Nuclear Waste Storage Scandal

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Group,

Does ANS HQ or anyone know whether this is considered a serious proposal?  Any 
info on whether Washington (DOE, Congress) is/will consider it?  Please advise 
if HQ has any info; or who in FCWMD might have interest/info. 

Regards, Jim
--------------------------------
Subj:   Nuclear Waste Storage Scandal

     The federal government is about to perpetrate the most criminally
irresponsible,scandalously wasteful act in modern history.  In July they will
begin destroying government approved, inspected, constructed (at the cost of
billions of dollars), and proven (over 25 years of use) nuclear storage
devices...and, shortly thereafter they will ask the taxpayers of this country
to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to construct new nuclear storage
devices.
     Nationally awarded journalist Skip Heine, of Minneapolis, twice
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize - whose "40 year career as a photojournalist
is impeccable" (according to Dave Moore/WCCO-TV) - has investigated the
nuclear waste disposal crisis for over 14 months and has determined that the
nuclear missile silos, that are about to be destroyed, were designed to meet
the rigid specifications for nuclear missile storage and those same
specifications apply virtually 100% to nuclear waste storage units.
     According to former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Don Moussardt there
may be minor disparities and problems adapting the missile silos to nuclear
waste storage, "but they certainly are surmountable".  And Mike Wadley,
Supervisor of the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant stated flatly that the
idea "is brilliant".
     But various Department of Energy spokespersons refuse to even consider
the plan citing a twelve-year old Nuclear Waste Policy Act as an excuse to
spend billions of dollars on the Yucca Mountain Storage site - a site they
say will not be ready "unitl the year 2022" ... "or maybe 2032" ... despite
the reports from prominent nuclear scientists that Yucca Mountain lies on a
fault line and would be terribly dangerous - potentially deadly - method of
storing nuclear waste.
     Sen. Paul Wellstone (a member of the Energy Committee), along with 10
other United States Senators, has petitioned the President to re-open the
nuclear waste policies matter and has also asked Secretary of Energy Hazel
O'Leary to review the possibility of storing nuclear waste (packaged in steel
casks with nine-inch thick steel walls) inside the abandoned missile silos.
   Public opposition has been the biggest problem in resolving the nuclear
waste storage crisis says Heine, but the communities of Minot and Grand
Forks, North Dakota are begging to keep their 4 500-missile silos operational
with megaton nuclear warheads inside.  Surely, Heine suggests, they would
accept storing spent nuclear waste (thousands of times less lethal) instead.
     Because the science of fissionable materials is so complex and scarey
most everyone decides to "leave this to the experts".  Skip Heine believes
that "the experts" at the Department of Energy have realized this and have
used this attitude to their advantage.  Thus they are deliberately ignoring
any proposals that might quicken the resolution of the nuclear waste crisis,
thereby threatening their chance to play with billions of dollars, and,
possibly, eliminate the need for their services.
     Furthermore, our elected representatives in Washington, afraid of the
anti-nuke constituency, are reluctant to publicly endorse any resolution that
might be construed by those "anti-nukers" as a means of encouraging the
nuclear power plants'  continued operation.
     "What is needed," according to Heine, "is for the President to cut
through the politics, and quagmire of rules and regulations, and issue an
executive order to halt the destruction of those missile silos until an
independent committee of  experts can review this, and any other plan, for
nuclear waste disposal."
                                Rupert B. "Skip" Heine
                                101 Glenwood Ave. North    
                                Minneapolis, MN 55403
                                PHONE: (612)-371-0275
                                FAX:   (612)-637-4288
                                scotkroyer@aol.com (Attn. Skip Heine)
                                or to skroyer@primenet.com(Attn Skip Heine)

TRANSCRIBED BY: Scott Kroyer