ML18295A013
ML18295A013 | |
Person / Time | |
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Site: | |
Issue date: | 10/19/2018 |
From: | Schafersman S - No Known Affiliation |
To: | Office of Administration |
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83FR44922 00058, NRC-2016-0231 | |
Download: ML18295A013 (46) | |
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~UN~l Kev1ew 1..,omplete Template= ADM-013 E-RIDS=ADM-03 ADD= Antoinette Walker-Smith, PUBLIC SUBMISSION JamesPark, CinthyaCuevas Roman, Jenny Weil As of: 10/22/18 7:20 AM Received: October 19, 2018 Status: Pending_Post Tracking No. lk2-962m-hure Comments Due: October 19,201 COMMENT (58)
Submission Type: Web PUBLICATION DATE: 9/4/2018 Docket: NRC-2016-0231 CITATION 83 FR 44922 Waste Control Specialists LLC's Consolidated Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility Project Comment On: NRC-2016-0231-0187 Interim Storage Partners LLC's Consolidated Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility Document: NRC-2016-0231-DRAFT-023 7 Comment on FR Doc # 2018-19058 Name: Steven Schafersman Address:
6202 Driftwood Dr Midland, TX, 79707 Email: sschafersman@gmail.com Submitter Information General Comment This is my report in which I document the evidence and reasons why the Interim Storage Partners (Orano USA and WCS) proposed CISF in Andrews County, Texas, is a bad idea. It is inadvisable, unsafe, and dangerous. I present nine separate reasons why this proposal should not be permitted by the NRC.
The report is fairly long for a comment or public submission so I send it as two attachments. The original report was 11.8 MB so I cut it into two attachments of 2 MB and 9.9 MB to get them below 10.5 MB.
My credentials are described in the report. I removed my contact information but will include it with this submission.
Attachments _Schafersman_ Report_ Opposing_ ISP_ WCS _ CISF _Schafersman_ Report_ Opposing_ISP _ WCS _ CISF
1 Report Documenting the Evidence and Reasons to Oppose the Waste Control Specialists Site in Andrews County, Texas, for Temporary Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste in the Form of Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods Steven Schafersman, PhD 2018 October Introduction This report presents nine reasons that document why it is inadvisable, unsafe, and dangerous to temporarily or permanently store SNF/HLNW (spent nuclear fuel/high level nuclear waste) at the proposed Waste Control Specialists (WCS) waste storage site in Andrews County next to the New Mexico state line, only 5 miles from Eunice, NM. Each of these nine reasons individually provides sufficient reason to deny giving Interim Storage Partners (ISP)a joint venture of WCS and Orano USAa license for its temporary storage proposal, and together they provide an overwhelming refutation of the proposed project.
The first three reasons deal with (1) the abundant evaporite karst processes and features in the region, (2) the presence of fresh and saline waters on the areas surface and in the subsurface, and (3) the presence of petroleum industry activity (exploration, drilling, fracking, and wastewater injection) in the area.
The next three reasons oppose the transport and storage of SNF/HLNW at the WCS site because these plans are too unsafe and even dangerous to allow. These reasons are (4) surface storage of nuclear waste, (5) transportation risks, and (6) storage canister failure.
Finally, I present three reasons that make it clear that the plan to temporarily store the SNF/HLNW is misguided, foolhardy, and craven almost beyond belief and will inevitably fail.
These reasons deal with (7) moving the waste a second time, (8) externality theory, (9) risk analysis.
2 The Reasons that make it Inadvisable, even Dangerous, to Store High Level Nuclear Wastes at WCSs Proposed Temporary Storage Site in Andrews County, Texas The Orano USA-WCS joint venture Interim Storage Partners (ISP) proposes to store Spent Nuclear Fuel/High Level Nuclear Waste (SNF/HLNW) at the WCS facility on the New Mexico state line in Andrews County, Texas, about 5 miles east of Hobbs, NM. This facility is already a permanent storage site for alleged low-level nuclear wastes in canisters that have been placed in prepared pits that have been quarried to a shallow depth, lined with rugged materials to seal in leaks and radiation, and buried by quarried sediment. This original permanent low-level nuclear waste repository was initially vehemently opposed ten years ago by citizens, independent scientists, and waste disposal expert scientists who worked with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The citizens and independent scientists were ignored and the TCEQ expert scientists were forced to resign or were fired. After the license was granted by the TCEQ and subsequently by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the TCEQ Executive Director was given a high-paying job with WCS. It was obvious that the state license to develop the WCS in Andrews County was a decision in which politics trumped science since the area is highly unsuitable for storage of nuclear wastes, either low-level or high-level, either temporarily or permanently.
The ISP proposal is to construct a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) at the WCS site.
The plan is to use Orano technology to package, transport and store the waste in hundreds of steel canisters in a grid on the ground over a prepared surface in a quarried pit, not buried or covered since the plan is to ultimately remove the canisters and transport them a second time to a permanent nuclear repository within 120 years. Each canister holds several radioactive fuel rod assemblies, together constituting dozens of fuel rods. ISP believes this technology to be the safest method to store spent fuel rods in the world. Each canister, used only once, is transported to the site in very heavy duty, shock protected, steel shipping casks on either trucks or trains. Each canister is removed from its transport cask using specialized equipment and placed on its prepared land surface in a grid. The canisters are ventilated to allow passive air cooling, and designed to keep rain, overland flow, and ground water out as long as (a) the canister walls remain unbreached, (b) the ground is not flooded above the air intake vents, (c) the canisters remain upright and undisturbed, (d) the water table does not rise to the level of the canisters vents, and (e) terrorists do not attack the site with explosives (all of which may be
3 unwarranted assumptions). The initial estimated cost of this project are over $2 billion, but the actual cost will be many times that number. In fact, the cost may exhaust the $50 billion trust fund that exists to permanently package, transport, and store the waste in a permanent, safe, underground repository, thus leaving the waste sitting in canisters above ground forever since it would be unlikelyas explained belowto allocate more billions of dollars to move the waste a second time.
In this report, I will normally use the term WCS facility to refer to refer to the storage facility with pits and canisters, WCS site to refer to the area containing the CISF and the property around the CISF adjacent to the New Mexico state line, and simply nuclear waste to refer to SNF/HLNW. The region has two currently operating storage sites for (1) transuranic nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and (2) low level nuclear waste at Waste Control Specialists (WCS). These two sites were energetically and vociferously opposed by professional geologists and nuclear waste control specialists for many of the same reasons discussed in this report, and the literature describing the reasons can in many cases be used in the present case for the third site: (3) the high level nuclear waste storage site proposed by ISP-Orano-WCS in Andrews County, Texas.
Despite having similar geologic problems and dangers, the two operating sites were chosen for permanent storage for their much less radioactivebut still dangerousnuclear waste because of the assumed geographic isolation and low population density of the region, the citizens of the areas good nature and tolerance for free enterprise solutions to dirty problems regardless of the human risks and dangers involved, the areas large population of Mexicans and Latin-Americans, many with low incomes and corresponding little political power, and most especially the weak political leadership in the counties and cities in the region who still hold to an outmoded laissez faire concept of capitalism (which, by the way, is not shared by the majority of the citizens of the region where surveys and public hearings show oppose the nuclear storage sites). The geological objections were not considered definitive by the NRC in their approval of WIPP and WCS. As it happened, despite frequent claims of transparency, both the two earlier sites have accepted nuclear waste of much higher radioactive content than what they publicize, so citizens were correct to oppose the two existing permanent waste storage sites.
