Re: Town hall meeting held regarding nuclear waste burial [Village News, 3/9/17]

Your article about the town hall meeting regarding nuclear waste at San Onofre repeats one of the erroneous statements made at the meeting by the Public Watchdog group that storage of the waste will begin on January 13, 2018.

At the present time nearly one third of the spent fuel at San Onofre has already been moved into what is known as dry cask storage wherein the fuel elements will be stored in 5/8” steel canisters and then transferred into reinforced concrete structures which are designed to withstand the natural phenomena such as floods, tornados, earthquakes, etc.

What your readers must understand is that Southern California Edison (SCE) was forced into this interim storage method by the failure of the Department of Energy (DOE) to comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act which mandated in 1987 that it focus on developing a permanent waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and have it operational by March of this year.

Blame former President Obama and Senator Reid of Nevada for “taking Yucca Mountain off the table” for strictly political reasons certainly not “grave environmental threats”.

Hopefully, your readers will focus on moving the nuclear waste from SONGS by doing the following:

1. Support the bill by Congressman Issa called the Interim Consolidated Storage Act of 2017. If passed waste could be moved from San Onofre in about five years;
2. Support Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s efforts to resurrect Yucca Mountain. by writing to congressmen, senators, Secretary Perry and the President.

Tom Mintun