Diverse Neighbors

Neighbors are divided in supporting 2024 Presidential candidates including in this battleground state of North Carolina. The cover photo shows adjacent neighbor’s homes displaying signs for opposing parties in the affluent area across from Green Level High School.

Both Democratic and Republican candidates are calling this the most consequential election of our lifetimes and using civil-unrest rhetoric: one side says we need to ‘fight to win’ and another threatening to use the military against political rivals within the U.S. I hope and pray we can all reside in peace and harmony during and after this election!

This is the first year that I’ve taken an active role in political campaigns although I’ve posted a few earlier blogs shown below discussing the contrast between evolving parties and elected officials.

Canvassing for the Harris-Walz campaign, I’ve knocked on about 130 doors so far focusing on getting out the Democratic vote by making sure people know when and where to cast their ballot and recording responses on the phone app MiniVan.

When people are home and answer their door, which averages about half the time, I identify myself and ask if they have voted or have a plan to vote. Then I try to determine which candidates they support. I’ve heard the full spectrum of views from strongly supporting, strongly opposed, refusing to disclose, as well as one person intentionally not voting. I’m relieved to learn that most people encourage my efforts and over a dozen times I’ve gotten the opportunity to engage in informative, sometimes passionate, conversations lasting 15 minutes or more.

I’ve spoken with a few undecided voters who asked my opinion for which candidate and party would be better for “kitchen-table economics.” I empathize that it’s difficult getting unbiased news and that we need to make decisions based on our personal, moral and ethical views. We’re all concerned with the rise in food and housing prices during the pandemic. I like to mention how the U.S. economy is getting much better with inflation and interest rates coming down. But consumer prices are still too high. One candidate supports billionaires like Elon Musk to provide tax cuts or petrochemical companies wanting cuts in environmental regulations. I mention the contrast with the Biden administration, Federal Reserve, and Harris proposals as cited in the non-partisian Economist magazine (based in London) with articles including from October 17, 2024 titled: “The envy of the world, America’s economy is bigger and better than ever. Will politics bring it back to earth?”

One retired person I spoke with favored Mr. Trump because he wants to cut taxes. I said it might sound good on the surface but the last time he cut taxes in 2017 it favored the wealthiest people and international corporations, it significantly added to the deficit, and increased inflation. According to the Center for American Progress:

“The Center for American Progress is an independent, nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. An important body of evidence shows that the corporate tax changes in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act failed to produce promised investment or wage increases for the vast majority of U.S. workers. The law did, however, significantly reduce corporate tax collections, diverting resources from public investment to the pockets of wealthy shareholders, executives, and high-paid workers.”

If you dig deeper when Mr. Trump says he wants to cut taxes for overtime pay, social security, or medicare that means getting rid of those benefits or entitlements. The people who are currently working are paying the retiree recipients. October 21st news states Mr. Trump’s plan would eliminate Social Security by 2031 (U.S. News and World Report)! I also remind voters that House Republicans tried unsuccessfully 50 times when Trump was president to replace the Affordable Care Act which is much more popular than Obamacare (which are the same programs).

I’ve shared my personal and professional experiences after retiring as a federal government civil servant in 2019 and since began being able to speak out about politics.

Here are some other related blogs that show the contrast between the two parties:

1/21/2021 Diverse Unity

7/6/2020 Environmental Legacy of the 41st President (George H.W. Bush)

6/12/2020 Vote and Yell If You Can For America To Survive

7/21/2019 Carter Denounces Overconsumption

UPDATE: November 7, 2024

Knocking on about 400 doors and speaking with approximately 100 people in four upper middle class neighborhoods over the past few weeks revealed insights as to the election results for many of the candidates. The list on MiniVan provided by the Democratic Party provided names and addresses of people registered as Democrats with the goal of getting out the vote. We could tell voting status and did not need to ask people if they already voted during the early voting period.

Many voters I spoke with said they planned to vote for Democrats while surprisingly many were unhappy with the Biden-Harris administration and planned to vote for Trump-Vance. Some were not happy that Kamala Harris got the nomination for President after the primary election occurred which nominated Joe Biden without much contest except from Representative Dean Phillips from Minnesota who tried to warn people at that time. I felt that Harris was the likely successor being on the same ticket and there was not time to hold another primary election which would have fractured the party. It’s amazing the broad support across political ideologies that Harris quickly assembled and how many former Trump Administration officials spoke out against him.

Most voters that I spoke with were more concerned about cost of living rising over the past four years and showed frustration that more was not done by the government to help people. Many voters said the Republicans speaking out against Mr. Trump was because he fired them; perhaps his Apprentice show meme “Your fired” stuck with people. I attempted to counter these arguments with my own personal experiences.

When I asked their choice for North Carolina Governor, I did not hear anyone endorse Republican Lt. Governor Robinson but they did support Democrat Josh Stein, the former attorney general, who won election. Also the superintendent of public schools went to Democrat Mo Green who defeated a MAGA supporting Republican. So it was not a complete sweep for Republicans in North Carolina where Trump-Vance won by 51%.

I personally would have been willing to ring anyone’s doorbell that did not have an opposing candidate’s sign displayed. I’ve heard news commentators mention that we all need to engage and listen to differing viewpoints to have healthy conversations but both sides are living in a bubble. This is one reason that most Democrats lost elections with an unpopular, isolated incumbent President who many people feel wasn’t listening all the way down to the lowest levels of the campaign such as myself volunteering to canvas and only talking to those registered as Democrats but many of whom rebelled against the party.

May we hold true to our ideals and values, preserve our first Amendment and other freedoms, improve two-way conversations and courageously speak out against negative forces that try to separate our humanity and hard-fought protections such as for health, safety and the environment!

Efficient Nuke Licensing

In July 2024, President Biden signed the Fire Grants and Safety Act into law. According to DOE, the law is “chalking up a BIG win for our nuclear power industry. Included in the bill is bipartisan legislation known as the ADVANCE Act that will help us build new reactors at a clip that we haven’t seen since the 1970s.”

The ADVANCE Act is short for: ‘‘Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024.”

DOE states, “any of the advanced reactors under development use different coolants than what is currently used in our commercial light-water reactors—making the regulatory process more of a challenge. The ADVANCE Act directs the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reduce certain licensing application fees and authorizes increased staffing for NRC reviews to expedite the process.”

NRC expediting environmental reviews is discussed in Section 506 of Title V.

TITLE V—IMPROVING COMMISSION EFFICIENCY

Sec. 501. Mission alignment. NRC must update mission statement to include “efficient”
Sec. 502. Strengthening the NRC workforce.
Sec. 503. Commission corporate support funding.
Sec. 504. Performance metrics and milestones.
Sec. 505. Nuclear licensing efficiency.
Sec. 506. Modernization of nuclear reactor environmental reviews.

According to Section 506, NRC must submit a report to Congress within 180 days (due January 2025) with planned efforts to “facilitate efficient, timely, and predictable environmental reviews of nuclear reactor applications for a license…through expanded use of categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and generic environmental impact statements.”

These new mandates are based on changes made to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in section 321 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act in 2023 as discussed in this blog from the American Action Forum. I previously wrote a blog about the history of NEPA and my submitting public comments to NRC.

