Tag Archives: nuclear waste

Miller Defends the New Arena Name

Today’s Salt Lake Tribune has an article in which Entrepenuer Larry H. Miller Defends the name of the Center formerly known as Delta.

I find these comments of his particularly disturbing:

Miller said he has heard complaints from Utahns, but when he asks them about nuclear waste and storage, they cannot provide answers.
“I would ask them before they just hit a panic button when they hear the word ‘nuclear waste’ that they at least understand what it is that’s done there, stored there, what that business is about,” he said.
He later added: “I want to listen and learn and see what [people have] got to say if it’s rational.”

Every Utahn I have spoken to does have a rational solution and explanation. I haven’t run into anyone yet who hesitates at what the solution is for storing toxic waste:

Keep it in the state in which it is generated. Stop generating it if there is nowhere to store it in your state

.

I question what people Miller has talked to (and how many). He needs to look at and read the polls.

Meanwhile, I still support the boycott of all Miller holdings, since he has chosen a name for our state basketball team center that portrays Utah as a nuclear waste dump. That should do wonders for tourism in our state.

“Energy Solutions Arena”

The Delta Center has a new name: Energy Solutions Arena.
EnergySolutions Arena — Former Envirocare provides new name for Delta Center
Arena’s new name a winner, Miller says:Critics have no shortage of nicknames

This came to my desk from HEAL Utah:

EnergySolutions is no longer just an eyesore in the West Desert. As of this afternoon, the sports arena you’ve known for 15 years as the Delta Center will be known as the “EnergySolutions Arena.”

Now every time you take your kids to a Jazz game, see a concert, or simply drive through downtown Salt Lake, you can be reminded that your state is home to the largest commercial nuclear waste dump in the nation. Dan Patrick on ESPN sports radio is already calling the renamed arena “The Dump.”

In its latest attempt at rebranding, EnergySolutions has branded Utah, for the world to see, as the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

EnergySolutions can spend how it wants the untold millions it makes off dumping the nation’s unwanted waste in Utah, but this is a slap in the face to Utahns who are uneasy about their state being known as the nation’s dumping ground. And Larry Miller, who admitted he was in “nuclear kindergarten” before being educated by EnergySolutions, could certainly have sold out to a company with a better image for the state of Utah.

But don’t be uneasy, Larry Miller says, because his company and EnergySolutions share a lot of the same ideals. And EnergySolutions’ president Steve Creamer is only looking forward to the day when his company’s name is on the lips of every fourth grader in Utah. Continue reading

Derailment of Train Headed for Utah Hauling Atomic Waste in Michigan

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) has issued a statment on the Safety and Security Concerns about Derailment of Train Hauling Atomic Waste: Inconsistencies Raise Questions about Emergency Preparedness.

According to Kevin Kamps of NIRS, a train bound for an EnergySolutions facility derailed in Michigan last week. Disturbingly, no one seems to know what the actual contents of the rail cars is. Please read the press release above. We will keep you informed about when this train will be traveling through Utah, and what we will be doing about it. We will be posting articles shortly about the derailment.

More information:
Continue reading

Nuclear Waste plan attracts thousands of comments

Today’s Deseret News has an article on all the comments that have flooded the BLM’s office regarding the Private Fuel Storage (PFS) plan to store nuclear waste on the Goshute reservation. More than 7,000 comments were received.

The BLM’s public comment period ended May 8 on two competing proposals to get radioactive fuel from a rail line to the Goshute Indian reservation, where PFS wants to build the storage plant. The proposals are to build a railroad spur or to construct an intermodal facility where huge protective casks would be lifted from train cars and loaded onto trucks for the 26-mile drive to the reservation.

Go us! Keep up the pressure.

St. George holds Stop the Divine Strake Rally

Citizens of St. George, Utah held a rally to voice opposition to the Divine Strake test yesterday.

Several dozen participated. according to the Las Vegas Sun article. This was the first rally ever organized by these folks, who called me early last week to ask me questions about organizing rallies.

Another article appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune: Anti-Divine Strake rally draws fewer than hoped; opponents sign petitions.

Way to go, St. George!

STOP THE DIVINE STRAKE!

Thousands of Utahns Comment to BLM

Thousands of people sent in their comments to the BLM during a public comment period to oppose proposals to build a rail route or a loading facility to service the proposed high-level nuclear waste storage site, Private Fuel Storage (PFS) in western Utah. I sent in my early last week.

The State of Utah alone filed over 40 pages of documentation and legal arguments against the proposal.

Here are two articles I found today:

Utah attacks PFS nuclear waste plan: State joins thousands in sending comments to BLM

BLM swamped with comments on N-waste

Last day for public to comment to BLM on Nuke Waste Transport

Today is the last day the public can offer comment to the BLM on whether or not Private Fuel Storage should be allowed a right-of-way to transport high-level nuclear waste across public lands into Skull Valley.
Read Jen’s Green Journal’s reminder and her letter to the BLM.

Nuclear Waste in Utah

Here are some recent articles on the nuclear waste issue in Utah:

  • Senators Hatch and Bennett are asking the BLM to prevent Private Fuel Storage from building the transfer facility.
  • The BLM has received more than 4,350 mostly negative letters, e-mails, postcards and faxes as it considers whether to grant access across public land to the nuclear waste storage facility in Utah.
  • LDS Church Issues Statement on Nuclear Waste here,
    here, and here.

  • Blogswarm hits the paper

    Well finally:

    Anti-nuclear-waste rallies held in state Capitol and cyberspace

    Local Media Responds to Nuclear Waste Issue

    Kudos to Utah Bloggers in the No Damn Way Blogswarm Day yesterday. I have added more bloggers links to my post yesterday on the blogswarm – thanks to many of you who kept updates coming in! I have also created a new link on my left sidebar, Utah Blogswarms, since I think this will become a trend.

    It appears that we created a ripple effect!

    Today’s Deseret News has not one, but TWO front page articles on nuclear waste:

  • Opinion on nuclear waste in Utah? Speak up: State officials urge Utahns to say ‘no way’ to PFS plan
  • Nuclear waste recycling is costly, foes say

    Other media outlets’ website items on the issue:
    KSL Channel 5 Community Comment Board

    Of course I attribute the nuclear waste articles to Utah’s Bloggers’ Blogswarm.