Resolutions

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Conservation priorities and specific conservation projects are approved by the member-elected Chapter Executive Committee (XCOM).  Conservation Priorites are general statements of the Chapter's areas of our conservation work, such as support for environmental justice in vulnerable communities, protection of habitat and special places, battling the climate crisis and advocating for a clean energy future. Our Club's specific conservation campaigns and projects are expected to align with these priorities.

Conservation Priorities are adopted every two years to coincide with the SC General Assembly's two year sessions.  Chapter XCOM support for specific proposed conservation issues, campaigns or projeccts can be sought by circulation, introduction and adoption of a formal resolution. Such proposed resolutions are traditionally in a "whereas, whereas and therefor be it resolved" format, designed  to succinctly educate the reader on the facts supporting a clear and specific resolution for Chapter action.

Proposed resolutions should be written, sponsored by an XCOM member and circulated well in advance of the XCOM meeting for consideration on the agenda. Particularly in complex and potentially controversial areas a well drafted proposed resolution can best educate fellow members unfamiliar with the issue and, thus, build consensus and commitment to support the proposed Chapter action. Sharing potential conservation resolutions and conferring with the Conservation Committee and Conservation Chairs for feedback and support  is encouraged.

RESOLUTION

SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AT WESTINGHOUSE’S NUCLEAR FUEL FABRICATION FACILITY

ADOPTED, THIS  DAY OF AUGUST 2020, BY STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA CHAPTER OF THE SIERRA CLUB.

1.     WHEREAS: Westinghouse Electric Company owns and operates the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (WECFFF), located on Bluff Road in rural Lower Richland County where it has operated one of the few facilities in the country for the fabrication of fuel assemblies for the commercial nuclear power industry since 1969. As licensed and permitted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control such licenses permit the possession, use and discharge into the environment of highly dangerous radioactive, hazardous and polluting substances which pose a risk of harm to workers, neighbors and the natural environment. Westinghouse has applied for a renewal of its operating license allowing for 40 years of continued operations; and

 2.     WHEREAS: The Westinghouse facility employs some 1,000 workers, many of whom are routinely exposed to radiation and hazardous materials and to the risk of radiological accident. The facility is located in a rural, predominantly African American and low income community, where most residents depend on private wells for drinking water and where many people depend on nearby streams and the Congaree River for recreation and subsistence fishing.  The pristine ancient bottomland forests of the Congaree National Park are nearby, downstream from the facility with which it shares a floodplain; and

 3.     WHEREAS: the Westinghouse nuclear fuel facility has historically exhibited a poor and troubling safety culture, evidenced by a number of violations of regulatory requirements, radiological accidents, spills and discharges of hazardous chemicals and radioactive wastes to air, to groundwater below the facility and to surface waters which flow offsite toward in tributary streams to the Congaree River; and

 4.     WHEREAS: In a number of instances Westinghouse failed to timely report accidents, spills, discharges or instances of noncompliance  to the authorities and the community; failed to timely identify and implement effective corrective action to prevent recurrence, and resisted effective remediation, clean up and corrective action; which, taken together, evidence a continued poor safety and quality culture on the part of Westinghouse, posing a continued risk of harm to the community, the public and the surrounding environment; and

5.     WHEREAS: Despite repeated commitments by Westinghouse management to respectful and responsive communication and consultation with the Lower Richland community and the public at large, the Company has failed to act in a forthright and inclusive manner in its stakeholder relations and to respect principles of environmental justice; and

6. WHEREAS: Despite the history of the poor safety culture at Westinghouse, the NRC has reduced the frequency of the inspections schedule in critical areas.  With less stringent and frequent oversight by the NRC in the future, accountability over the course of a 40-year license would prove less protective of workers, of the surrounding communities, and of the natural environment.