According to the ADVANCE Act, NRC must report to Congress and consider:

A)      Using NEPA documents prepared by other Federal agencies

B)      Using previous NEPA documents prepared by NRC

C)      Using mitigated findings of no significant impact to reduce proposed impacts

D)      Relying on other Federal, State, and local government evaluations

E)      Coordinating development of NEPA documents with other Federal agencies

F)      Streamlining consultations with other Federal, State, and local agencies

G)     Streamlining analyses of alternatives including sites and power alternatives

H)     Establishing new categorical exclusions

I)       Amending 10 CFR Section 51.20(b) to determine if an EA can replace an EIS

J)      Authorizing use of applicant’s EIS as the NRCs draft EIS

K)     Adopting online and digital technologies to allow applicant and agency coordination

L)     Making other revisions to 10 CFR 51 that may be needed

Yesterday, I attended a virtual public meeting with NRC staff to take comments on the ADVANCE Act directive to be included in the report to Congress. About 60 people attended including 40 members of the public and 20 NRC staff. Some attendees strongly oppose nuclear energy while others represent the industry or academia which made for diverse and lively comments.

About 20 years ago, I worked for NRC conducting environmental reviews for relicensing operating nuclear power plants. Many of us felt the NEPA schedule of about 18 months was very aggressive and there was more than one Christmas-New Year’s holiday “break” we had to work to get the EIS completed on time! Here’s the basic process: the applicant submits an application then NRC issues the notice of intent (NOI) that gets published in the federal register (FRN) which starts the clock on the application process. NRC staff reviews the industry environmental report and starts the scoping process to conduct the NEPA study, site tours and audits, permit reviews, discussions with agencies/tribes and obtain public comments. This provides input into the draft EIS which involves obtaining and addressing public comments to prepare the final EIS. The NEPA review occurs parallel to the safety evaluation report and the total process to grant a license takes about 2 years.

I commented that for the above item F, NRC must also consult with Native American tribes which are sovereign nations as they are directly affected by uranium mining, mill sites, transportation routes, and more impacts that must be considered in NEPA analyses. I know NRC staff are well aware and are very involved in tribal consultations and the Congressional text must be updated. I could not identify anyone on the public meeting representing Native American tribes and many of the public attendees complained about lack of notification for the meeting. I randomly learned about the meeting by looking at new documents entered into ADAMS. I suggest NRC make more of an effort to engage the general public through social media announcements.

As I reported about 10 months ago, I worked preparing environmental reports to build small modular reactors (SMR) in Idaho. We were very close to submitting the application before the utility shut the project down so the NRC officially did not start the NEPA process. However, NRC became very involved in “pre-application” meetings and reviews of draft documents so there was close coordination between industry and the regulators to make the process very efficient.

Regarding the ADVANCE Act mandate of considerations, NRC will need to determine and justify if other NEPA documents previously prepared by NRC or other Federal, State, or local agencies are relevant, reliable, and adequate to meet all requirements. While NRC consults with Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Commerce NOAA, I recommend NRC obtain reviews from the U.S. Geological Survey which is often closely involved in local and tribal resource issues. For example, see the DOE project involving USGS on tribal land related to impacts from uranium mill sites which I coauthored.

I advocate that NEPA documents need to consider alternative siting and sources of power. How did the applicant objectively consider various locations for the project and arrive at the proposed site? For the Idaho SMR project, the Shoshone-Bannock tribe wanted to know the same thing and wondered how the site construction might affect their reservation’s view of the mountains or noise during construction as well many other disruptive concerns.

I believe one of the failures of the Idaho SMR project, beyond the proposed rapid inflationary construction cost increases to the project, was the lack of public outreach to engage ratepayers such as in Salt Lake City to counteract the misinformation regarding baseload and alternative energy sources needed for grid stability. As coal plants get retired or replaced with natural gas plants, the only other source of baseload power (where the electricity flows 24/7) is with nuclear power. While wind and solar power alternatives are increasingly popular, without very expensive battery storage — grid stability will be impossible. So the public, especially the anti-nuclear activists need to face the energy and climate change realities. Therefore, I recommend NRC keep the requirement for industry to provide alternative siting and need for power sources in the environmental report which NRC reviews and incorporates in the EIS. I also do not advocate that first of a kind power plants receive an exemption from considering alternatives.

Similarly, for category J, I do not advocate for NRC adopting the industry environmental report as the draft EIS. That will skip the scoping process involving the pubic. For the Idaho SMR project, we almost completed the environmental report and there was no public involvement. How can NRC plagiarize verbatim industry reports then claim it meets their nuclear ASME quality assurance practices (NQA-1)? When I worked for NRC and learned that our consultant took information directly from the industry report without referencing the source of information this became a serious breach of trust. How will the general public perceive any government report written by industry proponents?

With the U.S. not creating a nuclear waste repository and having to pay industry to store nuclear waste, it is not reasonable for NRC to expect industry will resolve these issues in the environmental report as would be needed if category J were adopted.

I suggest NRC prepare a nationwide programmatic or generic EIS that can be tiered to site specific EIS documents. I do not agree that EAs can be substituted for EIS documents (category I) as nuclear power plants are major federal actions and public involvement with meetings is necessary and might be excluded in the EA process.

Plans to conduct another NRC public meeting on the ADVANCE Act is planned for October 16. This blog will serve as my official public comments submitted to Mr. Lance Rakovan: lance.rakovan@nrc.gov.

Update October 16, 2024

Big news today- Amazon Web Services announced plans to partner with a company to build nuclear energy sites. Here’s a report from AP discussing Amazon and Google’s recent announcements.

Today, I attended another NRC meeting on the ADVANCE Act - this time focusing on the big picture as the first public meeting involving the entire organization. Here are my comments that I posted online:

“I attended public meetings today and on September 25th, 2024. So far at both meetings, the NRC requested public "scoping" comments on the ADVANCE Act but has not provided proposed decisions that must soon be provided to Congress. I submitted comments on Section 506 to modernize nuclear reactor environmental reviews on September 26. The report to Congress on Section 506 is due in early January 2025. Will there be an opportunity to review and provide comments to this draft report to Congress or will it be considered a final report? How can the public provide comments in the process to evaluate NRC recommendations?

At the meeting today, the NMSS Director responded to a question that the ADVANCE Act is being considered beyond the Congressional direction for "advanced nuclear reactors" and being considered for all parts of the agency. This increase in scope warrants an increase in public awareness to all programs nationwide and internationally with participation including from IAEA, other federal agencies, state and local governments and sovereign Native American tribal governments. For example, questions were asked at today's meeting about nuclear waste storage and disposal but no one from the Department of Energy responded. However, the Advance Act (Section 506 items D-F) directs NRC to coordinate with other agencies during the NEPA process. Before changes are made to the process, more public meetings are needed to involve these other groups with public engagement to understand what the NRC recommends.

I recommend NRC consider providing the draft report on Section 506 to Congress and offer a public comment period to review and incorporate comments as is typically done in the EIS process: scoping, draft EIS, final EIS. This would enable NRC to meet its obligation for submitting a report on time and for including additional public input. Support for carbon-free nuclear power is increasing and this is a timely opportunity to increase public pressure on Congress for finding a permanent geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste.

The statement that taxpayers will be subsiding about half of the increased mandates resulting from the Act needs to be detailed. What aspects of the pre-application and application process will be paid by the industry or by taxpayers? The public are not generally involved in pre-application meetings so using taxpayer dollars would be inappropriate.

