 2
I hope, as citizens of the world, that we can find 3
different terms of, ways of energy.
4 But unfortunately, our needs and our wants 5
kind of run this engine. We really need to change our 6
ways. But, again, thank you for this opportunity to 7
give your comments, and --
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
9 MS. JONES: -- that's it, and I'm under 10 time. Thank you.
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 12 Simone. Is Holly here? This is holly, and next we're 13 going to go to Janene and then to Darin Yazzio and 14 Denise Brown.
15 MS. STEVENS: My comments will be brief.
16 I wasn't planning on speaking because I don't like 17 doing this -- and admire how effectively and 18 eloquently the rest of you have spoken. But I like to 19 be a good student, so my comments -- in order to be 20 relevant -- fall under local issues. Local issue 21 being we have children here who cannot speak for 22 themselves. In 2015, I believe -- give or take a year 23
-- the Annie E. Casey Foundation concluded that the 24 children of New Mexico are ranked 50th of 50 states in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 child health and well-being. I am a pediatric nurse 1
practitioner in Gallup, and I am a mother. Families 2
in New Mexico, as you have heard reiterated repeatedly 3
-- which is redundant, but anyway -- reiterated, 4
currently and historically contend with a
5 disproportionately high degree of economic, social and 6
environmental adversity. And I see the physical, 7
emotional, psychological and developmental challenges 8
faced by families and children in my work every day.
9 On behalf of the children of New Mexico who cannot be 10 here to speak for themselves -- who cannot begin to 11 comprehend the threats that this would potentially 12 bring to our lives, and who face an unjust degree of 13 adversity -- of preventable threats already to the 14 realization of their full human potential, do not 15 permit the shipment of nuclear waste to New Mexico.
16 And I would also appeal to you, the NRC, to listen 17 carefully to Sister Rosemary Cecchini and the others 18 that are proposing wisely not to allow this experiment 19 to threaten any community in this country. Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 22 much and is -- is Janene? Janene here? Here is 23 Janene.
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90 don't think I can say anything better than what has 1
already been said. Coming here, it is always great to 2
see our community come out and engage in these issues.
3 And the power is right here among ourselves, speaking 4
to each other and creating these solutions because I 5
am tired of these processes. I am tired of coming to 6
scoping meetings and being given a plan and all of 7
these nice, printed out pamphlets that explain how 8
great these projects are. And also stipulate that 9
these guys are going to determine what the significant 10 issues are that are pertinent to environmental review, 11 or what is relevant, in terms of the comments being 12 made here. All I can say is how dare you, a private 13 company, come in without knowing ---
14 (Applause.)
15 MS. YAZZIE: Without knowing the history 16 or the lived experience of the people here and 17 regurgitate these promises about jobs and how good it 18 is going to be for our economy and how safe your 19 technology is. We haven't cleaned up the problem 20 here. That's the overlying theme here. You're not 21 the solution, you're part of the issue. Now, until 22 you can show us what your plan is to not only clean up 23 what has already been done to our communities and to 24 listen to the concerns of everyone that stood up here 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 asking for the health impact studies, asking for the 1
ecological studies, asking for you to understand our 2
lived experiences and value that for what it is and 3
not determine in some other city or some other place 4
what is significant or not -- until you can do that, 5
these scoping periods aren't going to achieve what is 6
just. I actually really want to hear what your 7
definition is for social, economic and environmental 8
justice because none of -- nothing else beside the 9
term looks at any type of awareness or illustrates any 10 type of awareness of what that actually means. We are 11 tired of being your waste -- or your, exposed --
12 expendable communities and your backyard for the waste 13 to be transported. We are tired of hearing that we 14 are dealing with this issues because nuclear power is 15 so safe. We are on our way to transition to renewable 16 energy, and we are tired of hearing these promises 17 that we need to continue to accommodate these 18 technologies that have devastated and destroyed our 19 communities, our public health and our environment --
20 and the futures of our children because our babies are 21 being born with uranium in their bodies. And that 22 can't be taken out. So don't come back here unless 23 you really do have a plan to take into consideration 24 the concerns that are being shared here. And unless 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 you understand that it's not about tribal 1
consultation, it is about free prior and informed 2
consent. And unless you get that, this project is not 3
going through. And we're not going to settle for 4
participating in a scoping period.
5 (Applause.)