The author has visited and studied over a dozen superfund sites in the Houston area, taught a course in environmental law at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, and is currently a
4 consulting scientist in the petroleum and environmental industries in the Permian Basin. He created the first environmental science course in Houston in 1978 and taught it and similar courses, such as environmental geology, for over twenty years. He has 24 years of experience working in the petroleum industry in the office, laboratory, and at well locations in the field as a geologist. He has been inside the WIPP facility on a guided tour. He has several academic and industrial specialties, but for the purpose of this report his areas of expertise are sedimentary petrology, stratigraphy, and sedimentology. While not a specialist in the following disciplines, he has taught college students the basics of toxic and hazardous waste disposal and hydrogeology (ground water hydrology), and has taught high school chemistry and physics. He has 23 years of experience teaching many different Earth science courses for thousands of students in colleges and universities in Texas and Ohio. His PhD is in Geology from Rice University, Houston, in 1983.
The purpose of the first three reasons is to describe the geologic conditions and situation at the WCS site that makes it extremely inadvisable to temporarily or permanently store nuclear waste at this site. The area is unsuitable because of surface water that has pooled in the WCS pits, ground water in several aquifers, porous and permeable rocks in the stratigraphic column beneath the site, and a region filled with evaporite karst features including salt dissolution, surface collapse, surface subsidence, sinkholes, dolines, fissures, caves, solution lineaments, karst valleys, and cenotes. In addition, the petroleum industry has active wells in the surrounding area and region of the WCS site. These and future wells are both vertical and horizontal and most will be fracked (hydraulically fractured). In addition, the area contains salt water disposal wells in which both fracking and production wastewater will be injected into the subsurface. Also, the WCS property will be kept oil well free, as is the case of the WIPP site, thus removing potential petroleum leases from exploration and production during a time of the greatest activity in the history of this great oil-and gas-producing region (the Delaware Basin).
ISP makes three unwarranted assumptions in its plan to store nuclear waste. (1) First, for many of these geologic problems to manifest themselves, the canisters must corrode or crack sufficiently to let water in to be irradiated and then be able to escape into the environment, and ISP assumes that this wont happen fast enough to be a problem. But this is exactly what has happened in the case of just about every superfund site I have seen (the only exceptions are when the toxic or hazardous waste is dumped directly onto the ground or poured directly into the ground, and this only speeds the pollution damage). The containment vessels and artificial
5 barriers may be of the finest design and workmanship, but corrosion, cracking, and decomposition due to stresses and exposure to the elements will eventually cause these to happen over time; also, after some time, the canisters may be too decomposed to move even if that activity comes to pass. The time may well be more than 100 years, but the stored nuclear materials will be dangerously radioactive for far longer than that, so ISP is planning to pass the dangers to succeeding generations (but to earn its profits now: see the section on privatizing benefits and socializing costs). Only if the storage site is placed in a nonporous and impermeable subterranean rock cavitywith the same artificial material safeguardsand will be inaccessible to people in the future, and the nuclear waste moved only once from the reactors to the permanent storage site, will the proper conditions for long-term hazardous and toxic waste storage be met.
(2) Second, ISP assumes that the nuclear waste will remain isolated in their shallow subsurface canisters, safely out of the reach of human activity, while the nuclear waste is stored there. This unwarranted assumption is belied by (a) the great potential for the waste to never be moved againa second timeto its hypothetical permanent storage location (see below), and (b) the fact that the ISP facility is designed to be accessible to humans for the presumed eventual removal of the waste to its permanent inaccessible storage location. In the meantime, the ISP facility will be subject to proliferation, terrorist attack, bombing, and similar illegal activities.
The idea that guards and a fence will keep out determined individuals, organizations, and states who mean to do harm is ludicrous. Once all or even some of the waste is stored, a large militia group can take over the facility, declare themselves an independent state, and threaten to destroy the canisters with explosives if authorities try to remove them. The authorities will not be able to bomb, burn, or fire upon the militia domestic terrorists, so how will the threat be stopped?
(3) Third, ISP assumes thatsince most examples of karst collapse and sinkhole formation have been caused by human activity, such as subsurface dissolution of salt by leaking uncased, uncemented, and abandoned wells or out-of-control dissolution mining of evaporites(a) human activity that might contribute to evaporite dissolution can be prevented in the region and (b) natural evaporite karst processes will not be a problem at the site due to their operation over long periods of geologic time. Both of these assumptions are wrong. Examples of anthropogenic karst dissolution, collapse, and subsidence are by definition unplanned accidents and cannot be prevented unless all human activity is banned, and this is not going to
6 be the case. And natural evaporite karst processes are dynamic and occurring now in the area, albeit over long periods of time but well within the radioactive lifetimes of high-level nuclear waste. ISP plans to gamble that such long-term calamities will not take place while the nuclear waste is being stored temporarily, but this is unrealistic, especially since there are better solutions (such as the novel idea of transporting and permanently storing the waste correctly and safely the first time).
Why the Regions Surface and Subsurface Geology Make High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal Inadvisable.
The regional geology of the ISP site makes it probably the worst place in New Mexico or Texas to store nuclear waste. Almost any spot in the two states chosen randomly, excepting urban areas, would provide better long-term protection. The location was chosen for political reasons, not geological or environmental ones, such as remoteness, weak political leadership, and the assumed complicity of the poor and minority residents. The region exhibits abundant nearby evaporite and carbonate karst features created by dissolution of subsurface rocks, permanent and ephemeral surface water (multiple lagunas and steams) and ground water (multiple aquifers), porous and permeable sedimentary rocks in the subsurface, and very active very nearby petroleum exploration and production and potash mining. All of these attributes mitigate any rationale for choosing this region for nuclear waste storage. Since when did it become acceptable to site hazardous and toxic waste landfills in areas of surficial fresh water, above freshwater aquifers, above porous and permeable sedimentary rocks, and in regions of abundant karst features and processes?
For the images and maps that follow, I have borrowed freely from scientific journal articles and scientific reports, all available on the Web.
7 Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas are geologically dominated by a great sedimentary basin, the Permian Basin. It consists of three sub-basins, two platforms, and three shelves. The Permian Basin has extremely thick sequences of source rocks (porous and weakly permeable mudrocks from which petroleum is generated by basin subsidence with higher temperatures and pressures over millions of years) and reservoir rocks (porous and permeable sandstones and carbonateslimestones and dolomitesinto which the petroleum migrates). In addition, the stratigraphy and structural features of the basin provide thousands of petroleum traps that literally trap the oil and gas before it migrates to the surface and is lost to evaporation and degradation, as happens to about 50% of all the petroleum generated, so it can be discovered and produced. Tens of thousands of oil and gas wells have been drilled on the blue and yellow areas in the map above during the last century. The Permian Basin is one of the five largest and most productive petroleum-rich basins on the planet.
8 The Delaware Basin to the west and Midland Basin to the east are both highly productive. The two giant basins are separated by the Central Basin Platform, the large feature underlying the proposed ISP-Orano-WCS site. The stratigraphic sequences in the two basins are similar but not identical, and some formations have different names. The adjacent shelves have very similar sequences and share the formation names of the basin whose margin they rim.
