Anti-nuclear campaign launched

The U.S. has more than 70,000 tons of highly radioactive “spent” fuel rods stored at nuclear plants across the nation, including Florida Power & Light’s plants in Miami-Dade and St. Lucie counties.

With Congress considering reviving a plan to transport the nuclear waste to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, a group of organizations launched a campaign Tuesday called “Stop Fukushima Freeways.”

The campaign promoted through the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which advocates ending nuclear energy production, has published maps showing rail, truck and barge routes the waste would likely take to Yucca Mountain.

“The Stop Fukushima Freeways Campaign shows the perils of the massive and unnec- essary radioactive waste transportation that would occur across the U.S. if the moribund and scientifically indefensible Yucca Mountain waste dump were to be revived,” the group said in a statement.

The network of grass-roots, regional and national organizations, including the League of Women Voters, opposes the proposed Yucca Mountain site. Shipments to Yucca Mountain would affect 43 states and accidents could occur on the way there, and the group asserts that the storage there would not be secure enough.

Stop Fukushima Freeways advocates continuing to store nuclear waste at nuclear plants as securely as possible for now, and moving it once to a qualified final site.