6 MS. YAZZIE: We are used to this fight.
7 And we are used -- and we know -- we have years or 8
experience and data of what happens when we allow 9
these projects to come into our areas, and we are not 10 going to allow it anymore. Thank you.
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Nice job.
13 And Darin -- Darin Yazzio? And then we will go to 14 Denise Brown.
15 MR. YAZZIO: I am going to take off my 16 glasses so I don't see you guys because, you know, 17 stage fright and everything. Hello. Yá'át'ééh. The 18 translation of "yá'át'ééh" is "it is good." If this 19 plan follows through, it will not be good. It will 20 still continue to get worse. My understanding is that 21 we have no nuclear power plants in New Mexico and it 22 sounds absurd that we receive the consequences rather 23 than the benefits in terms of nuclear power instead of 24 having low energy costs. Eighty-seven percent of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 water in New Mexico is supplied by groundwater, 13 1
percent of which is river water. Storage -- storage 2
-- nuclear storage underground puts 87 percent of our 3
water at jeopardy. And with the Farmington incident, 4
it already tarnished our DNA. I am a -- I am a victim 5
of that DNA because I have an enlarged head that I was 6
born with, and if I wasn't born in a big city, such a 7
Phoenix, they would have done an operation that would 8
have hindered my intelligence and hindered my perceive 9
of life. The assumed nuclear material hidden in these 10 lands, and as the gentleman earlier discussed how, if 11 we opened the storage containment, it is going to open 12 the floodgates for companies wanting to mine more 13 nuclear -- nuclear materials in these lands and 14 putting our people more at risk.
15 The Holtec CFS description says that they 16 will have a total of 10,000 nuclear waste in terms of 17 canisters. I don't know what a canister is. Is that 18 in tons? What are they going to carry in it? What --
19 how much and what is going to be in those canisters 20 and how long will it be in our communities? Half-21 lives of different materials have been half-lives. So 22 we could be looking at plutonium, which has the 23 longest, or we could have other ones that have the 24 half-lives of 30 years, which is still a decent amount 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 of time -- which can hinder our ability to recuperate 1
and heal ourselves over time. Thank you for your 2
time.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. And, Denise?
5 Denise Brown. And then we are going to go to Kathryn 6
Morsea.
7 MS. BROWN: Hello. (Native language 8
spoken.) So hello, good evening everybody. My name 9
is Denise Brown. I am speaking as part of the Nuclear 10 Issues Study Group. You may have seen us around -- at 11 the flea market and around time, flyering to get as 12 many people here as possible. But also speaking as a 13 person -- Navajo person who was born and raised in 14 Gallup, New Mexico. So this issue is highly 15 concerning and the reason why I am here is because, as 16 a resident, the transportation of this waste is 17 unacceptable -- as many of my relatives and community 18 members have stated. The fact that you're barely 19 consulting with the Navajo nation, I think, is very 20 unprofessional, as well as the unprofessional 21 presentation of your font in Navajo. That's 22 unacceptable, as my relatives honor and -- our native 23 language and need to understand this issue. But, in 24 addition to that, indigenous peoples in the New Mexico 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 region, such as Acoma Laguna have also been affected 1
by uranium -- the uranium legacy. And you should also 2
seek consultation with them as well.
3 And the fact that the DOT has not been a 4
part of this discussion and has led to the inability 5
for us to speak about the transportation risks --
6 because what is proposed as what -- as Anton and John 7
Heaton have said in their comments is that it will 8
mostly be transported by rail. And the rail system 9
that goes through Gallup is one of the few in New 10 Mexico, so is highly likely and highly probable that 11 we will be affected. And so -- yes, that is pretty 12 much what I wanted to say. Thank you so much, the 13 NRC, for coming here. And I hope you take into 14 consideration all of what has been said today. Thank 15 you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.
17 (Applause.)
18 MR. CAMERON: Leona? Leona would you like 19 to come up and talk? Leona Morgan.
20 MS. MORGAN: Good evening. (Native 21 language spoken.) I grew up close to here. This is 22 not really my community, but I went to high school 23 here. And I just -- I actually want to thank the NRC 24 for coming here because they only scheduled three 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 scoping meetings in the vicinity of the proposed site.
1 And so I think a lot of you haven't really 2
learned about this project, and I think this is the 3
first time a lot of you are hearing about it.