For this report we are interested only in the region of the Northwest Shelf of the Delaware Basin, right now perhaps the most active sedimentary basin in the world for oil exploration due
9 to fracking of the basinal mudrocks and similar fine-grained rocks of the shelf margin and basin slope whose wells are also fracked. The ISP site sits right in the middle of all this activity.
We use the term mudrocks because the term shale is not correct for these rocks that contain as much or more carbonates, quartz silt, very fine grain quartz sand, organic carbonaceous compounds, and authigenic aluminosilicate clay minerals than detrital clay minerals typical of shales. These rocks, such as the Bone Spring in the Delaware Basin, the Sprayberry in the Midland Basin, and the Wolfcamp in both basins, also lack the characteristic fissility of shale, a rock made primarily of detrital silicate clay minerals with some minor quartz silt.
A series of very fine grain sandstone formationsthe Brushy Canyon Fm, Cherry Canyon Fm, and Bell Canyon Fmwere deposited onto the slope and basin floor when sea levels were low and silicate clastics could erode from terrestrial areas, through the shelf, and into the basin.
The mudrocks of the basin and shelf and the very fine, argillaceous sandstones of the slope and basin are the prime targets of oil exploration in the Delaware Basin, for they are porous, full of hydrocarbons, and can be fracked to improve their permeability to make them excellent producers.
Above the oil-rich sedimentary rocks are two very thick layers of evaporites, the gypsum Castile Fm over the basin and the halite (rock salt) Salado Fm over the entire basin, shelf, and back-reef lagoons. They formed when the marine water filling the giant basins evaporated. This happened repeatedly as sea level rose and fell in a long series of cycles caused by Gondwana glaciation.
Of great importance is the presence of a giant organic buildup around the margin of the basin
10 on the shelf edge named the Permian Reef and composed of Capitan Fm limestone. This organic buildup is usually called a reef in analogy to modern shelf margin reefs, since it was built by abundant calcareous marine algae and invertebrates, but it was not a rigid framework like modern coral reefs. Instead, calcareous algae, sponges, bryozoans, and brachiopods were the dominant reef builders. The original lithology of the buildup or reef was limestone but it has been frequently dolomitized, for example in the Apache Mountains, which has been totally dolomitized. The Guadalupe Mountains have been partially dolomitized in zones and strata.
The Glass Mountains have largely escaped dolomitization and have the best unaltered fossils and thus the best biostratigraphic sections of all. The significance of this carbonate mineralogy is that the reef could develop excellent porosity and permeability due to ancient marine sedimentation and burial processes and thus could serve as a good reservoir rock. This is even more true of the carbonate rocks behind the reef. If oil is trapped in the rock, it fills up the pore space and remains to be discovered and produced. But the reef or shelf margin carbonate rock can also serve as an aquifer, the Capitan Reef Aquifer, if it remains underground at appropriate depths. This aquifer holds brackish water in the deeper subsurface as it is at the the ISP site, but also fresher water when it has been faulted up to surface and above surface levels and can be recharged by precipitation (meteoric water). For example, potable water can be found in the Capitan Reef Aquifer near Carlsbad, NM.
Since limestone and dolomite can be dissolved by subsurface waters, karst features such as caverns, sinkholes, karst towers, karst valleys, etc. can be formed. This is termed carbonate karst. The Guadalupe Mountain Range in particular is world famous for its outstanding carbonate karst features, especially caves. But there is a second type of karst, evaporite karst, which forms when surface and subsurface waters dissolve salt and gypsum and create similar karst features such as caverns, sinkholes, and subsidence basins. The Delaware Basin is also world famous for its gypsum caves and karst features that form by evaporite dissolution. In particular, the basin shelf edge along the Northwest Shelf and the Central Basin Platform have abundant evaporite karst features and topography, including a large number of sinkholes, karst valleys, and smaller areas of karst depression that have undergone subsidence. These processes continue today.
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13 Above are two stratigraphic columns: the first for the Delaware Basin not far from the ISP site and which is very similar to it and the second a generalized column for the region. For the purposes of this report, the sedimentary rocks in the upper part of the Delaware Basin and Shelf stratigraphic column concern us the most, for while they are not the deep targets of oil exploration (which are all below the Salado Fm salt which acts like a trap seal), they contain aquifers that hold ground water and are closer to the surface. These younger sediments and rocks include Alluvial sands, silts, and clays, the Mescalero Caliche, the Gatuna Fm (not present), the Ogallala Fm (not present), the Dockum Group with Santa Rosa Fm, the Rustler Fm, the Salado and Castile Fm salts, and the Capitan Fm. Again, there are great thicknesses of subjacent rock formations, even on the shelf, but they are too deep to be relevant except in the case of oil exploration.
The giant Capitan Reef brackish water aquifer lies 3,000 - 3,200' feet below the ISP site, probably too deep to cause a problem. This aquifer experiences limestone karst activity at shallow depths, not evaporite karst, but is too deep to affect the surface under the ISP site.
Near the surface it produces many spectacular caves and other carbonate karst features.
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- 1. Presence of Both Carbonate and Evaporite Karst Processes and Features in the Region and Immediate Area of the WCS Site A. Carbonate Karst Carbonate karst is prevalent in the region. This is the type of karst created by dissolution of limestone and dolomite rocks by either meteoric water (ordinary precipitation) or ground water (in aquifers). For this type of karst to develop, the carbonate rocks must be relatively high in the geologic column, typically in the shallow subsurface or above the ground. The natural geologic processes that form carbonate karst features are well understood and taught about in every introductory physical geology course.
The most amazing carbonate karst features in the Delaware Basin are Carlsbad Caverns, Lechuguilla Cave, and the many caves on Guadalupe Ridge. Karst towers and depressions are also to be seen in the Guadalupe Mountains. To produce this enormous number of spectacular karst features, three things are required: (1) a large mass of limestone or dolomite, (2) percolating subterranean water to dissolve the carbonates, and (3) a history of sea-level rise and fall or tectonic activity which provide the conditions for the dissolution to occur.
B. Evaporite Karst Of greater importance for the purpose of this paper, we will now examine the rich evidence for evaporite karst in the region of the ISP site in the Delaware Basin. To state the conclusion at the beginning, the evaporite karst evidence is perhaps the best geological evidence we have to recognize that siting a nuclear waste storage facility in this region, and especially on the specific site that ISP is proposing to place its facility, is an extremely bad idea. Not only are evaporite karst processes pervasive in the region, but two different types of evaporite karst dissolutionrock salt and potashare occurring close to the ISP site. Either salt dissolution, potash dissolution, or both are responsible for the subsidence. These findings suggest that there are significant dangers for nuclear waste storage at this site.
2 Lets look at the regional geology. Because of the presence of the thick Salado salt formation in the subsurface, dissolution of the rock salt by a variety of mechanisms can create caverns, sinkholes, dolines (a general term for various types of surface solution and collapse structures),
and subsidence features such as karst valleys, karst lineaments (in geology, a lineament is a linear topographic feature of regional extent that is believed to reflect underlying crustal structure, in this case dissolution erosion of the top of the salt), karst subsidence basins (manifested on the surface as regional topographic depressions), karst fissures, and cenotes in the region. These features are pervasive in this area and some are found very close to the proposed ISP site.