While the current process of 25 tasks presented today is efficient for NRC to accomplish requirements on many different timelines over the next few years, a reasonable person will not be able to put the pieces together. Therefore, I recommend one overarching mission document is needed in responding to the ADVANCE Act.

Another question asked was how will these changes might affect Reg Guides and other documents. No answer was provided. The industry and public need clarity for what will be affected by regulatory changes and the timelines. For example, Reg. Guide 4.2 to prepare environmental reports will need to be updated for changes to the Act Section 506 and 10 CFR Part 51.

With the 50th anniversary of NRC and preparing for the RIC in March 2025, I suggest the EDO recommend to the Commission:

1) that the ADVANCE Act is vital for the nation's civilian nuclear program and necessitates demonstration as an independent regulatory, similar to the Federal Reserve

2) one holistic agency-wide document describing all functions of NRC will be prepared focusing on proposed changes

3) the NRC organize a panel for the RIC involving a wide number of agency experts to describe the changes being made from the Advance Act.”

In Woodbury Pond

In Woodbury Pond

by Bill and A.J. Dam

In the Piedmont’s former pristine white pine forest transformed to become the newly constructed housing development of New Hill, North Carolina, an area of about five-square miles and 1,000 McMansions, only one old pond remains. Located in the Woodbury neighborhood across from where we live in Jordan Manors, the small pond is cramped and crowded behind the backyards of a dozen homes. Living in the Woodbury Pond are a few elusive large-mouth bass.

Attaching the seven foot fishing rod to the electric bike makes for quick transport to get the hook in the water. After dozens of trips and hundreds of attempts using different bait and fishing from different spots on the shore, no luck occurred in snagging the prized fish. Then on Friday the 13th of September, on his last attempt after trying for two hours and 30 minutes past sunset in the twilight, knowing the bass must be hiding beneath fallen branches and rigged with a swim bait artificial fish, a huge large-mouth bass jumped onto the lure as soon as it hit the water. The bass tried to swim away dragging the line that spun off the reel to get away but with great effort A.J. reeled in the fish feeling the rod bending close to the breaking point. The bass measured about two feet long and A.J. immediately made a video call to his parents to share the news.

Carefully removing the hook from the large mouth, hoping the bass can live longer, he carefully set the fish free into the old pond and slowly rode the e-bike home feeling elated to share his achievement of the one that didn’t get away.

8th Grade Science Sub

Yesterday, I taught four science classes to approximately 100 eighth grade students at East Cary Magnet Middle School. The mission of the school is to be a Center for Global Studies and World Languages and motto is Unity Through Diversity. As school year just began last week and the teacher needed to attend a training, the students are getting an introduction (or reminders) on topics including laboratory safety, definitions including density and buoyancy, and the scientific method.

I didn’t expect the homeroom and “Global Scholar time” students to continue staying for the core 1 science class lasting a total of two hours! The students didn’t have much independent homework or class work to do so we had lots of time to share stories and compare interests. Many students shared they like sports, dancing, music and computer games. Given the mission of the school, I asked what languages they speak and some of the responses included: English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, and Tagalog. Luckily for me, all the students are fluent in English. I said they are also learning to speak Science and to consider it like a foreign language that they need to learn the lingo and start with the definitions. The classroom has a couple of Science Dictionaries for Kids that I used. I also encouraged them to realize that they will be far ahead of many adults who may have taken science classes so long ago and to be aware of misinformation in the news or social media. I gave some examples as we discussed the scientific method process of making an observation, hypothesis (an educated guess), data analysis, control group, to developing a theory to explain what we observe in nature. While a theory does not sound as convincing as a scientific fact, most scientists will agree with theories. I offered examples of climate change, dinosaur extinction, evolution, and plate tectonics.

The teacher’s handout only took about 10 minutes to complete which asked for defining accuracy and precision. Thinking about the start of the NFL season, I gave an analogy of a football kicker can be accurate to score a field goal and get 3 points but if keeps hitting the same spot on the goal post he might be precise but not accurate.

The handout also involved reading drawings of graduated cylinders to compare displacement of objects resulting in a change in volume. For example, the initial water level in the tube might be shown as 10 ml and when adding a penny the water level moved up to 11 ml so the displacement is 1 ml. Some students found these concepts difficult to visualize so I found some teaching aides with a beaker and actual graduated cylinder.

I showed a glass jar half filled with water asking students to guess what objects might be buoyant or sink. A leaf floated until it got waterlogged and sank. I explained that the air filling the leaf pores enabled the leaf to float until water filled the pores. A plastic cap for a glue stick floats but a plastic push pin sinks due to the metal pin. We looked at data for density of various metals and only a few students had heard about the story of Archimedes (as explained here by NYU) revealing the king’s gold crown wasn’t pure but contained some silver.

Most students in the four science classes lasting one hour each expressed appreciation and said I told good stories and am really nice. I said I enjoy being an occasional substitute teacher averaging once a week and they need to be kind to their dedicated teachers as it takes a lot of energy and empathy!

Debby Deluge

Tropical storm Debby which hit Florida as a category 1 hurricane is dropping record rainfall across the southeastern U.S. As the eye of the storm circulated around us yesterday afternoon on 8/8/24, the rain stopped briefly allowing time for my son and me to take a bike ride for this photo op showing submerged Richardson Road at Reedy Branch Creek in the Apex Friendship area of North Carolina. We received four inches of rainfall in one day with most of the rain falling in the morning! This is the same road we previously helped to pick up trash. Much of the trash if it get into the stream would be very dangerous to wildlife. With the road block detour diverting traffic around the flooded road, we noticed many homes and farms cut off and wondered how they would be able to come and go.

So for all the people who enjoy or dislike going outdoors, driving cars, fishing, and generally surviving on this planet, can we all agree to do more to reduce trashing the roads, wasting gasoline, emitting carbon, and respect all lives found in nature?

Cicada cuisine

This morning I took a hike around Harris Park to see if I could see birds eating cicadas. The birds were too high in the trees yet I felt luck that one cicada landed close to me so I could get this photo. According to Vox, two broods emerging together has not happened since Thomas Jefferson was President! The birds have lost interest in our seed feeder with the proliferation of these insects — apparently the males make loud noises to attract females. As a result of the cicada feast, birds will produce more offspring. My neighbor who’s an orchestra leader said the cicadas sound like a rolling high pitched snare drum. Hopefully the noise that’s annoying to us will benefit the ecosystem! Here’s a video of my walk in the woods listening to the cicadas and discovering a wildlife creature.

#?

This President’s Day weekend, the annual Great Backyard Bird Count is taking place. People are identifying birds from around the world for fun, scientific research and a chance to win a pair of Zeiss binoculars. Cornell Labs and other sponsors run the event offering free phone apps that can help us to identify birds by pictures or sound calls. I first tried the Merlin Bird ID app and quickly selected birds I saw which then took me to the eBird website to provide more details. Shown in the photo from my backyard seed feeder is a male Northern Cardinal and a chipping sparrow (males and females look the same) based on the field guide book: Birds of the Carolinas by Stan Tekiela.