4 Unfortunately, we didn't get a presentation about the 5
project as much as people would have liked. So I 6
would say, first of all, go to more communities along 7
the transport route -- as many as possible -- and make 8
sure you include a proper presentation, something akin 9
to what the Holtec folks presented at the Radioactive 10 and Hazardous Materials Interim Committee last Friday.
11 We need something like that with proper 12 translation. So we have more Diné speakers here, not 13
-- not as many Spanish speakers. So we need more --
14 more translators. We need more of the materials 15 translated. We need more announcements about the 16 meetings.
17 And so there's -- there -- there's many 18 communities along the transport routes. This is just 19 one of them. And like Denise just said, this is a 20 highly likely route that you all are going to allow 21 Holtec to bring over 10,000 canisters across the 22 nation. We don't know how many canisters are going to 23 come through Gallup. And at one of the meetings in the 24 south -- Southeast New Mexico, we are talking about 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 the radiation that can come out of the transport 1
casks. And what was said is, oh, it is just an x-ray.
2 We don't -- we don't want additional x-rays. You 3
know, we don't -- we didn't sign up for that. We 4
didn't consent to that. Like Janine mentioned, free, 5
informed and prior consent. We were not priorly 6
informed properly of this project. In these 7
communities across the nation, you all need to do 8
proper outreach.
9 We are doing your job. We are doing all 10 of the outreach to the communities that have not been 11 included. And so I think, this is -- New Mexico --
12 how many states is the waste going to go through? How 13 many communities? And I mentioned several times at 14 the previous meetings some of the impacts to 15 indigenous peoples. If you go along this railroad, 16 you are going to pass by two of our sacred mountains.
17 And like, in the DOE study that says if 18 there is a leak or an accident it could contaminate a 19 42-square-mile area, you need to study the impacts to 20 all of the sacred places that indigenous peoples hold 21 important to all of us. We are just one tribe. And 22 so -- and Terracita mentioned the traditional plants.
23 And I think that's something that needs to be included 24 in your environmental impact study is not just the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 plants and the animals, but the traditional medicines 1
that we all use, still today. And so, I know a lot of 2
people spoke about uranium mining, and you're probably 3
going to say, oh, this doesn't -- this doesn't fit 4
within the -- the -- it is not germane to what we are 5
here for. You know, but we have lived with this 6
already. We already know the impacts from radiation 7
exposure. And as you heard tonight -- I am sure you 8
are going to hear many more of these types of comments 9
the more and more you go out there because I know you 10 have another meetings tomorrow and we are going to 11 hear from people in Albuquerque. But this is really 12 ground zero. This is where uranium came from. So 13 they took it out and they made bombs and they made 14 electricity. But then now you're trying to send the 15 waste back to our communities. This is environmental 16 racism and it needs to stop.
17 (Applause.)
18 MS. MORGAN: You all need to do -- you all 19 need to abide by the Environmental Justice Executive 20 Order. You all need to consider what Council Delegate 21 Perry stated that we have a law against the transport 22 of any radioactive materials through our traditional 23 homelands. The Navajo Nation has the Radioactive 24 Materials Transportation Act of 2012. And as I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 already stated at a previous meeting, this is -- this 1
needs to be respected under the Organization of 2
American States Declaration on the Rights of 3
Indigenous People. Our laws are valid. And just 4
because the United States doesn't legally have to 5
notify us of any rail transport, that doesn't mean it 6
is okay. And that doesn't mean that the people will 7
stand up for this. We do not consent.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 9
Leona.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Now we have Geneva -- Geneva 12 Peter?
13 MS. PETER: Good evening, my name is 14 Geneva Peter and I am with the Dineh Chamber of 15 Commerce. I am one of the board members. And also I 16 represent some of the -- the business organizations on 17 the reservation. Just hearing my community here --
18 and earlier I had the -- the pleasure to meet and talk 19 with every one of you with the NRC, Holtec and giving 20 me the brief information of what I was looking for --
21 not knowing that it was so much impact by the -- my 22 community here. I think you really need to take this 23 into consideration -- more in detail, just be 24 emphasizing -- looking from my point of view, there 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 needs to be a lot of workshops that needs to be done.
