Fairewinds Energy Education Comments on "Consent Based Nuclear Siting"

“Consent based siting” is the process proposed by the Department of Energy (DOE) to locate radioactive waste dump sites around the United States (U.S.).  Fairewinds Energy Education believes that such a process is biased against communities struggling financially due to factory closings and the global economy. Choosing an atomic waste dump is tempting to towns and villages anxious to increase short-term income and protect their economic survival, so much that they are willing to sacrifice long-term environmental damage in return.  

At its heart, the consent based process is an environmental justice violation as well as a DOE method to avoid siting a scientifically viable site to dump huge amounts of radioactive materials by foisting it on economically challenged communities whose citizens will not mount a protest. 

Nuclear waste remains toxic for tens of thousands of years.  The consent based siting process proposed by the DOE lures currently underemployed citizens to commit their hometown community to potential genetic damage to future generations for hundreds of years in return for short-term economic gain that benefits the few individuals and corporate entities that own the soon to be wasteland.

Atomic power reactor sites are leaving all of us with mountains of radioactive garbage that will need monitoring and special handling for thousands of years. The DOE must find the best atomic waste locations, and not just stick the waste where the fewest individuals will launch protest actions.  When locations like Litchfield County, Connecticut and Orange County, California have an equal chance at being chosen as the site of the next nuclear waste dump as more rural and environmentally sensitive counties in Texas or the Native American reservations in the west, then the DOE will have succeeded in optimizing its search for waste disposal sites. 

The current Consent Based Siting process violates the basic tenants of environmental justice.