This is the third bird feeder we’ve tried to use in the past week - the first one provided a mix of sunflower seed to birds and squirrels, which reminded us of Mark Rober’s videos building squirrel mazes. Then we tried an oriole feeder using sliced oranges and jelly. We didn’t observe orioles yet as they apparently migrate in early April but we did get some small Eastern Bluebirds briefly check out the goodies. The seed feeder shown in the picture is called a “Squirrel-X1” made by Classic Brands LLC which is available at many big box retailers.

Plant List

Here’s the list of trees and shrubs we planted at our Apex, North Carolina home in January 2024:

Trees: Trident Maple, Tulip Poplar, Tuscarora (red) Crape Myrtle, Natchez (white) Crape Myrtle, Little Gem Magnolia, Chindo Viburnum.

Shrubs: Loropetalum-Purple Daydream, Weeping Styrax, Limelight Hydrangea, Frosty Abelia, Canna, Hardy Hibiscus, Nepeta, Tea Olive, Butterfly Bush, Curly Leaf Ligustrum, Cinnamon Girl Distylim, Cassian Grass, Serendipity Magnolia.

We’ve reported planting 12 trees and 44 bushes to Amma’s Greenfriends group as part of the Trillion Tree Campaign:

The GreenFriends North America "Embracing the Trees" initiative (GFNA ETT) aims to provide opportunities for practicing this interdependence and cooperation in doing our part to re-green Mother Earth, and to honor Amma's pledge to join the Trillion Tree Campaign which was launched by the UN in March of 2018.

Early To Bed, Early to Rise...

When Ben Franklin wrote his famous quote:

Early to Bed, Early to Rise, makes a man (or woman) healthy, wealthy, and wise, did he have a timeframe for sleeping in mind?

I went to bed relatively early last night at 10 pm but Poppy came to bed later around 11:30 pm although earlier than her usual pattern of retiring after midnight. Then we woke up around 3 am this morning! I’m semi-retired so working much less these days; hence in terms of lower stress, maybe I’m a bit healthier while she’s working extensively, often 15 hours a day, so she’s now becoming wealthier, and together we are becoming wiser. It’s wonderful to be married to a happy, sometimes delirious, complementary companion who is more beautiful, intelligent, and personable than I could ever imagine even in my dreams.

Surprisingly awake in the ‘wee hours’ we briefly discussed our landscaping project, fulfilling plans we’ve developed over the past couple of years, to plant trees and bushes tomorrow. We started laughing about the company’s demanding older brother owner who shows up occasionally barking orders to the rest of the chill crew — especially to the kinder younger brother in charge of the site work. He’s very responsive to our questions hoping to keep us very happy with their constructing a terrace wall and patio pavers as well as preparing to plant new vegetation. We get the feeling they’ve been burnt before by unhappy homeowners — so far we’re very happy with their work. A tree we wanted was not available at the nursery leaving a potential gap so Poppy came up with the brilliant idea to balance the color scheme with a second white crape myrtle instead of waiting until fall season to get the originally-intended colorful tree. She also laughed at how I confused her and the younger brother about trying to order trees using numbers as my diagram kept changing.

Speaking of dreams, just before she woke to go bathroom, in my sleep I saw a group of familiar people, perhaps former demanding colleagues from past jobs, whom I wanted to impress about my famous family ancestor who continues to greatly influence me and hopefully many others by reading related Conserve & Prosper blogs to them. The excitement of public speaking got my heart pumping fast as I awoke, or maybe it wasn’t so much the dream as it was the post-dinner snacks of blueberries, chocolates, and cereal that got the ol’ ticker accelerated. So Poppy returned to her slumbers while I came to write this blog as my sleep time typically can accommodate afternoon naps.

Here are some of the blogs I would like to share with anyone who’ll listen about by maternal second cousin whom we share a common ancestor. Special thanks to my next door neighbor cousin who discovered this special connection and also provided HOA approval for our landscaping efforts!

Election Day 2020

GOVEROSITY! Say What?

Happy Birthday Ben Frankin

Dinotext

This past Thursday I serendipitously worked as a substitute teacher at Apex Friendship High School. This winter waking up early on cold mornings became more difficult so normally I’ve been lazily sleeping past 7 am. Perhaps my dog was barking Thursday morning so I woke up around 5 am and spent the first hour chanting 1108 names of the Divine Mother. Then I felt a strong urge to check the Wake County Public School System jobs listing. There’s a critical need for substitute teachers and I noticed about 20 job openings for that day on just the narrow list of schools in my area. A day of “subbing” pays between $120 to $135 depending on qualifications.

I noticed the need for a science teacher so I looked up the absent teacher’s name on LinkedIn and found she teaches Earth Science - my favorite subject! I needed to decide quickly, take a shower, and rush to leave in 30 minutes to arrive by 6:55 am. For my outfit to look like a preppy prof, I wore a T-shirt I bought in New York City from the American Museum of Natural History depicting whale conservation, a suit jacket, and cargo pants.

I arrived to the school, parked in the front visitors lot, signed in at the front office then hiked to the classroom by climbing four levels of stairs. I spoke to some freshman students to find out they are reviewing for the final exam covering five units: Astronomy, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Lithosphere, and Biosphere. Class began at 7:25 am so I closed the door but several students meandered in late. Many students looked exhausted. I realize that I’m their grandfather’s age and they appeared to hope I would let them rest.

I joyfully introduced myself and told the students they would be using Canvas to look at study guides and take practice quizzes. Most all the students preferred looking at their phone screens, texting, playing games, listening to music and were slow to get their computers out of their backpacks. Some students rested their heads on their arms on the desk with the phone below.

To raise the level of enthusiasm for the subject, I said, “If you pay attention in this class today it can save your life! This is as important as learning about Covid!” A few students looked up and yawned; others glared as if to say ‘prove it.’ “Earth science teaches us how to live with and respect Nature! We can choose to fight the river current or go with the flow. We can learn where it’s safe to build homes and offices near flood zones or areas of earthquakes. How many homes are falling on the Outer Banks? We can learn how to reduce our carbon footprint and alleviate climate change.” Most of the class still appeared much more interested in their phones so I needed to take more drastic action.

“Everyone stand up!” I needed to repeat myself five times to get everyone to stand up. Ok, we are going to simulate LIQUEFACTION. During an earthquake, when the ground shakes it can turn water-logged soil and sediments into a jello-like substance. Now everyone jump up and down! Feel the solid food in your stomach become liquid. That’s liquefaction!” We jumped about 10 times and finally the class looked awake. Fortunately, nobody puked.

“The 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires destroyed San Francisco, located along the San Andreas fault, so the city pushed the rubble into the Bay to create more fill. That’s where the SF Giants baseball stadium is built at Oracle Park. In 1989, the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred as the Giants played in the World Series. The Bay Bridge collapsed as did many buildings especially in the Marina District due to liquefaction.

“I learned from living in San Francisco there are safer places to live like in the East Bay area of Walnut Creek built on more competent igneous and metamorphic rocks. A building I worked in at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory became retrofitted with a hydraulic jack system to withstand major earthquakes. The damaged Bay Bridge using hard steel and cement changed designs to account for earth shaking using a baffle system in compartments that keep the bridge safer. The USGS is developing ShakeAlert to instantly notify people and potentially save lives. The system works based on primary P-waves travel about twice as fast as damaging secondary S-waves. There’s more time to alert people using social media the further away you live from the epicenter.