1 I mean, you are looking at the whole community from I-2 40, there's a reservation going to wherever the 3
transportation is going to be. And you have to 4
emphasize those things. I mean, it's -- it's got to 5
take at least one day to do all this, you know, 6
training and letting people know what -- more detail 7
of what, you know, this whole project is about.
8 But then I look at the other point where, 9
you know, transportation-wise, you know, I've dealt 10 with trucking for so long. I was -- I grew up in 11 trucking. There's a lot of similar issues. You know, 12 you've got to be able to deal with the federal water 13 carrier, US DOT. You know, these things are impacted 14 by what we have to go by -- our guidelines. But more 15 or less, to say, having -- hauling these hazardous 16 wastes is very, very unsafe. You know, you look at 17 the structure where transportation has to come from 18 one side to the destination. We can't really say one 19
-- you know, it's going to be a safe issue for these 20 transportation to be following. You know, you look at 21
-- you have to look at these scenarios. You may be --
22 it may be impacted by the commercial carrier or people 23 that are just along the roadway. You know, these are 24 things that you guys have to take into consideration.
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101 I dealt a lot with federal motor carrier 1
with hazardous. You know, a lot of impact issues that 2
had occurred on the roadways in the 9-40. You know, 3
these are the things that you really have to look --
4 into consideration as well. The railroad -- rail --
5 you know, not too long ago we had a derailment on the 6
east side of Gallup here. You know, we say that it is 7
going to be a safe issue for carrying these 8
radioactive wastes on the rail, but you have to really 9
take into consideration of what all the communities 10 are talking about. I was born and raised here in 11 Gallup. And I have all my relatives in Church Rock 12 and not knowing -- having to hear them -- come up 13 here, you know, I kind of had -- shed tears when one 14 of the ladies spoke. When you guys are all sitting 15 here as a committee at the NRC and Holtec, think about 16 the community of our part. You know, you look at the 17 impact of what we did with Standing Rock. That was a 18 huge, huge amount of concerns that we had. Same with 19 the King Gold Mine here. You know there is so many 20 impact that you have to take into consideration.
21 And moving this forward, you have to let 22 the community understand, you know, they may be 23 opposed to it. You know, I am kind of opposing to it 24 as well now because hearing all my community here. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 wasn't really familiar with the nuclear waste -- how 1
much it was really impacting. But now I know. So 2
having -- don't just say, you know, there are so many 3
-- my-a lot of my native people here. If they decide 4
to oppose this, you have to be ready. You know, if 5
you're going to take up a lot of -- take upon a lot of 6
my indigenous people. You know, we're all sisters 7
across the United States. There's brothers that we're 8
all in clan, you know. And we're going to stand as 9
one against it if they decided not to -- you guys 10 would do it.
11 So you have to really take that into 12 consideration, as tribes we stand as one nation. We 13 support one another from different tribes. So, you 14 know -- do -- you have to really do your research and 15 take -- and take it into consideration. Communicate 16 here for a lot of the native people. So that's what 17 I just kind of wanted to brief out to you. Thank you.
18 (Applause.)
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 20 Geneva. I just wanted to make sure. I think I called 21 Kathryn Morsea. Did Kathryn come up? Oh, come on up.
22 This is Kathryn Morsea.
23 MS. MORSEA: (Native language spoken.) I 24 was born and raised and educated in California, but my 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 traditional homeland is an hour north of here in 1
Crystal, New Mexico. I was born with the homing 2
pigeon gene. So after I got educated to become a 3
physician, I decided to come here and serve my people.
4 So I work at Gallup Indian Medical Center in Family 5
Medicine, in Palliative Care, in pain. And I am 6
extremely concerned about this proposal -- as a 7
physician. Now, I do not represent Gallup Indian 8
Medical Center. I am representing myself, who is an 9
employee there, and what I have seen.
10 We have seen a number of nasopharyngeal 11 cancers -- cancers that are usually pretty rare, but 12 they are a known consequence of uranium exposure. And 13 they are in people -- we have seen them in people too 14 young to have worked in the mines. Not only that, we 15 see very high rates of lung diseases -- COPD, 16 pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, et cetera. And almost 17 nobody smokes, okay? And we also see a lot of 18 inflammatory diseases -- things like rheumatoid 19 arthritis, lupus -- and I could go on and on and on.