NOW BE IT RESOLVE D BY THE SOUTH CAROLINA CHAPTER OF THE SIERRA CLUB:

1.     We support and request commitments by Westinghouse, the NRC and DHEC to adopt additional requirements for effective, open, and transparent notification, communication, and consultation with the Lower Richland Community, facility neighbors, and the general public regarding facility operations including timely information on accidents, spills and discharges of pollution to the environment.  We expect the Company and regulators to adhere to the principles of environmental justice in their community engagement and decision-making, including the recognition and avoidance of unjust and disparate impacts of facility operations on communities of color and low income;

2.    We support the completion of a full and effective environmental impact statement (EIS) pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), with full and effective consultation with and participation by facility neighbors, the Lower Richland community and the general public. Such EIS process must fully identify and assess all significant impacts of facility operations on the human and natural environment, including the impacts of future accidents, spills and pollution discharges resulting from a flawed safety and quality culture at Westinghouse.  This EIS process and timeline must accommodate the needs of the community which has limited access to technology and has been restricted by conditions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic; and it must fully adhere to environmental justice principles and requirements;

3.     We support and request that the proposed 40 year license extension be rejected in favor of a license renewed for a term of no more than 10 years, subject to a 1 year period of trial operations. Such restricted permit terms are warranted by the Company’s poor past compliance history and demonstrated poor safety and quality culture. Any license renewal must be conditioned on effective corrective action for all past significant failures to comply with regulatory requirements, a commitment to clean up and remediation of all significant environmental contamination, a demonstrated commitment to prevent future spills and pollution and a demonstrated commitment by Westinghouse to adopt a reformed safety and quality culture at the Company.

RESOLUTION 2019           OPPOSING DANGEROUS, DIRTY AND UNNEEDED PLUTONIUM PIT PRODUCTION FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS AT THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S SAVANNAH RIVER SITE

The US Department of Energy is considering a dangerous, dirty and unneeded new nuclear weapons role for the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina.  That new mission - the Plutonium Bomb Plant - would entail production of plutonium “pits,” or the spherical plutonium triggers for all US nuclear weapons. Pit production is complicated, dangerous, dirty and costly and would pose a host of new challenges at SRS, a site not suited for this work and where the focus must remain on clean-up of existing radioactive and toxic waste.

1. WHEREAS: The  US Department of Energy’s  Savannah River Site (SRS)  historically produced 36 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium in five nuclear production reactors, and  now stores 35 million gallons of high-level nuclear waste in corroding steel tanks as a by-product of such plutonium production.  SRS continues to face the daunting task of managing that waste, outlined in the SRS “liquid waste system plan.” Although 8 waste storage tanks are now closed, 43 tanks remain active. Removing the waste from them is the most urgent project now underway at SRS and merits full site attention and budget priority.  Diverting limited budget resources to the plutonium pit mission may well divert site attention and funding from this uncompleted priority environmental clean-up project. 

2. WHEREAS: SRS was designated in 2007 to be the site to store surplus weapons plutonium that was not removed from nuclear weapons, and currently stores 12 metric tons of plutonium in the old KReactor. The disposition pathway for all that material has not been defined, which is of concern to the State of South Carolina. Plutonium pit production at SRS will likely result in yet more plutonium being brought into South Carolina, which could be stranded here if the complicated pit production project falters.

3. WHEREAS: In May 2018, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a news release announcing that it had chosen SRS as the site to produce 50 or more plutonium “pits” per year for nuclear weapons.  In spite of this declaration of intent, the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant is not authorized or funded by Congress and the fate of the project will continue to be under discussion by the Armed Services Committees of both the House and Senate.

4. WHEREAS: NNSA has proposed production up to 80 plutonium pits per year at SRS and at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. At SRS, NNSA claims the failed and shuttered plutonium fuel

(Mixed Oxide or MOX) plant would be where production of 50+ pits per year would be located. The MOX project was formally terminated in October 2018, after a waste of $5 billion on construction, and is rife with construction and design problems. According to various DOE reports, including the summary to a classified report, the pit production project faces big challenges and the summary concludes that the “eventual success of the strategy to reconstitute plutonium pit production is far from certain.”

5. WHEREAS: Plutonium pit production has a host of nuclear and chemical waste streams, including transuranic (plutonium) waste, low-level radioactive waste and beryllium (which serves as a liner around the pit).  Disposition paths for such dangerous wastes are unknown and some waste streams could remain on site permanently, adding to the existing SRS waste burden.  The clean-up of existing waste at SRS must not be delayed or complicated by bringing in or creating yet more waste at the site.

6. WHEREAS: While SRS stores plutonium and has recently processed some plutonium into a powder (oxide) for the cancelled MOX fuel project, the site has not cast liquid plutonium since it produced plutonium ingots in the last-1980s that were shipped off site for pit production. SRS does not have the technical capability to cast plutonium spheres, which pose high risks of nuclear criticality accidents, worker exposure and environmental contamination.  