“One time at home in Walnut Creek (I did not mention I was sitting on the toilet) I heard some dogs barking then it felt like a truck hit the building with a loud bang (P wave). Then about 10 seconds later the building shook (S-wave) that lasted maybe 30 seconds but felt much longer. I learned it registered a M3.0 and nothing got damaged.

In addition to earthquakes, we discussed the Big Bang theory’s 14 billion years of the universe, creation of earth 4.6 billion years ago, Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion, nuclear fusion and fission (some students got these confused), Coriolis Effect, Earth structure, Plate Tectonics, Water cycle, rocks, soil, climate change, and biosphere.

As the students worked on the practice quizzes and some still wanted to play on their phones, I walked around the class room to observe noticing many getting the correct answers. One question some couldn’t answer asked where does eutrophication originate- on farms, cities, mountains, or deep ocean? To answer, we need to know the definition that eutrophication is excess nutrients in water causing overgrowth of plants depleting oxygen in the water that originates from farms using nitrogen fertilizers which moves into streams and lakes by runoff.

I thought a glossary could really help these students and found 10 textbooks on the shelf by the teacher’s desk. The McGraw Hill Earth Science text book published in 2013 looked like a dinosaur. So I showed the book glossary as a useful textbook - maybe you could take notes in a notebook or use your phones? We also discussed how textbooks are becoming so rare and seldom used then segued into dinosaur extinction.

“When I went to college we paid $100’s for textbooks and did not have computers. We did not know the cause of dinosaur extinction and studied various theories like thinning egg shells. Then in the 1990’s a father and son team discovered an iridium layer that could have only come from a meteorite.” We discussed dinosaur extinction and survival of birds and mammals as well as how science continues to add new information. Older textbooks are still useful for most of what students need to know for testing but will not be up-to-date such as discussing the December 2022 LLNL breakthrough discovery of fusion to produce energy considered by the DOE Secretary as one of the greatest achievements of the 21st century!

I taught this same Earth Science class for four periods. I also got the funny assignment of filling in for the dance teacher before lunch - each group of three students used their phones to play music. Overall, I marvel at how education is changing so much by employing technology, no longer providing ‘dinotext’ books nor requiring taking notes. It will be interesting to compare academic achievement of past, current and future generations.

POWERFUL!

Two books published in 2021 on related topics - by Katharine Hayhoe and Bill Gates - document sources of human-released carbon overheating our fragile earth and what they are doing and recommending to mitigate further catastrophes. Both books offer clear insights to understand the threat, communicate with other people possessing diverse opinions, and urgently act in the most effective and efficient way to achieve critical solutions. However, there is a major difference I found between the books that needs to be corrected!

In my previous blog, I discuss the cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho to build a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) and losing my consulting job one month ago. Subsequently, I picked up these and other books at the library to see what authors said about all the sources of energy we need to solve our climate crisis.

Dr. Hayhoe, a Texas Tech climate professor, briefly mentions new developments in SMR projects in Idaho, the one that just got canceled, and others including by Bill Gates, founding investor of TerraPower, in partnership with GE Hitachi as well as advances in other countries. On page 198 of Saving US, the author states that solar photovoltaics covering an area of about 100 square miles in West Texas could provide all the power needed to supply the United States using present available technology.

Mr. Gates devotes an entire chapter titled “Five Questions to Ask in Every Climate Conversation” including how much power and space is needed? The U.S. consumes about 1,000 gigawatts and a mid-sized city needs about 1 gigawatt. He shows how much power can be generated from various energy sources like nuclear (500 - 1000 watts per square meter), solar (5 -20 w/m2), and wind (1 - 2 w/m2). So a solar farm needs between 50 to 100 times more land to generate power than a nuclear plant. As solar only provides intermittent power during the day and seasonal changes cuts light energy in half from summer to winter, expensive storage batteries must be factored into any comparison with baseload power plants.

Ultimately, we need all the clean energy power sources that we can build as we shut down coal plants by balancing the supply and demand of electricity with combinations of geothermal, hydropower, nuclear, solar, waves and wind.

SayoMaRa CFPP

In a major setback personally and for the future of all life on earth, this week I said goodbye to my environmental Fluor Corporation consulting job, as did many others receive “Reduction-In-Force” (RIF) notices, after the NuScale small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) project in Idaho got cancelled. For the past 13-months, I joined several consultants preparing permitting documents for review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). We completed numerous pre-application activities including attending meetings around the country, submitting the first Limited Work Authorization for early construction and we were on track for completing the license application and an environmental report to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this year. The project received significant federal funding and support including being remotely sited along with about 50 other nuclear reactor projects at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).

So what was the CFPP and why did we say sayonara or ‘SayoMaRa’ to the proposal? The Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) planned to build six SMRs in a connected series of units that would have produced 77 megawatts (MW) each for a total of 462 MW. One MW can provide power for about 750 homes so the proposed CFPP at a 90% capacity would provide power to about 310,000 homes.

Increasing inflation and other factors caused the project to fail. Anticipated construction costs doubled so utility customers became reluctant to subscribe to the CFPP. With extensive research and working with other experts, I concluded the benefits far outweighed the potential costs comparing all the options available. Unfortunately, to my knowledge this information did not get shared with the public. Ironically, favorability of nuclear power is growing in America: currently at 57%, up from 43% in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

Many people think we can solve all our energy needs with renewables like wind, solar, hydroelectric dams, geothermal, or biomass. That’s like driving a car without understanding how and how often to add fuel. According to The Urbanist, a SMR needs only about 0.1 square mile of land mass as compared to hundreds of square miles for equivalent wind or solar farms producing only intermittent energy.

Obviously, there is not enough land space, continuous sunlight or wind, battery storage facilities, dammed rivers, hot rocks, or wood pellets to burn on the earth to meet our ever increasing energy demands. The only baseload power plants are from burning coal, natural gas or radioactive decay from elements like thorium and uranium. SMRs are designed to provide grid stability and work with alternative energy sources to keep the lights on consistently.

This is a global problem and what happened to America’s drive for energy independence? Microsoft founder Bill Gates knows the importance of nuclear power - he’s very involved in energy and climate issues such as creating advanced nuclear TerraPower designs starting with proposing to replace a coal plant in Wyoming.

NRC previously approved the NuScale design, originally developed at Oregon State University, for a larger 12-unit SMR plant which contains numerous advances in passive safety features. NuScale is the only SMR design currently approved by NRC.

Here are some additional new articles:

US News and World Report

NuScale Ends Utah Project, in Blow to US Nuclear Power Ambitions

Wired

“On Wednesday, NuScale and its backers pulled the plug on the multibillion-dollar Idaho Falls plant. They said they no longer believed the first-of-its-kind plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) would be able to recruit enough additional customers to buy its power.”

“The Department of Energy, which was due to host the plant at Idaho National Lab, awarded $1.4 billion to the project over 10 years.”

“UAMPS spokesperson Jessica Stewart told WIRED that the utility group would expand its investments in a major wind farm project and pursue other contracts for geothermal, solar, battery, and natural gas projects”

Axios reported, “The Energy Department had provided $232 million for the project since October 2020. An agency spokesperson said the work will be valuable in the future, adding: "While not every project is guaranteed to succeed, DOE remains committed to doing everything we can to deploy these technologies to combat the climate crisis and increase access to clean energy."

Hottest Month Ever!