20 Also, kidney disease. These are things that reflect 21 a higher level of inflammation in the body something 22 that uranium can cause. But the problem is, we are 23 working really hard to take care of patients. We are 24
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104 investigators. What we don't have is the link. We 1
have suspicions, but we don't have a link. So what I 2
am saying is that we do not have enough health data 3
regarding what's already been done here.
4 My understanding from visiting with the 5
folks from the Red Water Pond community north of 6
Church Rock, it is there -- sitting with their homes 7
-- they've lived there for hundreds if not thousands 8
of years. There's mine tailings there. The wind is 9
blowing. It -- there still has not been adequate 10 clean up. There has been higher than usual levels of 11 uranium found in the urine of babies through the 12 Navajo health study. And also from what I understand 13 is that when the Church Rock spill happened, there was 14 a lot of debris that landed in the Puerco River -- the 15 wash. And that was dredged up and placed in 16 children's playgrounds here in the community. These 17 are the things that I have heard -- in addition to 18 what I have experienced. And -- and to ask that this 19 community take on additional risks, to me is untenable 20 when we don't even really have the data that shows 21 what actually happened. We just know that we have a 22 lot of health problems here that are pretty 23 suspicious.
24 As safe as Holtec wants -- and the Nuclear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 Regulatory Commission -- wants to picture and paint --
1 paint a picture of how safe this can be, there is 2
always something that can happen. There's always 3
risks. And that's where I am concerned about. And --
4 and I -- and as Janine Yazzie had pointed out, what I 5
am noticing is that these types of risks are often 6
falling on communities of color. People at economic 7
and racial disadvantages. And that as well is 8
untenable to me. I am for the health of my people and 9
what I am -- what I am hearing and seeing is extremely 10 concerning.
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 12 Kathryn.
13 (Applause.)
14 MR. CAMERON: We are going to go to Ace 15 Hoffman right now, and then to Sharon Hoffman. This 16 is Ace Hoffman.
17 MR. HOFFMAN: Hello, I am from Carlsbad --
18 Carlsbad, California, which is about 15 miles from San 19 Onofre. And in the 1990s I started -- we moved there.
20 I immediately -- almost immediately began opposing 21 that plant. And every time I tried to bring up the 22 waste problem I was told it's solved. Yucca Mountain 23 is going to take the waste. Now, here we are, Yucca 24 Mountain is not moving forward really at all. And if 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 it were to move forward this -- over 300 problems that 1
have been identified, and some of them are absolutely 2
unsolvable, like volcanoes in the area and earthquakes 3
in the area and underground water moving in the area.
4 When -- we spent the night here, hearing the problems 5
with uranium mining in the Navajo Nation. And I -- I 6
understand how -- how bad that is. When they use the 7
uranium in a reactor, it makes plutonium. Plutonium 8
has a half-life of 24,000 years. Uranium-235 has a 9
half-life of 700 million years and uranium-238 of 4.5 10 billion years. Most of the waste is 238.
11 But that plutonium -- and there's dozens 12 of pounds of it in each of these containers -- is 13 about 30,000 times more radioactive than uranium-235 14 because you just simply do the math -- 24,000 years 15 versus 700,000 years. Multiply it by I guess about 16 30,000. Also there's all these fission products. And 17 they're 1,000 -- 10,000 times more radioactive than 18 plutonium and they can be bone seekers and thyroid 19 seekers. I had bladder cancer. Never smoked 20 cigarettes in my life. My wife had breast cancer.
21 She never smoked anything in her life, either. Cancer 22 is a terrible thing.
23 We were listening to the -- a book about 24 what they discovered after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 bombs were dropped. And they assured the soldiers 1
that went -- that went in to study it that there was 2
absolutely no danger from the radiation. And they 3
said -- and this was written, you know, in 1946 --
4 what we were listening to in audio books on the way 5
over here through the Painted Forest -- or, the 6
Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest -- that there 7
was no indication that any of the radiation damaged.
8 Everyone that was killed was killed by the blast or 9
the -- or the pressure or the -- the glass flying, and 10 so forth.
