Every once in a while, something good happens over at the State House, and in an overwhelmingly good way. The sort of thing that keeps us trying on all the frustrating issues where it’s hard to make progress.
The House Agriculture and Environmental Affairs Committee voted 16-0 NOT to extend the life of the Barnwell "low-level" nuclear waste dump.
The bill’s sponsor, who abstained from voting in the face of such a huge defeat at the hands of his own committee (he’s the chairman), was resigned, saying this was "democracy in action."
It certainly is. And no, I don’t think the dump presented a huge health threat to South Carolinians. Folks defending it have always acted like their opposition was based in a Luddite fear of technology and scientific ignorance.
The true objection to the dump’s remaining open — mine, anyway — has been based in the fact that this state decided a couple of decades back that it no longer wanted to be seen as the country’s nuclear wastebasket (we have enough image problems without that), and the fact that a political consensus has existed all this time to get our state OUT of the business, whatever it took.
As near as I recall at the moment, we would have been out of it long ago, if not for two factors:
- North Carolina kept backing away from its long-standing deal with us.
- The industry has managed to get pliable politicians to keep extending the dump’s life, time and time again.
Anyway, if you want to read more about it, here’s the AP story:
AP-SC XGR NUCLEAR WASTE LANDFILL
SC legislators say no to keeping nuclear landfill open to nation
By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA,
S.C. (AP) – South Carolina lawmakers defeated a proposal Wednesday to
keep a nuclear waste landfill open to the nation’s low-level
radioactive materials from hospitals and power plants.A House
panel voted unanimously against the plan, which would have allowed
Chem-Nuclear to stay open to the nation until 2023. State law says
starting next year, the site can accept waste only from South Carolina,
New Jersey and Connecticut."I think we’ve put the issue to
rest," said Rep. Billy Witherspoon, who sponsored the bill. "It’s not
an environmental issue as so many people indicated. It’s an economic
issue."Local officials fought to keep the 235-acre site open
to the rest of the nation, saying the landfill’s taxes, fees and
high-paying jobs are vital to the local economy. The site provides
roughly 10 percent of the county’s overall budget and pumps $1 million
a year into local schools. A portion of its disposal fees also has
contributed more than $430 million for school building projects
statewide.Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, praised the committee’s decision, saying the state needed to stick to its 2000 agreement.
"We
think this provides us with an important opportunity to move away from
economic development based on nuclear waste disposal, not just for
Barnwell but for the state as a whole," the governor said in a
statement.Barnwell County Council Chairman Keith Sloan
compared the decision to the state telling the Charleston port, "’You
can accept freight from Japan but nowhere else.’""The lack of honesty and integrity and courage demonstrated with that vote is appalling," Sloan said.
Environmentalists have worried the site pollutes the underground rivers below.
The
landfill was last cited by state environmental regulators in 1983, for
improperly unloading a shipment. State officials test the soil, air,
surface and ground water four times a year, inspect shipments daily and
show up unannounced for semiannual inspections.While tritium
has been found in groundwater, it has been far below regulatory limits,
according to the Department of Health and Environmental Control.Sloan expected significant local budget cuts.
Ann
Timberlake, executive director of the Conservation Voters of South
Carolina, said the county was addicted to the landfill’s money."We didn’t view it as a vote against Barnwell but a vote for the citizens of South Carolina," she said.
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Brad, is your position that nuclear waste must be stored, just not here? Or is it that no state ought to have to store it? Ed
Yeah,this is SC,we’re poor.At least let us have all the nuclear waste.While you’re at it,send us all your criminals,too.We can turn SC into a radioactive penal colony.If any escape,it’ll be easy to find them,since they glow in the dark.
I don’t know all about that Bill. My point with Brad was simply this: Is Brad attempting to make the case that NO state should have to store nuclear waste? If so I strongly disagree. Given liberal obstructionism and enviro-wingnut fear mongering we can’t explore for and extract petroleum from new domestic sources…and we certainly haven’t been allowed to develop any new petroleum refining capacity in 20+ years. (Remember the gas shortage scare last summer? Thank a godless liberal for that, won’t you?) Windfarms, solar energy and battery powered cars aren’t the answer. The only REAL answer is nuclear power to meet our growing energy demands. And to assert that NO state should have to store nuclear waste is ridiculous. Now, if Brads’ point is that South Carolina is the wrong place to store it because of geological parameters such as underground water and or instability, maybe he has a point. But nuclear power is here to stay and the waste it generates is going to have to be stored somewhere. Putting our fingers in our ears and saying la-la-la isn’t going to cut it. Ed
For those with a one half of a liberal education, who know nothing about science, singing “la-la-la” is the best they can do.
They want all the wild, unspoiled areas, but they want illegals to stream in here and squat without restriction or reproash.
They want less air pollution, but they want to fly to Hawaii so they can impress their friends that they didn’t go to Myrtle Beach in an SUV.
I keep thinking about the cheering for ‘democracy working’ in this case and have two questions: One, did the State and other media outlets in SC educate the public and lawmakers by presenting both sides of this important debate? And, two, don’t sites like this Barnwell one in our country handle the radiation-exposed items from hospitals providing life-saving nuclear medicine? If that’s right, where will those things go once the Barnwell low-level site (using the word dump doesn’t seem like fair play) is closed?