Georgia

— Oppose Kings Bay Nuclear Trident base in Georgia — sign on letter due July 23, comments due July 24

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From Nuclear Watch South

Dear Friends,

Nuclear Watch South invites all U.S. based organization and individuals
to sign the comments pasted below. Turn around time is tight!! The
Navy’s deadline to submit comments is Monday, July 24.

Send sign-ons to to Glenn Carroll atom.girl@nonukesyall.org by midnight
Sunday, July 23

Please include your name, title, organization, city, state or for
individuals your name, city and state.

We ask you to please circulate this sign-on opportunity widely! Nuclear
Watch South has traditionally focused on environmental concerns and is
not as well connected to the peace community as many of you!

The draft EA can be found here:
https://www.nepa(dot)navy(dot)mil/Current-Projects/Aircraft-Home-Basing-Ship-Homeporting/Columbia-Class/Documents/

You  may submit comments here:
https://www.nepa(dot)navy(dot)mil/Current-Projects/Aircraft-Home-Basing-Ship-Homeporting/Columbia-Class/Public-Commenting/

The Navy’s Environmental Assessment is narrow and concerned with
expanding Kings Bay Trident base to accommodate the new Columbia class
submarines, part of the nuclear weapons modernization program. Nuclear
Watch South has taken NEPA’s requirements to look at all impacts
seriously and is demanding a full EIS to include studying the impacts on
the North Atlantic right whales, whose Georgia birthing waters were only
first discovered as the Navy was displacing these creatures to the open
Atlantic Ocean by constructing Kings Bay. We bring the U.N. Treaty on
the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons into the mix, and challenge the Navy
to contemplate that the environmental impact of nuclear weapons is,
ERRR, wholesale environmental destruction!

We invite U.S.-based organization and individuals to sign on to the
following comments on the draft EA:

July 24, 2023

Ms. Sara Goodwin
code: EV22.SG
6506 Hampton Blvd
Norfolk, VA 23508-1212

COMMENTS ON COLUMBIA CLASS HOMEPORTING EA | KINGS BAY TRIDENT SUBMARINE
BASE

Dear Ms. Goodwin,

Thank you for granting the request by Nuclear Watch South and others for
a deadline extension on the Columbia Class Homeporting Environmental
Assessment for Kings Bay Trident Submarine Base in the Cumberland Sound
near St. Marys, Georgia. The original deadline was June 25, 2023. We
requested a 90-day extension of which you granted 30 days for a July 24,
2023, deadline.

Nuclear Watch South (formerly Georgians Against Nuclear Energy) is
drafting these comments and inviting additional signatories. Nuclear
Watch South is a grassroots, direct action, environmental nonprofit
based in Georgia since 1977. The Kings Bay Trident nuclear submarine
base near St. Marys, Georgia, deploys enough nuclear firepower to
destroy all life on Earth. The environmental impact of Kings Bay is
planetary. Nuclear Watch South invites all U.S.-based organizations and
individuals to co-sign these comments.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF KINGS BAY

Georgia’s 100 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline is a globally unique,
fertile, and fragile marshland environment of barrier islands,
freshwater tidal forests, maritime forests, and endangered longleaf pine
forest. Georgia’s vast salt marshes support a staggering diversity of
plant and animal life nurturing the eggs and hatchlings of countless sea
creatures and providing significant nesting and migration habitat for
200 bird species.

Kings Bay, near the Georgia-Florida state line is home base for six
Trident submarines and deploys 25% of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A
Trident submarine is the most expensive and deadly nuclear weapons
system on Earth. The only other nation to possess a similarly powerful
system is the United Kingdom, a longtime United States ally. The Trident
has been controversial since its inception as it upsets the so-called
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) power balance, fueling a dangerous
and costly international arms race.

The Navy conducted an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in 1977 when
Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base was first proposed. The EIS was performed
to fulfill environmental and public accountability requirements of the
newly instituted National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) of 1969.
In 1979, construction began on Kings Bay. In 1984, it was first
discovered that the base had unwittingly intruded upon the (previously
unknown and apparently only) birthing waters for the critically
endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Cumberland Sound.

Kings Bay base began operations in 1989. The Soviet Union dissolved in
1991. At the same time, the U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing complex
occupying vast reservations in more than a dozen states from Washington
to South Carolina was shuttering its reactors and facilities amidst
revelations of widespread nuclear contamination and vast inventories of
poorly managed radioactive wastes. The nuclear weapons complex suddenly
and belatedly became subject to environmental law and NEPA has since
proved to be a difficult filter through which to permit new nuclear
weapons manufacture. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy and
National Nuclear Security Agency have failed in five attempts over the
past 30 years to establish a plutonium pit production facility at the
Savannah River Site (SRS) on the South Carolina/Georgia state line
(Savannah River.