I took this picture while on vacation walking by a student’s summer camp, with kids cooling off in the park fountain located next to the Hudson River in Manhattan, New York, on July 1st - the start of the warmest month ever recorded globally! Scientific American states this might be the hottest month in over 120,000 years! Not only did we and millions of other people deal with extreme heatwaves, to make matters worse, smoke from over 4,300 wildfires in Canada, drifted into the United States. I wore an N95 mask on many days of our vacation despite the heat.

When we returned home to North Carolina, I took my son camping looking forward to the cooler mountains. While we enjoyed seeing Pilot Mountain and Mount Airy, location of the Andy Griffith TV show, it was too hot to be outdoors in the daytime. So we found some indoor activities including eating lunch at the Loaded Goat (to commemorate the episode where a goat ate too much dynamite). When we got back to the State Park campground in the evening, a large family set up next to us and ran a loud-sounding, gas-powered generator and air conditioner into their tent all night long! In their tent, not an RV!

Like many fortunate people, we depend on air conditioning at home. The hotter it gets, the harder our AC needs to work. The more energy we burn to produce AC that uses hydrofluorocarbons causes more carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. It’s a vicious cycle. With the hottest month on record, many people’s AC’s broke down - including ours. Luckily, we got a repairman to come out the same day to replace the condenser - a device that stores energy to start up the AC. Despite our home being one level and very energy efficient with great insulation, inside the house got up to 90 degrees F before we got the AC fixed and it took several hours for the house to cool down to 70 degrees.

Also this month we took a weekend trip to northern Virginia traveling north on several crowded interstate highways clogged with commercial trucks and passenger cars that were slowed by construction zones. Returning home we came back on US 29, a road I drove many times over 45 years ago when I went to college. My memory of the unimpeded highway clashed with the new realization of numerous traffic lights halting stop-and-go traffic. Urbanization from D.C. to Charlottesville, VA resulted in the highway becoming a local road lined with strip malls. We considered a detour to get back on I-81; luckily, a new bypass around Charlottesville enabled traveling at highway speeds and we enjoyed the return to the countryside of the Blue Ridge mountains as we headed south.

Observing the collective and personal burning of fossil fuels weighs heavy on my mind, hoping for a brighter future where we can all reduce pollution. Coming soon, I hope to share an important project that is addressing many of these environmental-energy issues that, if adopted, will greatly contribute to future reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Stay tuned to this space and please post a comment on these topics.

Collaborative and Integrative Science by Dedicated Public Servants

A new publication by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) locates where groundwater pollution from a former uranium mill site impacts a stream’s ecosystem on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Eleven coauthors from USGS and two universities collaborated on the study with me when I worked with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management (DOE). My co-authored 2015 DOE investigation was limited to looking at soils and groundwater while USGS-university expertise examined the land, surface water and groundwater, sediments and aquatic biota.

My recent interview in the ProPublica news article discusses similar uranium mill sites where DOE is failing to contain groundwater contamination hoping that ‘dilution is the solution to pollution.’ However, the latest USGS report identifies continued impacts to the river environment at Riverton even though the mill stopped operating in 1963, surface contamination was removed by 1990, and remaining contaminant concentrations are now significantly lower! Current EPA regulations allow DOE site managers to wait and see for 100 years after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval using the “natural flushing” compliance strategy.

Confrontation and not collaboration between agency representatives initially occurred after a rain on snow event in 2010 flooded rivers on both sides of the site which caused increases, and not decreases, in groundwater contamination. Tribal officials wrote letters to the Wyoming Governor, Secretary of Energy, and other elected officials tying to get DOE to explain the surprising results. The Wind River Environmental Quality Commission (WREQC) hired USGS to assess the effectiveness of the existing DOE monitoring network at the Riverton, Wyoming, Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) site which produced this initial USGS publication. WREQC consisted of representatives from the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes representing the community who understandably held deep grudges for multi-generational human rights abuses including the uranium mill contaminating their property. Many of the tribal members and families have suffered from cancer and other illnesses that they believe came from living next to the uranium mill site.

In 2012, I was working for a different USGS office than the authors working with WREQC. I knew the DOE manager on the Riverton project when we worked together on the defunct Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository project. She and her management asked me to review the groundwater monitoring strategy at several UMTRA sites. Soon after I started, DOE held a town-hall meeting in Riverton airing public concerns for contamination impacting the health of the community.

After six months of the USGS detail assignment, I transferred to the better-funded DOE and looked for ways to improve collaboration such as by attending tribal council meetings, involving the tribal hydrogeology consultant in field investigations and communicating with the larger community our proactive investigation by conducting interviews through the news media.

Earth scientists traditionally study college subjects including biology, chemistry, geology, hydrology, and physics taught as separate classes and discrete major disciplines. Due to nature’s complexity, professionals are collaborating and integrating scientific knowledge by merging disciplines and combining research such as geophysics, biogeochemistry, and hydrogeology. This USGS report applies numerous state-of-the-art tools that are improving our understanding of the environment.

It’s common practice driven by regulations to monitor groundwater pollution in wells and randomly grab river samples upstream and downstream of contaminated sites. However, the small volume of groundwater discharging somewhere adjacent to and beneath a river is quickly diluted in the stream so determining the impacts to biological organisms like algae and crayfish is not possible. To get a more accurate understanding of the groundwater-surface water interactions, the USGS scientists and professors used innovative approaches to locate groundwater discharge using several comparable approaches including fiber optic cables that measure warmer groundwater entering the cooler river. The authors also quantified contaminants sorbed onto river sediments and accumulating in biological samples.

Several of the authors previously retired, including the lead author Dave Naftz who dedicated his 36-year career to these types of investigations, yet continued to persevere through the arduous and lengthy peer-review publication process as a volunteer in the USGS emeritus program. Many thanks to all these dedicated public servants for advancing environmental science by producing outstanding reports!

Here are details of Scientific Investigations Report 2022–5089: 

Interaction of a Legacy Groundwater Contaminant Plume with the Little Wind River from 2015 Through 2017, Riverton Processing Site, Wyoming

Abstract

The Riverton Processing site was a uranium mill 4 kilometers southwest of Riverton, Wyoming, that prepared uranium ore for nuclear reactors and weapons from 1958 to 1963. The U.S. Department of Energy completed surface remediation of the uranium tailings in 1989; however, groundwater below and downgradient from the tailings site and nearby Little Wind River was not remediated. Beginning in 2010, a series of floods along the Little Wind River began to mobilize contaminants in the unsaturated zone, resulting in substantial increases of uranium and other contaminants of concern in monitoring wells completed inside the contaminant plume. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy started a series of university and Government agency retrospective and field investigations to understand the processes controlling contaminant increases in the groundwater plume. The goals of the field investigations described in this report were to (1) identify and quantify the contaminant flux and potential associated biological effects from groundwater associated with the legacy plume as it enters a perennial stream reach, and (2) assess chemical exposure and potential effects to biological receptors from the interaction of the contaminant plume and the river.