7. WHEREAS: The last large-scale production of pits took place at the DOE Rocky Flats site, near Denver, Colorado. The site was closed in 1989 after an FBI raid due to illegal waste management practices. The disastrous history of Rocky Flats is a warning that the threat of nuclear accident, environmental contamination and worker exposure is high in the pit production process..

8. WHEREAS:  An “Engineering Assessment Report” for DOE in April 2018 analyzed the SRS option and three options at Los Alamos and pointed out construction and schedule challenges to achieve a production rate of 80 pits per year by 2030.  The life-cycle cost for use of the MOX plant for pit production was $27 billion and all of the Los Alamos options were $15 billion or more.  Given that DOE has a record of failure with large, costly, complicated projects - witness the bungled MOX project -  the cost is certain to rise dramatically and the schedule to slip significantly, placing the project at risk of abandonment if it were to be pursued.  Such high costs will threaten the SRS cleanup budget, the main project at the site and its largest employer.

9. WHEREAS:  Production of new plutonium  pits is intended for the production of a class of new and refurbished nuclear weapons and could help stimulate a new nuclear arms race. The bulk of the new pits would be for new design nuclear missile warheads - designated the W87-1 and W76-1. No new nuclear weapons are needed and the US currently has about 1750 deployed nuclear weapons, 2000 nuclear weapons in active reserve and another 2000 in storage. Deployment of new nuclear weapons would be a provocative act and undermine disarmament requirements of Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

10. WHEREAS:  Public interest groups that monitor and educate the public on SRS and DOE issues have complained to DOE that proper National Environmental Policy Act documentation for pit production has not been prepared. The groups have pressured DOE to prepare various levels of NEPA documents and have forced DOE to announce that it will conduct an Environmental Impact Statement on SRS pit production. Public participation and comments must be considered by DOE on the costs and benefits of SRS plutonium pit production, including the need for pits for new nuclear weapons, the environmental impacts of waste streams involved with pit production, the risk of nuclear criticality, worker exposure and if the “no action alternative” (no new pit plant at SRS) should prevail.

11. WHEREAS: Various public interest groups in South Carolina, including Savannah River Site Watch, Carolina Peace Resource Center and the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, have opposed pit production at SRS and are encouraging more groups to join the effort to oppose this costly, complicated project. 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: That the South Carolina Sierra Club opposes the dangerous, dirty and unneeded DOE proposal to begin plutonium pit production for new nuclear weapons at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; that the South Carolina Sierra Club urges the DOE to concentrate its resources and personnel at SRS on its priority environmental clean-up mission, particularly  on safely managing the 35 million gallons of high level radioactive wastes remaining  from its historic plutonium production activities; and that the South Carolina Sierra Club encourages its members to actively participate in the DOE and any other available environmental review, legislative, administrative  and permitting processes to object to this proposal for plutonium pit production for nuclear weapons at the Savannah River Site.

ADOPTED THIS            29th DAY OF JUNE 2019, BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

ATTEST: 

​                                    Ben Mack, Executive Committee Chair

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Conservation priorities and specific conservation projects are apporved
by the member-elected Chapter Executive Committee (XCOM).  Conservation
Priorites are general statements of the Chapter's areas of our
conservation work, such as support for environmental justice in
vulnerable communities, protection of habitat and special places,
battling the climate crisis and advocating for a clean energy future.
Our Club's specific conservation campaigns and projects are expected to
align with these priorities.  Conservation Priorities are adopted every
two years to coincide with the SC General Assembly's two year sessions. 
Chapter XCOM support for specific proposed conservation issues,
campaigns or projeccts can be sought by circulation, introduction and
adoption of a formal resolution. Such proposed resolutions are
traditionally in a "whereas, whereas and therefor be it resolved"
format, designed to succinctly educate the reader on the facts
supporting a clear and specific resolution for Chapter action.  Proposed
resolutions should be written, sponsored by an XCOM member and
circulated well in advance of the XCOM meeting for consideration on the
agenda. Particularly in complex and potentially controversial areas a
well drafted proposed resolution can best educate fellow members
unfamiliar with the issue and, thus, build consensus and commitment to
support the proposed Chapter action. Sharing potential conservation
resolutions and conferring with the Conservation Committee and
Conservation Chairs for feedback and support  is encoraged.