Nuclear weapons manufacturing has languished since 1990 in all
nuclear-armed nations and limited nuclear treaties have greatly reduced
nuclear stockpiles. All nuclear testing ceased in 1992. Trident
submarines now carry fewer nuclear weapons, but each Trident submarine
currently can deploy the explosive power of 1,825 Hiroshimas.

In 2021, the U.N. ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, presently counting 68 nations as parties. The treaty begins by
expressing the parties’ concern for “the catastrophic humanitarian
consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons, and
recognizing the consequent need to completely eliminate such weapons,
which remains the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons are never
used again under any circumstances.” This landmark, game-changing Treaty
sets forth as international law that it is illegal to “develop, test,
produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear
weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

The North Atlantic right whale population rebounded from near extinction
when hunting the whales was outlawed in 1935. The whales encountered new
hazards, however, with the industrialization of shipping and fishing.
Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are held responsible for
mortality events which are now decimating the whale population. The
current population of the critically endangered North Atlantic right
whale has crashed to fewer than 350 animals. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates 50 births per year are
required to avoid extinction of these ancient, magnificent marine
mammals. In 2022, only 15 North Atlantic right whales were born. _No
environmental study has ever been conducted of the impact of the North
Atlantic right whales’ protected birthing waters being occupied by the
massive Kings Bay naval station._

Continue reading →

Georgia: Savannah River site may get Germany’s nuclear waste; comments due March 11

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More information on this proposal is available at http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOE_FRDOC_0001-3020

Comment deadline: March 11, 2016

It appears from the Federal Notice that there will be no scoping process public comment period if DOE decides to do an Environmental Impact Statement — see last paragraph highlighted below. That needs to be clarified and contested if so. To be on the safe side, issues that should be covered in the scope of the EIS should be raised in comments filed now.

Direct written comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA to

Tracy Williams
NEPA Compliance Officer
U.S. Department of Energy
P.O. Box B
Aiken, South Carolina 29802

Email comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA  to
GermanSpentNuclearFuelEA@leidos.com

Summary

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces the availability of its draft environmental assessment (EA) (DOE/EA-1977) evaluating the potential environmental impacts from a proposed action to receive, store, process and disposition spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the Federal Republic of Germany at DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) (Draft German Spent Nuclear Fuel EA). (1) This SNF is composed of kernels containing thorium and U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) embedded in small graphite spheres that were irradiated in research reactors used for experimental and/or demonstration purposes. DOE invites public comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA and is announcing a public meeting.

Dates

The 45-day public comment period extends from the date of publication of this notice in the Federal Register through March 11, 2016. DOE will consider all comments received via email by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time or postmarked by that date. Comments submitted after that date and time will be considered to the extent practicable.

Addresses

This Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA is available at the following sites:

http://energy.gov/nepa/office-nepa-policy-and-compliance

http://www.srs.gov/sro/germanheuproj.html

http://www.srs.gov/general/pubs/envbul/nepa1.htm

To request a print copy of the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA please submit your request to Tracy Williams, NEPA Compliance Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, P.O. Box B, Aiken, South Carolina 29802; or by telephone at (803) 952-8278.

DOE invites Federal agencies, state and local governments, Native American tribes, industry, other organizations, and members of the general public to submit comments on DOE’s Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA. Please direct written comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA to Tracy Williams, NEPA Compliance Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, P.O. Box B, Aiken, South Carolina 29802.

Comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA may also be submitted by email toGermanSpentNuclearFuelEA@leidos.com. DOE will give equal weight to written comments and oral comments received at the public meeting. Requests to be placed on the German Spent Nuclear Fuel EA mailing list should be directed to Tracy Williams at the postal or email addresses above.

For Further Information Contact

To request further information on SRS spent nuclear fuel disposition activities or background information on the proposed project, please contact Tracy Williams at the address as listed above.

For general information concerning DOE’s NEPA process, contact: Ms. Carol Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (GG-54), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585: (202) 586-4600, or leave a message toll-free, at (800) 472-2756; fax (202) 586-7031; or send an email to AskNEPA@hq.doe.gov.

This Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA is available on the DOE NEPA Web site athttp://nepa.energy.gov, and also at the SRS Web site at http://www.srs.gov/general/pubs/envbul/nepa1.htm.

NEPA Process

All comments on the Draft Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA received during the public comment period will be considered and addressed in the Final Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA. DOE will address comments submitted after the close of the public comment period on the Draft EA to the extent practicable. Following the public comment period, and based on the EA and consideration of all comments received, DOE will either issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or announce its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS). If DOE determines that a FONSI is appropriate, both the Final EA and FONSI will be made available to the public.

If DOE determines that an EIS is needed, either during preparation of the Final Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany EA or after completing the EA, DOE would issue in the Federal Register a Notice to prepare an EIS. In that case, the June 2014 public comment process would serve as the scoping process that normally would follow a Notice of Intent to prepare an EIS.

Issued in Washington, DC on January 15, 2016.
Edgardo DeLeon,
Director, Office of Nuclear Materials Disposition.
[FR Doc. 2016-01371 Filed 1-22-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P