3 The karst features are both natural and anthropogenic in origin. Some of the well-known anthropogenic sinkholes are the Wink Sinks, Jal Sink, JWS Sinkhole, Loco Hills sinkhole, and the I&W Brine Well inside Carlsbad. Natural sinkholes include San Simon Sink, Williams Sink, and Bottomless Lake south of Carlsbad near Carlsbad Caverns. Small natural sinkholes are found in many places. Natural cenotes are found only in Bottomless Lakes State Park.
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5 For some reason, companies want to keep putting nuclear wastes into the ground in areas where salt dissolution occurs and karst collapse structures form. Are they aware they are maximizing the risks and courting danger? Companies have been allowed to do this despite the many problemswhich are well known to geologists. Even WIPP is at risk, since once the
6 ductile salt encloses the waste, the waste can move anywhere. After several thousand years it may be hundreds of miles from where it was placed, perhaps migrating to a solution cavity or working its way to the surface or mixing with the ground water. Salt ductility or creep was formerly considered a problem since it could warp the access shafts and prevent ingress and egress, but officials simply changed their views about this and it was newly characterized as a valuable feature that would quickly enclose the wasteand the problem vanished. At least, hopefully, the waste will still be deep underground and inaccessible to humans and nothing happens in the mean time.
I want to emphasize that this area is characterized by evaporite karst processes and features, which means collapsing sinkholes, subsidence basins, bottomless (actually, very deep) lakes, karst valleys, and similar dissolution features. It is difficult to imagine a worse place to store or deposit toxic, hazardous, or nuclear wastes.
The Wink Sinks One of the most studied examples of evaporite karst dissolution and sinkhole formation are the Wink Sinks in the old Hendrick Field in Winkler County. Over a dozen scientific studies have deciphered this once-novel catastrophic process. Texas has a long history of oil exploration and production, and many early 20th Century uncased wells and incompletely cement-plugged wells were abandoned (rules today should prevent this). Oilfield (connate) water entered two well bores, flowed up to the salt and dissolved huge cavities. The roofs of the solution cavities collapsed and the cavity opening migrated upward toward the surface through decades. Once reaching the surface, the sinkhole enlarged quickly as the walls began collapsing. Active concentric, centripetal fractures and faults are clearly visible in these aerial photos.
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8 One series of studies by Kim and Lu of Southern Methodist University used satellite interferometric radar mapping (InSAR) of the relief of the ground surface to detect a region of subsidence where potential new sinkholes could develop (http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/8/4/313/htmll https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23143-6). This area is subsiding by approximately 13 cm/year as measured by satellite radar data. We will see this method used again when we look at karst laguna clusters near New Mexico potash mines.
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10 Nash Draw Nash Draw is one of the most remarkable karst landforms in the Delaware Basin. Nash Draw is not an actual drawa dry ephemeral stream valleybut a well-studied karst valley that contains karst collapse and subsidence features such as caves, sinkholes, fissures, surface
11 depression, short arroyos, and internal drainage. This karst valley is aligned in a NE-SW direction and if its NE lobe were to be extended a few miles, it would encompass the ISP site. It is well-studied because it is immediately adjacent to the WIPP site to its east (Figure 1). The depression had been termed a draw early in human settlement before its true nature was discerned by geologists.
A 2006 paper by Powers, Beauheim, Holt, and Hughes (https://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/downloads/57/57_p0253_p0265.pdf) summarized what was then known about Nash Draw/Nash Karst Valley. Well data show that the eastern margin of Nash Draw, Livingston Ridge, overlies the position where the elevation of the surface of the Salado salt 1,400 feet below changes due to dissolution. The thickness of the Salado changes as does the elevation of overlying rock units, so the surface topography reflects dissolution at the top of the Salado. Subsidence occurred to the west of Livingston Ridge and this caused the areass arroyos to recede and subside, eventually creating a valley, but an ephemeral karst valley, not an ephemeral stream valley.
12 The Loving Salt Laguna Cluster is between Loving, NM, and United Salt Corp. The large lake in the SW of the cluster is Laguna Grande de la Sal, used now to evaporate water to produce salt. About a dozen smaller lagunas are in the cluster.
The four authors state that the southwestern lobe of Nash Drawwhere a cluster of about a dozen lagunas occurs, including Laguna Grande de la Sal, the Cinco Lagunas, and Lindsey Lake, between Loving, NM, and United Salt Corp. (so I am naming the cluster the Loving Salt Laguna Cluster)is also a depressed area formed by deep subterranean dissolution of the top of the Salado salt. This laguna cluster is outlined above and makes up a large portion of the southwest lobe of Nash Draw/Karst Valley. The lagunas cluster in a group, of course, because even within the karst valley, this is a subsidence karst basin that is slightly deeper than the surrounding land surface and thus water collects here in the laguna depressions.
13 The Potash Mine Laguna Cluster is immediately NE of Nash Draw. The two potash mines are visible on the left: Intrepid Potash North is under the text and Intrepid Potash East is S of Hwy 62 just outside the boundary. All four lagunas in the cluster are visible.
Laguna Toston is waterless. Laguna Plata is the largest at top. Laguna Gatuna, cat-shaped lake, is obvious. Laguna Tonto is off by itself to the NE. Note that even this laguna cluster has a NE-SW lineament similar to the Nash Karst Valley.
The evidence is quite strong that deep subsurface dissolution of the top of the giant Salado Fm salt bed controls the topography and karst features on the land surface. We can extend this concept to the cluster of four lagunas near the ISP site that I am naming the Potash Mine Laguna Cluster because Intrepid Potash East and Intrepid Potash North mines border the western side of the cluster. All maps of Nash Draws northeast boundary put it south of Hwy 62 since the surface depression ends there. But I believe that the same subsurface processes are operating at both the potash mine lagunas and the Laguna Grande lagunas, that is, subsurface dissolution of the top of the Salado salt is creating subsidence that results in two depressed laguna basins, not one. Apparently, no one until now has seriously proposed that the cluster of
14 four lagunas just east of the two Intrepid potash mines cant be random. Remember, these are not small, round, randomly spaced playa lakes such as are found on the Southern Great Plains or Llano Estacado plateau. These are large, closely grouped, irregularly-shaped lakes that have bluffs around the full margin. So the lagunas have a different origin than normal playasa structural and stratigraphic origin, not an ecological origin as true playa lakes have. They are grouped together in a cluster because the area is depressed, forming a karst subsidence basin, due to subsurface salt dissolution. The lagunas themselves are smaller depressions within a large depression, just as is the case with the Loving Salt Laguna Cluster. The water in the lakes apparently comes from the potash plants according to Lewis Land, a foremost evaporite karst geologist who lives in Carlsbad. Also, the Williams Sink, visible on Google Maps, is within the boundaries of Intrepid Potash North.
In conclusion, good evidence in the form of (1) documented subsurface salt dissolution near the ISP site, (2) karst features (sinkholes, subsidence bowls, caves, karst fissures, etc.) near the site, and (3) laguna clustering in karst subsidence basins near the site. The karst dissolution processes are dynamic and ongoing and make it quite inadvisable to approve a license to store nuclear waste in ISPs proposed facility due to the risks of karst movement and collapse. The risk may be small but it is not infinitesimal and, since the nuclear waste will probably remain on the ground surface long past the contracted time, it is dangerous to permit a license to permit this.
