A federal commission is about to recommend a new plan for finding final resting places for spent nuclear fuel, and they want to hear from us.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future is a fifteen-member group established by the Secretary of Energy pursuant to an executive order from President Obama. The commission’s goal is to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.

The problem with spent nuclear fuel is that it requires long-term storage, and the federal government has continued to delay acting on a centralized long-term plan. To complicate matters further, the Department of Energy ended a project at Yucca Mountain in Nevada last year that was supposed to be the government’s long-term solution. To fix the problem, the Obama administration created the Commission, which in turn developed draft recommendations including: 1) a new approach to siting disposal facilities; 2) a new organization focused exclusively on transportation, storage, and disposal of nuclear waste; and 3) efforts to develop a new permanent deep geological facility for the safe disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste.

Last week in Boston, CLF provided recommendations to the Commission as part of a panel addressing the consent-based radioactive waste siting process. CLF’s comments (see below) focused primarily on inequities in the current process, suggesting that decision-making process is too centralized in the federal government and out of public view, which cuts out many environmental and health interests and breeds distrust in the outcome.

The process of dealing with spent nuclear fuel is crucial for everyone’s safety and health. The comment period for the Commission’s Draft Report to the Secretary of Energy ends October 31.

You can comment on the Commission’s web site where you can also see the draft report.

Here are a few ideas to offer the Commission:

• Expand responsibility and oversight.  Amend the Atomic Energy Act, and narrow the scope of federal preemption to give states, local governments and other agencies their traditional oversight role for the environment.
• Give people who will be affected by the outcome of siting and other decisions a voice. States, citizens, communities, and environmental and health interests need to be an integral part of the decision-making process.
• Provide funding and independent technical expertise to level the playing field among participants. This is an issue in any siting decision, but the stakes are considerably higher with nuclear facilities.

After taking the bar exam, I decided the best thing to do was head north for a multi-day wilderness trip on the West Magpie River. The Magpie flows through Québec’s Côte-Nord region a couple drainages away from the Romaine and Petit Mecatina rivers. For the majority of the trip, we remained many (sometimes hundreds) of miles from any semblance of civilization. The only way to get there is by floatplane.

After five days, countless rapids, and many miles of flatwater, I had a new appreciation for the Côte-Nord region and one of the last truly wild places left in the East. The Magpie, Romaine, and Petit Mecatina are all either being dammed or have the potential to be dammed. Some of our friends had run the Romaine a few weeks earlier and described it as “not a wilderness trip.” Hydro-Québec’s Romaine Complex of dams has essentially devastated the river. There is already one dam at the very end of the Magpie, and the river is listed on Hydro-Québec’s 2009-2013 strategic plan as a potential dam site. The Petit Mecatina is listed as well.

The situation in Québec, in general, presents an important set of choices. Hydropower is generally considered “renewable” and a lower-carbon source of electricity than fossil fuels, especially at existing dams that have been in place for many years. There is a reasonable argument for transmitting more hydropower from the far North to southern Québec and New England, instead of getting our energy from sources like coal fired power plants or Vermont Yankee—our aging and polluting nuclear power facility. But there is also a compelling case that Québec should preserve some of the last, best wilderness areas in the world by curtailing its aggressive dam-building campaign, which could limit the power available for export to New England. We also need to decide how to bring the power south and whether there are better options than traditional overhead high-voltage lines through beautiful, now-unfragmented rural areas.

What is essential is that, if we partner with Québec to meet our energy needs, we need to do so responsibly, with as little environmental damage as possible. A good place to start is by taking a close look at the carbon emissions that could result from Québec’s ambitious plans, including how the proposed Northern Pass project through New Hampshire may contribute to those emissions. CLF has also partnered with Canadian environmental groups to look into the impacts of hydropower development within Québec’s new northern boreal forest management plan and advocated for improvements in Vermont’s contract with Hydro-Québec.

If we do it right and limit our reliance on fossil fuels and focus on not building new dams, Québec and Vermont could find a way to move toward a cleaner energy future.  If not, there is a lot to lose.

It had been more than a month since Tropical Storm Irene when I returned to kayak my favorite whitewater rivers in Vermont: the Middlebury and the New Haven. The massive flows from Irene moved some small rocks around, but in most places the overall character of the these rustic rivers remained the same, even after the storm. Sadly that is not true about sections of the rivers near roads where in the name of “repair” bulldozers literally flattened the rivers, excavating giant boulders, dredging gravel, and leaving the once vibrant river an unrecognizable shell. Rapids that used to be complex, multi-tiered stretches, supporting important habitat had transformed into homogeneous flat spots.

The untouched segments of river far from the road looked very different from the dredged and flattened stretches that destroyed not only a magical recreation space but crucial fish habitat as well. The contrast was stark and disturbing.  The river tamed unwillingly and transformed into little more than a pipe, losing its resilience, beauty, and health.  I thought again how important it is to protect these valuable and magical places.

Returning to these spots reminded me of the beatings we continue to inflict on our local waters: from stormwater and nutrient pollution to the destruction of fish habitat as we recover from Irene.  Our precious river ecosystems deserve better.  We can learn from their ability to heal after a hurricane.  We can stop treating our rivers like pipes and sewers and tell our friends, neighbors, and elected officials “enough is enough.” It is crucial that we do not ignore science and continue to reverse decades of recovery in our rivers.  We can contact our local town officials and request that they take a step back and seek expert advice before digging into your local river. The more actions we take as individuals, the more we can collectively do the work that will allow our rivers to heal.