11 But we know now that thousands and 12 thousands of Japanese people were killed by the 13 radiation. So if you -- if you're going to let this 14 stuff come, don't think that it's just the uranium 15 coming back to you. It is literally 10 million times 16 worse than the radiation. You do not want this stuff 17 here. And yes, you're just going to give a green 18 light to the industry, which doesn't need to -- we 19 don't need this industry anymore. There's plenty of 20 wind and solar and every other kind of energy that we 21
-- we need.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. HOFFMAN: But don't -- don't green-24 light this. Now, I am very briefly going to mention 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 this book that you can get. I have a bunch of copies 1
and you're welcome to take one. I have been studying 2
this issue -- in 1979 I had a comedy routine about 3
Three Mile Island, so -- it's been a long time. Some 4
of the people I have worked with already know or --
5 were on my newsletter list. Helen Kalvicod, John 6
Gottman, Ernest Sternglass. These are all people that 7
I've -- I've known. When I got bladder cancer, I 8
decided I had better dump everything I know into a 9
book -- just in case. So that's how this book came 10 about. Just take a copy.
11 And by the way -- if I have just a little 12 bit more time -- there's another solution. I was at 13 the Atomic Testing Museum in Nevada a couple years 14 ago. And one of the guys that had been working on the 15 test -- they were testifying about their experiences 16 with the test -- and he had studied carefully all the 17
-- the electro-magnetic pulse and all that other stuff 18 that comes up. And he has a solution that requires 19 lasers to reduce the radioactivity of this waste. And 20 that has to happen before it ever gets here.
21 And the last point is -- actually, the 22 last point is we have all heard 10,000 containers, 23 which of course is 20,000 transferred, here and back 24
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109 want to reprocess it and use it in more -- more 1
reactors. And so --
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ace.
3 (Applause.)
4 MR. CAMERON: And this is -- this is 5
Sharon Hoffman. And next we can go to Edith Hood.
6 MS. HOFFMAN: Good evening. This is 7
really an awesome hearing in the sense that the people 8
who have spoken tonight know a lot about the issues.
9 The bad news is, you know about them for the worst 10 possible reasons. You've experienced them yourselves.
11 As physicians, you've seen them. The average 12 community does not have this level of knowledge. And 13 I want to emphasize to the NRC that the community that 14 has this personal knowledge is very much against 15 anything nuclear in their community.
16 (Applause.)
17 MS. HOFFMAN: It has been said at least 18 once tonight -- I think practically everything I 19 thought of has been said at least once tonight -- but 20 I think this is actually the most important thing. We 21 have to stop making the waste. As long as we're 22 making more, this is going to impact some community 23 somewhere. And it is very fair to say this is not our 24 problem, we do not want it -- but nobody wants it.
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110 And we all have to stop. And then, maybe then, we can 1
look at solutions.
2 The other thing I wanted to talk about is 3
I noticed in the NRC presentation that there's a 4
distinction between environmental and safety concerns.
5 And I truly do not understand that because the 6
environmental impacts impact the safety of the people 7
and the wildlife and the plants that live here. So 8
we're asking, are there endangered species? Yes, 9
humans.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MS. HOFFMAN: There are a lot of humans.
12 And they are being endangered by this project. And 13 there is no way this is environmentally responsible.
14 Moving the waste is irresponsible, making more waste 15 is more -- is irresponsible. Putting it in the 16 location that Holtec is proposing is irresponsible.
17 None of this makes any sense and it is just going to 18 facilitate more nuclear waste. We have to stop this.
19 And I want to end with -- there's something else that 20 we heard in the audio books today. We heard about the 21 trinity tests. And before the trinity tests, nobody 22 knew what would happen. And the scientists had a 23 betting pool about what was going to happen -- what 24 was going to be the yield of that -- of that bomb.
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111 And Enrico Fermi, you know, who knows something -- was 1
willing to bet anybody that it would end life on the 2
planet as we know it. And to some degree, he was 3
correct, right? Because we all have radioactivity in 4
us and there's a lot of health effects from that. But 5
more importantly, they were gambling on -- in multiple 6
senses on something that they did not know what the 7
result would be. And the nuclear industry is still 8
doing that. And we do not have to put up with this.
9 They have to stop it. Thank you.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 12 Sharon. Now, Edith? Edith Hood? And then we're 13 going to go to Susan Schuurman.
14 MS. HOOD: Good evening everyone. My name 15 is Edith Hood, and I am from the Red Water Pond 16 community. And when I listen to all of this, there 17 are a lot of you that are very informed. And I think 18 some of our are going to have advocate friends, your 19 family -- the people. And my question here is where 20 is the human rights aspect of all of what we're 21 talking about? Where is it? All of us have a right 22 to live in a safe and supportive environment in 23 America. Sometimes I feel like we are living in the 24 third world here -- especially with all the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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112 contamination that we live in back home -- in my 1
backyard.