- 2. Presence of Groundwater and Aquifers The WCS site has been claimed by WCS and now ISP to be dry and free of surface and subsurface water that might reach the nuclear waste storage canisters. But these claims are not true. In fact, there are at least (a) two aquifers beneath the WCS site, (b) two others that were present but have been mined or quarried through so, while not no longer present in the quarried pits, they lie marginally on and near the WCS property, and (c) one major aquifer that was thought to be below the WCS site but is now mapped to be only nearby. Lets examine these in turn.
Ground Water - There are five aquifers near (3) or below (2) the WCS site:
- 1. Alluvial Aquifers (Holocene and Pleistocene) - near (mined away in facility) WCS
- 2. Gatuna Aquifer (Pliocene-Pleistocene) - near (mined away in facility) WCS
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- 3. Pecos Valley Aquifer (Pliocene-Pleistocene) - below WCS
- 4. High Plains/Ogallala Aquifer (Miocene-Pliocene) - near (since 2006) WCS
- 5. Santa Rosa Aquifer of the Dockum Group (Triassic) - below WCS The Pecos Valley Aquifer, a major aquifer of Texas, lies directly beneath the ISP-WCS site in Andrews. This aquifer has long supplied ranches, farms, and small towns in Andrews, Ector, Winkler, Ward, Crane, Pecos, and other Texas counties with fresh groundwater for decades.
Recently, major cities, including Midland, obtained water rights in Winkler County and are now extracting water from this aquifer, so nuclear contamination of the Pecos Valley Aquifer would be a catastrophe.
16 Since the overlying aquifers have been removed away when the deep pits were quarried, this aquifer is now the one directly under the nuclear waste storage pits at WCS. There are reports and photos of groundwater seeping up into the pits in recent years. This water must be coming from the Pecos Valley Aquifer. WCS claims that a 14 feet thick layer of clay-rich sedimentary rock protects the pits from the aquifer below, but this is nonsense. This rock is poorly lithified and is probably unlithified, and is better described as alluvial sediment composed of clay, silt, and very fine-grained sand, and not a rock. Furthermore, whether it is sedimentary rock or sediment, this deposit is porous and somewhat permeable. The presence of water seeping from it into the pits is completely consistent with its character. By no means are the canisters safe from exposure to water during their lifetimes.
Before excavation, soil, caliche, and Recent alluvium were present on the ground surface at WCS. A thin layer of porous and permeable rock was mapped underlying the surficial sediments and rocks and overlying the Pecos Valley Aquifer. This was described as thin deposits of the Antler or Gatuna aquifers, not realistic names for deposits in this region. All of this porous and permeable sediment or sedimentary rock was mined away during quarrying of the pits. Also, all surface soil, caliche, and alluvium was removed. These rocks or sediments still lie adjacent to the WCS site and might be seen in shallow canyons or draws near the site.
17 It was believed for many decades, until 2006, that the Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer underlay the WCS site, but new mapping and well descriptions by the Texas Water Development Board determined that the Ogallala was not present. The TWDB study was published in 2006. After this, WCS actually sued an individual who claimed that the WCS site was above the Ogallala Aquifer, so WCS is litigious. Obviously this would have been bad in case of leaks or contamination, but it is equally bad since the Pecos Valley Aquifer lies beneath the site. Both aquifers are extensively used today for irrigation and municipal water, and it is irrelevant if the Ogallala is below WCS or not. It is relevant that the Pecos Valley Aquifer is below it. Toxic, hazardous, and nuclear waste disposal sites should not be built above active large aquifers that are being used to extract groundwater for human use. This is a basic principle of hazardous and toxic landfill design that is presently being violated by WCS. Needless to say, this danger was pointed out by groundwater hydrologists and landfill waste disposal experts before WCS was first constructed, but the warnings fell on deaf ears.
A second aquifer, probably the Santa Rosa Aquifer in the Triassic Dockum Group, lies beneath the Pecos Valley Aquifer. This is mapped as a Minor Aquifer on Texas aquifer maps. It is possible that the thin porous and permeable rock discovered by geologists at the WCS site (the Antler or Gatuna) and quarried away was thin Pecos Valley Aquifer rocks; if this is the case, and I dont believe it is, then the porous and permeable reddish clay and silt deposit on which the nuclear waste canisters lie, specifically the 14-feet thick layer, is in fact part of the Dockum, not the Pecos Valley. Whatever the identity, Pecos Valley or Dockum, both are aquifers, so the WCS nuclear waste canisters are being placed on aquifers, and this certainly makes sense from the quite abundant evidence of the water seepage from this rock or sediment.
- 3. Presence of Petroleum Exploration (Drilling, Fracking, and Wastewater Injection) and Potash Mining Very active oil and gas exploration and development are occurring in the region surrounding the ISP-WCS site property. Andrews County has long been a major oil and gas producer with many thousands of wells drilled in the county since the 1920s. The potential of wastewater disposal and fracking wells leaking or intersecting the well bores of abandoned, poorly cemented, or uncased wells is significant. Such events could lead to dissolution of the underlying Salado Salt Formation and cause evaporitic karst subsidence or collapse.
Unfortunately, time does not permit documentation of these facts. However, geological and
18 environmental specialists in the region know the facts about these problems very well.
Several Scientific, Economic, Political, and Anecdotal Reasons That Make It Inadvisable to Store High-Level Nuclear Wastes at the Proposed ISP-WCS-Orano Temporary Storage Site in Andrews County, Texas
- 4. Nuclear Waste Surface Storage ISP proposes to transport spent fuel rods, a form of high-level nuclear waste, from dozens of old and decommissioned nuclear reactors in the U.S. to a single site in Texas for temporary storage. ISP anticipates the storage time will be no more than 120 years and perhaps less. The repository site is (1) on or near the surface, not buried deeply underground, (2) the individual storage silos are just under the surface with the tops above ground to permit passive air ventilation and human access, (3) the soil and subsurface rock is composed of porous and permeable sedimentary rock, not nonporous and impermeable igneous rock, and (4) the site relies solely on constructed barriers of concrete and other man-made materials to contain any leakage of radioactive isotopes or contamination with rain or flood waters. This proposed location and its migration barriers are inadequate to deal with high-level radioactive waster containment and potential leakage and violate the most elementary standards for construction of hazardous and toxic waste landfills, which at minimum should include (1) natural barriers to fluid migration in addition to artificial ones and (2) ultimately prevent human access and terrorist threats. The proposed site isnt even adequate to contain heavy metals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides, and other toxic and hazardous wastes, much less nuclear wastes.
In addition to being stored in a subsurface nonporous and impermeable igneous rock, nuclear waste must be located deep underground where it is inaccessible to humans for millions of years. It is not realistic to believe that the waste in surface and shallow subsurface storage will be guarded and protected for 120 years from proliferation, malfeasance, and terrorism. ISP may not even exist as a company in 50 years. It is possible and indeed likely the nuclear waste will be left to the sole care of the federal government long before the termination of the permit.
ISP plans to make millions of dollars in profit from the permit and contract and then leave total responsibility and liability for the waste to the U.S. federal government as quickly as possible after all the waste has been transported and contained. Of course, surface storage in
19 silos and caskets is being used because (1) presumably the SNF/HLNW will be removed within decades and transported and stored in a much more secure location, and (2) the technology already exists for surface storage.