Field investigations along the Little Wind River were completed by the U.S. Geological Survey during 2015–17 in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management to characterize: (1) seepage areas and seepage rates; (2) pore-water and bed sediment chemistry and hyporheic exchange and reactive loss; and (3) exposure pathways and biological receptors. All data collected during the study are contained in two U.S. Geological Survey data releases, available at https://doi.org/10.5066/F7BR8QX4 and https://doi.org/10.5066/P9J9VJBR. A variety of tools and methods were used during the field characterizations. Streambed temperature mapping, electrical resistivity tomography, electromagnetic induction, fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing, tube seepage meters, vertical thermal sensor arrays, and an environmental tracer (radon) were used to identify areas of groundwater seepage and associated seepage rates along specific sections of the study reach of the river. Drive points, minipiezometers, diffusive equilibrium in thin-film/diffusive gradients in thin-film probes, bed-sediment samples, and equal discharge increment sampling methods were used to characterize pore-water chemistry, estimate hyporheic exchange and reactive loss of selected chemical constituents, and quantify contaminant loadings entering the study reach. Sampling and analysis of surface sediments, filamentous algae, periphytic algae, and macroinvertebrates were used to characterize biological exposure pathways, metal uptake, and receptors.

Areas of focused groundwater discharge identified by the fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing surveys corresponded closely with areas of elevated electrical conductivity identified by the electromagnetic induction survey results in the top 5 meters of sediment. During three monitoring periods in 2016, the mean vertical seepage rate measured with tube seepage meters was 0.45 meter per day, ranging from −0.02 to 1.55 meters per day. Five of the 11 locations where vertical thermal profile data were collected along the study reach during August 2017 indicated mean upwelling values ranging from 0.11 to 0.23 meter per day. Radon data collected from the Little Wind River during June, July, and August 2016 indicated a consistent inflow of groundwater to the central part of the study reach, in the area congruous with the center of the previously mapped groundwater plume discharge zone. During August 2017, the greatest attenuation of uranium from reactive loss in pore-water samples was observed at three locations along the study reach, at depths between 6 and 15 centimeters, and similar trends in molybdenum attenuation were also observed. Bed-sediment concentration profiles collected during 2017 also indicated attenuation of uranium and molybdenum from groundwater during hyporheic mixing of surface water with the legacy plume during groundwater upwelling into the river. Streamflow measurements combined with equal discharge increment water sampling along the study reach indicated an increase in dissolved uranium concentrations in the downstream direction during 2016 and 2017. Net uranium load entering the Little Wind River study reach was about 290 and 435 grams per day during 2016 and 2017, respectively. Biological samples indicated that low levels of uranium and molybdenum exposure were confined to the benthos in the Little Wind River within and immediately downstream from the perimeter of the groundwater plume. Concentrations of molybdenum and uranium in filamentous algae were consistently low at all sites in the study reach with no indication of increased exposure of dissolved bioavailable molybdenum or uranium at sites next to or downstream from the groundwater plume.

Comparison of the August 2017 results from electromagnetic induction, tube seepage meters, vertical thermal profiling, and pore-water chemistry surveys were in general agreement in identifying areas with upwelling groundwater conditions along the study reach. However, the electroconductivity values measured with electromagnetic induction in the top 100 centimeters of sediment did not agree with sodium concentrations measured in pore-water samples collected at similar streambed depths. Differences and similarities between multiple methods can result in additional insights into hydrologic and biogeochemical processes that may be occurring along a reach of a river system interacting with shallow groundwater inputs. It may be advantageous to apply a variety of geophysical, geochemical, hydrologic, and biological tools at other Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/10/f19/UMTRCA.pdf) sites during the investigation of legacy contaminant plume interactions with surface-water systems.

Suggested citation: 

Naftz, D.L., Fuller, C.C., Runkel, R.L., Solder, J., Gardner, W.P., Terry, N., Briggs, M.A., Short, T.M., Cain, D.J., Dam, W.L., Byrne, P.A., and Campbell, J.R., 2023, Interaction of a legacy groundwater contaminant plume with the Little Wind River from 2015 through 2017, Riverton Processing site, Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2022–5089, 66 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20225089.

News on U.S. Uranium Mills Impacting Groundwater

On June 5, 2019, I posted a blog titled Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 3 Production describing some of my professional experiences working on clean up of uranium mill sites. I concluded the blog to say, “In summary, with adequate regulatory oversight and inspections, processes to produce uranium can be done safely and protect the environment.”

The oversight of constructing a new uranium processing site in the U.S. today would be vastly different than what occurred during the Cold War rush to produce atomic weapons. Many of the lingering problems existing at mill sites occurred during operations in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, before EPA was created, where radioactive and heavy metal waste mill tailings spread in air, on the land, in water, and was used for construction materials. Today many private companies are in the process of turning remediated sites over to state and federal governments for costly long-term monitoring and surveillance as described in the news below.

On August 15, 2022, a reporter contacted me to provide more information:

“Dear Mr. Dam, I hope this finds you well. I'm reaching out from nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica, where I'm an environment journalist. My team recently published a story about the decades-long cleanup saga at the former Homestake uranium mill in northwest New Mexico. We're busy reporting a follow-up story that will examine the state of reclamation at every former uranium mill in the country. Thanks very much for sending us your thoughts in response to that story (if you didn't find it on our website, you might've come across the project via our partners at PBS NewsHour, the LA Times or KOB4). I'm emailing you to follow up on your submission and would love to pick your brain about your experiences. Would you be available to schedule a time to chat about your work with the NRC, the USGS and DOE's Legacy Management office? If so, could you let me know some times that would be most convenient for you? Thanks in advance for your time, and I hope we can connect soon. You can reach me at mark.olalde@propublica.org” Mark Olalde

I spoke with Mark for about an hour describing some of my work experiences starting almost 39 years ago with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and how much we learned along the way. We spoke again earlier last week to discuss the article. I greatly appreciate his interest, knowledge and desire to accurately quote me and get the story right.

Yesterday, on December 3, 2022, Mark Olade sent an email with a link to the news article:

“Hi, Bill. Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me several times about this story and for reviewing our findings. Our piece published today, and you can find it here: https://www.propublica.org/article/uranium-mills-pollution-cleanup-us. Best, Mark”

The title of the article is “Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater” and here are a few excerpts:

“Regulators haven’t made a full accounting of whether they properly addressed groundwater contamination. So, for the first time, ProPublica cataloged cleanup efforts at the country’s 48 uranium mills, seven related processing sites and numerous tailings piles.

At least 84% of the sites have polluted groundwater. And nearly 75% still have either no liner or only a partial liner between mill waste and the ground, leaving them susceptible to leaking pollution into groundwater.

The DOE estimates that some sites have individually polluted more than a billion gallons of water.

Bill Dam, who spent decades regulating and researching uranium mill cleanup with the NRC, at the DOE and in the private sector, said water pollution won’t be controlled until all the waste and contaminated material is moved. “The federal government’s taken a Band-Aid approach to groundwater contamination,” he said.

The pollution has disproportionately harmed Indian Country.

Between 1958 and 1962, a mill near Gunnison, Colorado, churned through 540,000 tons of ore. The process, one step in concentrating the ore into weapons-grade uranium, leaked uranium and manganese into groundwater, and in 1990, regulators found that residents had been drawing that contaminated water from 22 wells.

The DOE moved the waste and connected residents to clean water. But pollution lingered in the aquifer beneath the growing town where some residents still get their water from private wells. The DOE finally devised a plan in 2000, which the NRC later approved, settling on a strategy called “natural flushing,” essentially waiting for groundwater to dilute the contamination until it reached safe levels.