2 The next one I am going to ask is, where 3
and what is your back-up plan in case of an emergency?
4 Is it going to be sitting under some dust somewhere?
5 Where is it? And -- so we, the people of the 6
community here need our very informed and -- and we 7
need to educate everyone else. All I ask is not in my 8
backyard. Again, thank you.
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And 11 now, Susan?
12 MS. SCHUURMAN: Thank you. What an honor 13 to follow Edith Hood. I am still shaking from 14 Terracita Keyanna's comments -- that made a lot of us 15 cry. The impact to her family has been -- I don't 16 know how anyone can consider approving a project after 17 hearing her testimony. My name is Sue Schuurman. I 18 have lived in New Mexico for 25 years and I am a 19 cancer survivor. You know, when you get cancer, they 20 don't tell you how you got it. You ask, and they 21 say, well, we don't know. So -- you wonder, but you 22 don't know.
23 I want to talk about cumulative impacts 24 because that is one of the categories. I know you're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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113 scoping for environmental impact statement, and I 1
think cumulative impacts could shut this proposal down 2
on itself -- just by itself. Uranium mines, cancer, 3
abandoned uranium mines, tailings piles, tailings 4
spill at Church Rock, Los Alamos National Labs, 5
plutonium in the Rio Grande, the Canyons, the kick-6 and-roll disposal method, right? There's a lot of 7
contamination in the canyons at L'Antelope. The 8
Trinity site, the test without consent of the local 9
population. They had no idea what that explosion was 10 that morning. Generations of down-winders with health 11 impacts. The stockpile of over 2,000 nuclear warheads 12 at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. The mixed-13 waste landfill -- they don't know what's in there.
14 They know there radioactive waste from the Cold War 15 era in barrels that were dumped into unlined trenches.
16 That's right above our aquifer. I live in 17 Albuquerque. The website, waste isolation pilot plant 18 near Carlsbad with transuranic waste from atomic bomb 19 making, which after only 15 years had an underground 20 fire and a radioactive release.
21 This is cumulative impacts. If you add up 22 all the environmental impacts that New Mexico has 23 already experienced, I find it baffling that New 24 Mexico could be considered for additional impacts. No 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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114 matter how safe you and Holtec make this project 1
appear to be, there will be environmental impacts to 2
New Mexico and to New Mexicans. And the CIS facility 3
would impact the people of Gallup because of the 4
deadly waste traveling through here on the trains. We 5
-- we heard trains while we've been sitting here 6
tonight. They're so often through Gallup. And trains 7
have accidents. A few weeks ago we saw 10 train cars 8
derailed in Odessa, Texas alone. It was the day of 9
the NRC hearing in Hobbs. If the NRC considers the 10 cumulative impacts of this project on New Mexico, you 11 will deny this licensed application. We don't want 12 it, and we do not consent. Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.
14 (Applause.)
15 MR. CAMERON: Now that's the last speaker 16 that we had for tonight. And usually what we do is 17 have the NRC senior official, who is Brian Smith, 18 close the meeting. I just wanted to thank you from 19 the facilitator's point of view for all of your 20 courtesy and your patience and your -- your comments 21 tonight. And I have to thank Knifewing and his 22 colleagues. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. CAMERON: I think this is the best 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 place that we have done a meeting, okay? And so, 1
thank you to you, Knifewing. And I will give you 2
Brian.
3 MR. SMITH: All right, first of all, I 4
want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. And 5
again, we -- at least the microphones work tonight.
6 All of our previous meetings, we've had microphone 7
issues. Luckily, they worked well tonight. Thank you 8
again for coming out tonight. We appreciate all of 9
the comments that we heard. We have not made a 10 decision on this project. This is just the very 11 beginning of our review -- both the safety review, 12 security review and environmental review. They're all 13 taken into consideration together and ultimately a 14 decision will be made at the end of the overall 15 project review. We are doing one more meeting. It is 16 tomorrow night in Albuquerque. So you can look 17 forward -- I am sure we will probably see some of you 18 again. So, appreciate your comments. Have a good 19 evening. Thank you very much.
20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 21 off the record at 8:47 p.m.)
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