- 5. Transportation Risks Several types and intensities of transp0rtation risks dealing with the transport caskets, industrial-scale equipment, trucks and trains, etc. have been pointed out by opponents of the temporary transport and storage plan. These will be discussed by individuals with more expertise than I have on these subjects. However, I am a resident of the area, the Permian Basin, where much of the transportation will occur and where the SNF/HLNW is proposed to be stored, and I wish to present a few personal observations about the dangers of transporting the wastes in this region. I acknowledge that the transport caskets that hold the fuel rod canisters during transport are engineered to be as safe as possible, even during falls, but they cannot be expected to be 100% safe. There is some small risk at least (some informed critics claim that the risk is large, not small). The site where the waste is proposed to be stored in surface canisters is a relatively remote area, but it is not isolated from human activities for it contains a large number of oil and gas producing wells, tank batteries, separators, gas processing plants, wastewater injection tanks and wells, giant potash mining plants, nuclear waste storage sites (WIPP, WCS), water wells, highways, railroad tracks, and a few towns and small cities. The entire Delaware Basin has seen enormous growth in the last five years due to the fracking boom and it will continue to grow even more. In particular, tremendous stress is being placed on the local highway and railroad infrastructure and construction and safety upgrades cannot keep up.
(1) Truck Traffic Risks. The number of traffic accidents and deaths has been increasing rapidly over the last 5-10 years on Permian Basin roads as petroleum activity and development has increased enormously. ISP plans to transport the SNF/HLNW to the site using both trucks and trains. When I hear the designation Highway of Death, I dont know if the speaker is referring to Hwy 285 north out of Pecos, Interstate 20, the major east-west transport route, or some other route. The two I named are dangerous to drive now and I can testify to this personally. Every highway in the two major oil basins, Midland and Delaware, is dangerous to drive because of the constant heavy oilfield truck traffic. The newspaper in my city, Midland, routinely reports new highway deaths in the county and always mentions how the number has increased every year. We have had six or seven new accident deaths in just the last few weeks.
20 The same is true for bicyclists and motorcyclists. It is literally not safe to ride a bicycle or motorcycle right now on any highway; I used to do both but have given them up. Today even driving cars is unsafe; one has to be extra careful. The increased risk of such traffic needs to be taken into account in new risk models that predict future accidents. The models and predictions in the literature used old and out-of-date data based on old traffic volumes. These old accident estimates are no longer valid; the risk today is much greater.
(2) Train Traffic Risks. Trains provide the same story as trucks. Train accidents and derailments in our region are now common. When I testified on 2018 April 30 in Roswell and May 1 in Hobbs before the NRC panel, others and I mentioned this. I specifically mentioned the April 18 train accident in Monahans, Ward Co., that derailed more than a dozen locomotives and train cars carrying heavy fracking sand (https://www.oaoa.com/news/traffic_transportation/vehicle_accidents/article_f7e3395e-435a-11e8-bbe5-5b37334a3c03.html).
21
22 Little did I know that on the evening of May 1 when I testified before the NRC, or I would have brought it up, two new major accidents had occurred earlier that very day. First, seven cars had derailed and overturned and three had derailed at 10:00 a.m. in Odessa (https://www.mrt.com/news/article/Union-Pacific-train-derails-along-Highway 12879319.php). This train also had very heavily-laden cars carrying fracking sand, suggesting that heavier cars than normalwhich would be the case for top-heavy nuclear waste transport canisterare especially tip-over prone.
23 Next, four locomotives and 30 train cars had derailed in Ward County east of Barstow at 6:00 p.m. on May 1 (http://www.cbs7.com/content/news/Train-derailment-in-Ward-County-officials-responding--481440711.html). In this case, the train had struck a water truck (a truck carrying oil field wastewater to a disposal station) blocking the tracks.
I want to emphasize this again: On the very day I testified before the NRC about the dangers of the ISP nuclear waste transportation and storage plan there were two major train accidents with multiple derailments of locomotives and cars in Texas. These two, plus the April 18 one, plus several others were all associated with oil field traffic and materials. This activity is only going to increase and derailments will become even more common than they are now. Just from this anecdotal evidence of one individual, I believe it is simply not safe to transport nuclear wastes by truck or train within the Permian Basin, and yet that is a central part of the ISP plan. I realize that accident risks due to truck and train accidents have been calculated by the NRC and contractors to be acceptably low, but the risk assumptions should be seriously re-examined in light of the immense new transportation activity due to the surge of petroleum industry in the Permian Basin and new calculations must be performed. I believe a much higher calculated risk is warranted.
24
- 6. Storage Canister Failure The risk of transport cask and storage canister failure during transport and accidents with resulting leakage and contamination is very small but not infinitesimal. It will be discussed in more detail by someone with more expertise than I possess. Instead, I refer readers to this quite readable critique, https://sanonofresafety.org/holtec-hi-storm-umax-nuclear-waste-dry-storage-system/, which begins with these claims:
Holtec HI-STORM UMAX canister storage systems and all other thin-wall nuclear waste canister storage systems are vulnerable to short-term cracking, radioactive leaks and potential explosions and criticalities. Each canister has roughly as much highly radioactive Cesium-137 as was released from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
These thin-wall Chernobyl cans have the following design flaws:
Vulnerable to short-term cracking and major radioactive leaks Cannot be inspected inside or out Cannot be repaired Cannot be monitored or maintained to PREVENT radioactive leaks No plan for failing canisters.
Following this opening, the webpage goes into great and convincing detail about the problems these storage canisters face. In answer to a question from a reader, San Onofre Safety administrator Donna Gilmore says this: I have documents from Holtec and NRC that confirm the fuel will go critical in dry storage if unborated water enters canisters through cracks. The NRC approves them based on the assumption there will never be through-wall cracks.
Holtec in a statement explicitly and arrogantly excoriated opponents criticizing their license plan for the potential for leakage because the fuel pellets are in solid form and thus cannot leak. Do they really expect opponents and regulators to ignore the fact that the containment vessels can become stressed and cracked or fractured during transport, and they and artificial barriers will corrode over centuries, undergo cracking, allow rainwater to enter and become irradiated, and then leak onto the surface and into subsurface aquifers? As is so often the case, Holtec is thinking in terms of proximate internal benefits and profits over a few decades and not long-term external risks and costs over centuries.
25 An older publication, Ground Water at Yucca Mountain: How High Can It Rise?, 1992, National Academies Press, http://nap.edu/2013, makes these points:
Because radioactivity from spent nuclear fuel rods could most likely be released from an MGDS [mined geologic disposal system] to the outside environment through water entering the repository and transporting the radionuclides into the ground-water system, it was considered that a repository located a considerable distance above the water table in an area with extremely low rainfall would limit that mode of release.
If [flooding occurred], and if engineered containments failed, the water could carry still-active radioactive isotopes into the biosphere, a possibility that would lead to serious questions concerning the acceptability of the site.
That publication, by the way, concluded that the Yucca Mountain repository was safely above any potential or historic rise of the water table. On the other hand, I documented the presence of several aquifers at the proposed ISP site, although only one is shallow. During my recent visit to the site, I witnessed an intense rainstorm. Although situated in a relatively dry environment, heavy rain does occur periodically with surface runoff and overland flow.
Rainwater also infiltrates into the subsurface in this region, for example, around the margins of the salinas (salt lakes, named lagunas here). Furthermore, the area possess many water wells that tap these aquifers, both fresh and brackish, so the water table is near the surface at typical water well depths.
Now I admit that the article I cited deals with Holtec canister technology, but Im sure that many of the problems described would also apply to ISP-Orano technology. In short, if the ISP facility canisters and artificial barriers fail for any reason (stress, accident, corrosion, etc.),
cracks may allow rain and ground water to enter the canisters and become irradiated, and this water in turn will leave the ISP facility and enter the local hydrosphere and biosphere. This is not an acceptable risk.
- 7. The Nuclear Waste Will Not Be Moved a Second Time The ISP site is intended to be temporary storage until the permanent nuclear waste repository is designed, permitted, and built, so its inadequate design is not supposed to be an issue.
However, it will be permitted for 120 years, much longer than the lifetime of the artificial materials (thin steel canister housing, concrete barriers, etc.). But even worse, it is very likely
26 that, when the high-level nuclear waste is buried in its storage canisters, the waste will never be moved a second time as claimed and reach a final and safe storage site deep underground in a remote mountain composed of igneous rock. This is because right now--due to the increasing collection of spent fuel rods at nuclear plants--there exist both (1) the tremendous motivation to remove the waste from the reactors that produced it before their old storage containers corrode any further, and (2) plenty of money is available today from the nuclear storage trust fund to pay for transportation and storage of the nuclear waste.
The waste is currently licensed to the nuclear power plants and their parent electrical energy companies and is their proximate responsibility, but before removal and transport the title for the waste will transferred to the U.S. federal government, who has ultimate responsibility (no transport, storage, and disposal company in its right mind would accept licensing and title for waste with this much liability, but all the companies involved expect the federal government to do this, since it promised to do so). Once the waste is licensed to the DOE, transported to and stored at tremendous cost in another state, and the $50 billion trust fund has been depleted, the political motivation of the electrical energy companies and their state governments to transport the waste a second time will disappear. Next, because of having no multiple-state political motivation, the enormous sums of money needed to safely move and store the waste a second time as plannedto a final secure repository that meets proper disposal standardswill no longer be available, and the political will to appropriate more money to do this will not be successful. Ultimately, if ISP is granted its permit, it is highly likely the waste will remain stored in its inadequate and accessible surface location in Texas permanently and be available as a terrorist target, a perpetual money sink for security and maintenance, a continuously deteriorating hazardous waste dump for centuries, and a future superfund site.
- 8. Externality Benefit and Cost Analysis Despite government regulation, our American free enterprise systemtermed the mixed economy or regulated capitalismstill allows corporation to privatize gains and socialize losses due to weak regulation based on ignoring sound economic theory. Two other ways to state this aphorismfully supported by modern economic theoryis that powerful and wealthy entities (corporations, companies, businesses, industries) have been able to privatize benefits and socialize costs or privatize profits and socialize risks. For example, in one of his many critiques of American capitalism, Noam Chomsky wrote in 2006, As in the past, the costs and risks of the coming phases of the industrial economy were to be socialized, with eventual
27 profits privatized... (Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy).
Many of our countrys largest corporations depend on this publicly-obscure economic malfeasanceone that has been described as a reverse corporate tax, corporate socialism, or a massive scam on taxpaying citizensto a greater or lesser extent to survive past their rational usefulness to society or to make exorbitant profits at the expense of the public good. This scam is hardly noticed because our economic system has been structured to minimize revelation of the problems and public costs that are never paid up front. Most examples of socializing losses, costs, and risks involves disposal of harmful wastes into the natural environment including the air, fresh surface water, ground water, ocean water, soils, and rocks.
Well-known (to economists and environmentalists) examples of this phenomenon deal with environmental damage, degradation, and even local destruction, such as air and water pollution by profitable chemical companies and fossil fuel combustion with resultant global warming/climate change by profitable fossil fuel energy companies. These industries (1) create enormous amounts of pollution that harm human health, quality of life, and productivity and (2) damage the natural environment and degrade biodiversity at tremendous costs that are never incurred by the industries themselves but are passed onto present society and future generations. Simply put, our modern regulated free-enterprise system cannot keep up with regulating, and enforcing the regulations that do exist, to protect nature and society from polluting corporations. New rules are perpetually needed to keep up with advancing technology, and existing regulations cannot be properly enforced due for a myriad of reasons.
If the corporations were to actually deal ethically with the obscure or hidden environmental losses and costs that result from their activities they would (1) pay to decrease their pollution to manageable and harmless levels and (2) raise their prices to pay for pollution control which oblige their customers to pay for the social costs. Naturally, pollution mitigation payments affect the bottom line so companies would rather not pay them. Consumers might very well prefer to keep prices low, such as gasoline prices, and pass the negative external costs onto their descendants. To counteract such socialization of costs and risks, for example, governments might tax gasoline prices to make them better reflect their true cost to society and invest the tax proceeds into air pollution mitigation.
The modern economic theory that deals with this phenomenon is known as externality theory.
Externality theory is a scientific theory, one that has evidence and factual reliable knowledge supported by repeated testing to justify it, not the popular concept of a theory, which is an idea,
28 guess, or speculation. In this theory, an externality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit, while an internality is the cost or benefit that affects a party who chooses that cost or benefit. Companies, of course, always choose to internalize benefits, gains, and profits, but typically do not want to choose the often enormous external social or environmental losses, costs, or risks that are inherent in much industrial activity. Typically, therefore, companies shun externality costs while the benefits, gains, or profits privately accrued are termed internal benefits. There are also internal losses or costs (which companies choose to accept because they are inevitable or inconsequential) and external gains or benefits (which companies choose not to accept because they can only benefit others or are small enough to ignore), but we will ignore them in this brief analysis.
Economists often urge governments to adopt regulation policies that "internalize" externalities, that is, oblige companies to choose to internalize environmental or social costs so that costs and benefits will equally affect all parties who choose to incur them and a sustainable balance is achieved. Corporations will not often willingly choose to internalize external costs to achieve internal benefits but will choose to do so if they are obliged to by government regulators so they engage in their business enterprise (an offeror choicethey cannot refuse). Too often, however, government regulation fails to do this. The classic example of such failure these days is increasing climate disruption (a term that includes all the effects of climate change), such as global warming, increasing regional periods of temperature over 100º F, more severe droughts, more wildfires, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, more powerful hurricanes, calamitous precipitation, increased flooding, etc. Such enormous societal costs or lossestoo often hidden or obscure to the publicare often ignored by modern corporations which are allowed to do so by venal and ignorant elected public officials, but are nevertheless repaid by living and future citizens over human generations (since costs and benefits will eventually have to even out).
If company A operates ethically by internalizing pollution costs, while company B does not by socializing pollution costs, company B makes a greater profit and company A can go out of business. This problem disappears with good regulation. Governments can keep all companies ethical, clean, and profitable by regulating them, that is, by obliging them all to pay for pollution costs. For example, profit-making companies the transport and store nuclear wastes should be obliged to finance security bonds and take certain measures to minimize the risks for the actions they plan to take.
Voluntary exchange of internal and external costs is by definition mutually beneficial for
29 business parties involved, because the parties would not agree to undertake it if either thought it detrimental to their interests. However, a transaction can cause effects on third parties without their knowledge or consent. From the perspective of those affected, these effects may be negative or positive. We will only consider negative effects here which are, in fact, the most common examples. A negative externality is any difference between the private cost of an action or decision to an economic agent and the social cost which a company does not choose to accept. In simple terms, a negative externality is anything that causes an indirect cost to individuals. Air and water pollution from industry, vehicles, etc. are the common examples of negative externalities (i.e., external costs or losses).
Frequently, corporations are allowed to ignore external costs and they are passed onto society and future generations. The best example of this is the fossil fuel industry and climate change:
pollution is defined as the accumulation of waste and byproducts in amounts harmful to living organisms. At first, the waste and byproducts (carbon dioxide, methane, NOx, SO2, sulfur-rich coal ash, etc.) were small and thus not pollution, but gradually they became so large that life on Earth was being harmed, but by the time this started happening we found human society trapped in an energy system from which it was and is still difficult to escape. The best opportunity to escape this system passed four decades ago, when scientists warnings were taken seriously by public officials, but because of political lobbying by the fossil fuel industries and government complacency the opportunity passed. This sorry history was recently described in a recent interactive New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html).
ISP and our representative national government plan to emulate this sorry history if ISP is allowed to temporarily transport and store SNF/HLNW in Texas and ignore external costs and future problems by, for example, forgoing future financial responsibility, not posting a bond, or failing to collect additional fees. (The obvious problem here, needless to say, is that when we learn the potential practical and geologic dangers of storing the waste at their proposed site, the size of an adequate bond would be equal to or greater than the potential profit that ISP hopes to make.) If the nuclear wastes were to be moved permanently by a contractor to a legitimate, secure, and ultimate repository, no bond from the contractor would be required (in other words, the ultimate bond would be the full faith and credit of the federal government depending on the best scientific knowledge). We acknowledge that the U.S. federal
30 government has the ultimate responsibility for the wastes, so it must be responsible to make sure all the intermediate steps are planned and conducted responsibly and are consistent with reliable scientific information and sound economic theory. There is still time to ensure this happens.
- 9. Risk Analysis In analogy to Benefit and Cost Analysis involving externalities, we must briefly assess the risks involved with transporting and storing the nuclear wastes to a temporary or permanent surface storage repository. Risk analysis is the science of risks and their probability and evaluation.
Risks are often coupled with Benefits or Opportunities, so the formal assessment is termed a Risk-Benefit or Risk-Opportunity Analysis. It is likely another person with greater expertise in risk analysis than I have will deal with this important aspect in more detail (the ISP license proposal contains a brief risk-benefit analysis, but it is woefully misleading because it omits the obvious and significant risks I present below). Let me, however, just make a few pertinent and, I think, fatal observations.
Under the ISP proposal, the inevitable risks are unacceptable and the stated benefits are unachievable. The primary reason the risks are unacceptable is because either (1) the nuclear wastes will be moved twice, thus unavoidably more than doubling the risks of transportation and the costs of a second transport and storage, or (2) the transported waste will ultimately be stored at the surface site in Texas permanently, becoming the de facto final repository for the SNF/HLNW. The stated benefit of safely storing SNF/HLNW in a surface landfill in Texas is unachievable for several reasons. Lets examine each of these in turn. I will very briefly discuss two aspects of these in the next two sections, but right now lets look at the forest rather than the trees.
(1) At his own recent district town hall meeting in Odessa, Texas, I spoke with Representative Michael Conaway, my own U.S. Congressman from Midland (I live less than a mile from his house and have met him several times, usually when he votes because I am often the election judge in his district), who co-sponsored the original bill with Darryl Issa that allowed companies such as ISP and WCS to seek an NRC/DOE permit to transport and store the nations SNF/HLNW temporarily in surface/shallow-subsurface silos. This bill only recently was attached to a giant agriculture bill (Conaway is the U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman) and passed the House. Its Senate companion recently passed the Senate, and the
31 bills will have to be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee (which probably wont happen until 2019 under different political circumstances). I explained to Rep. Conaway that while the risks for one transport were small, transporting the waste twice would more than double the risk and make it unacceptable. He couldnt understand this. He explicitly told me that if the waste had a small transport risk the first time, it would have the same risk the second time. I tried to explain thatunlike flipping a coin which has no risk and therefore each flip has the same oddsperforming a risky task twice at least doubles the overall risk. And the second time will often be even riskier than double, because the canisters will have deteriorated over the decades and be weaker and more prone to cracking and breaking. I also tried to explain that multiple risks are calculated multiplicatively, not arithmetically. This explanation was beyond his numerate powers to comprehend. I also asked him why he agreed to join his friend Rep. Darrell Issa in sponsoring the temporary storage bill. Issas reason, of course, is that the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power plant is in his San Diego district and its stored fuel rods are in a very dangerous location on an eroding cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Conaway replied that he had also been asked to sponsor the bill by WCS in Andrews, TX, and he thought it was a legitimate business opportunity for them. When I pointed out how dangerous it was, he replied, I just wanted to approve the business opportunity, which I thought was legitimate. I expect that the experts in the NRC will justify it or not with their hearings and expert scientific and public testimony, and thats not my responsibility.
I also attempted to explain the problem financially, since Rep. Conaways original profession, prior to being a politician, was a CPA. I said the costs of moving all the countrys waste to a temporary site in New Mexico or Andrews County, Texas, will probably exhaust the $50 billion trust fund. Raising that amount again by fees would be impossible, so an equal amount to pay for moving the wastes a second time will have to be provided by legislative appropriation, and this would certainly never happen either. He expressed no concern about these problems.
(2) Many, including me for reasons discussed in detail above, believe that the SNF/HLNW, if moved to the ISP site in Texas, will never be transported a second time to a secure repository for political and financial reasons. This would leave our countrys entire stockpile of spent nuclear fuel rods in shallow-subsurface silos whose tops are above ground in a single location exposed and accessible to terrorists and the elementsforever. This would be such an
32 alarming, calamitous, and demented outcome that the risks must be enormous, almost beyond calculation. The nuclear wastes should be moved only once to a final, secure, subterranean igneous rock siteonly then will the risks be acceptable. To be explicit, all the transportation risks would be acceptable if the fuel rods in their casks would be moved only once to their ultimate secure destination. If ISP bids on such a contract and wins it, I would have no complaints. This is the true legitimate business opportunity for them to pursue.
In its own brief risk-benefit analysis, ISP correctly mentions that all the nuclear power plants whos SNF/HLNW will be removed and transported to Texas will be benefitted. It fails, however, to acknowledge the severe transportation and storage risks due to human activities and natural causes. It mentions these risks but attempts to minimize them, and while the admitted risks may be small, over timeand especially over decades and possibly centuries the risks will manifest themselves. Even one failure or disaster will be a major calamity to the humans involved, and this is unacceptable and should not ever be allowed to happen. The only way to ensure this is to not permit the nuclear waste to be transported and stored in Texas in the first place. ISP fails to mention that despite the benefits to the various states and nuclear power plants who are able to rid themselves of their spent nuclear fuel rods, the corresponding risks will be accrued by the U.S. federal government, not by ISP. Instead, ISP perversely and falsely claims that the federal government itself will benefit by implementing the ISP license plan. But this is false because the federal government will gain the benefits only when the wastes are interred in their final resting place. While they are in-route or in a temporary storage area, the federal government has simply assumed the risks previously held by the states and nuclear power plants, not gained the benefits. Finally, ISP fails to mention the one entity gaining the greatest benefit, ISP itself, by making huge profits within a program that is so-far designed to privatize the internal gains (to ISP and the places where nuclear power plants exist) and socialize the external risks and potential losses, which by now must be considered an unethical business practice, especially after it has been pointed out, as I have here.
Written in October 2018 by:
Steven Schafersman, PhD Consulting Scientist Midland, Texas