In 2015, the agency acknowledged that the plan had failed. Sediments absorb and release uranium, so waiting for contamination to be diluted doesn’t solve the problem, said Dam, the former NRC and DOE regulator.”

So what did I mean by saying the government has taken a Band-Aid approach to groundwater contamination? The “cut” from these uranium processing sites is much deeper than just at the surface. Most of the funding for remediation went towards the surface clean-up like removing a cancerous mole. But beneath the surface, contaminated groundwater spreads contamination through soil and rocks. Groundwater is monitored at most sites to observe changing concentrations over decades but very little is known about the deeper minerals like iron hematite holding and releasing contaminants in the groundwater as biogeochemical conditions change. The government is choosing a temporary fix at many sites to wait and see if nature can remove the contamination or increase acceptable limits.

Ultimately, what is needed are improved scientific, collaborative site characterization assessments as we were rarely doing at DOE-LM such as on the Riverton, WY site where contamination spread onto tribal land. The collaboration enabled opposition groups to work together by developing partnerships with tribal consultants, federal and state scientists, and DOE National Laboratory experts.

So hopefully the work of ProPublica and other news organizations, as well as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and advocacy groups (here’s my article to PEER), can focus on budget needs for science research that got cut over the past several years especially during the Trump Administration. I borrowed the cover cross-section from the U.S. Geological Survey Toxics Hydrology program, which in my opinion is one of the most important organizations to independently evaluate groundwater contamination yet is very poorly funded and barely survived the war on truth and science. Here’s an example of continued collaboration that continued after I left DOE to follow up on the Riverton, WY research among university, USGS scientists, and myself by investigating the Little Wind River, downgradient from the former uranium mill site, located on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Thanks to the readers of this blog to continually strengthen collaboration and communications among scientists, media, policy makers and concerned citizens!

Water Mission

Pictured is a Water Mission refugee settlement project which may provide clean water for 50,000 people a day or more, generating up to 350 gallons of clean safe water per minute. The above photograph is at a refugee settlement in Tanzania where hundreds of thousands of Burundians have fled to Tanzania due to violent political unrest and economic decline. Water Mission started delivering safe water in Tanzania’s refugee settlements in 2015, expanding solutions in partnership with the Poul Due Jensen Foundation.

One result from my previous blog A Long Walk to Water was reconnecting with my friend and colleague Bill Moore who volunteers with the faith-based Water Mission. Bill and I previously worked on a consulting project together and he is a very enthusiastic, caring and knowledgeable hydrogeologist. He’s progressed in his 40+ year career to achieve Vice President of several large environmental corporations. It’s wonderful seeing him use his education and extensive experience to help people around the world obtain safe drinking water. Here’s what he wrote about this blog that he shared on LinkedIn:

“I appreciate so much the work and heart of Bill Dam. Actually, in part it was Bill that, through seeing his water-related work, encouraged me to consider a volunteer role to help address the global water crisis – thus my current connection with Water Mission. Check out Bill’s blog. I have read the book he writes about – it will move your heart. Thanks for all you do Bill! And thanks to Wake County North Carolina for making the book required reading.”

I wanted to learn more about Water Mission so Bill agreed to share his experience. Here is text written by Bill Moore:

“Everything Else Changes

During a short-term work assignment in Charleston, South Carolina, several years ago, I drove past a warehouse building each day that caught my attention. While attending a conference near the end of my assignment, I met a representative who invited me to visit and tour this organization known as “Water Mission.” It was during that visit that I learned about the work they had done over the past twenty years to make a difference in the global water crisis.

The story began in 1998 when the deadliest hurricane in Central American history, Hurricane Mitch, hit Honduras. Seeing news reports of the devastation, Dr. George and Molly Greene, owners of the largest privately held analytical laboratory in the US with a focus on water, reached out to their contact in the country, an Episcopal bishop, asking how they could help. The reply came back, “We need six drinking water units.” After not being able to locate any “off-the-shelf” solutions, Dr. Greene, a PhD chemical engineer, sat down and within few hours sketched out his own design. The systems were built, tested and ready for delivery. Within the week they traveled to Honduras to deliver and setup six water treatment systems. Shortly thereafter (September 2000) the couple decided to sell their company and focus the rest of their lives working to provide access to safe water to those in desperate situations.

For over two decades, Water Mission has not only mobilized safe water relief during natural disasters around the globe, but they have also helped deliver clean water solutions to communities where 2.2 billion people live without access to safe drinking water. The statistics are staggering; 30% of the world’s population lacks safe water and one person dies every 37 seconds from a water-related illness. This includes 297,000 children annually under five with half of the hospital beds in developing countries filled with people suffering waterborne illnesses. Over their history, Water Mission has brought clean water solutions to 7,000,000 people in 57 countries with the completion of about 2,800 projects. Over recent months, in addition to their work in the nine countries where they have in-country teams, Water Mission has responded to help the overflow of refugees from the war in Ukraine, from the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, and Hurricane Fiona which hit Puerto Rico in September.

Their past work in Haiti, subsequent to Hurricane Matthew (2016), was recently tested. Would the systems they had set up survive when the next earthquake hit the nation? Knowing that Haiti sits in a seismically active area, the organization’s engineering team took that into account and designed treatment systems and structures to withstand future seismic events. Of the 40 projects they built, 38 of them remained functional following the August 2021 quake - a remarkable design success underscoring their emphasis on technical excellence and providing long-term sustainable solutions. In the open fields of the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in western Tanzania, Water Mission erected a 100,000-watt solar panel array to power the treatment and pumping of water for more than 250,000 displaced people. Similar projects have been constructed in two other large refugee camps. With so many of their projects off-the-grid, their designs require self-contained solar and sustainable energy sources. Having become one of the industry’s recognized experts with solar energy in rural and “end-of- road settings”, they were recently invited to partner with UNICEF to author the “Solar Powered Water Systems Design and Installation Guide”. This first-of-its-kind resource provides detailed instruction for fulfilling the internationally recognized technical standards for implementing solar powered water systems in rural settings. To complement this point, a 2017 audit of groups working in Ugandan refugee camps specifically highlighted Water Mission’s success. “Water Mission stands out as the nongovernmental organization with enough in-house expertise to independently design, operate, and maintain solar water schemes,” reads the International Organization for Migration’s associated report.

While attending Water Mission’s 2022 Strategic Partners Summit, three things stood out to me. First, there is an emphasis on collaboration regardless of who gets the credit to find better solutions to address global safe water needs. Next, several Fortune 500 companies which are actively involved in partnering with Water Mission. And finally, there is vision and creativity to think outside the box in the pursuit of emerging solutions that will result in major steps forward to ultimately solve the global water crisis.

These global accolades and corporate confirmations are powerful and well-deserved, but for me the words of Scott Linebrink, a former professional baseball pitcher now on staff with Water Mission, say it all. In talking to host Mohammed Abdalla on his Thinking Green Podcast series, Scott recently stated, “You can change the trajectory of an entire community that has never had safe water. They have spent generations living with bad water. The minute that you put in a system, that is not going to be the case anymore – it is the greatest before and after project that I’ve ever seen because everything else changes after the water system comes in.” This is why I and so many others choose to come along side of Water Mission to bring answers to one of the world’s most intimidating challenges.” References: Charleston - the City Magazine (December 2021); Water Mission website

Check out the many ways to support and Get Involved in the Water Mission!

Nuclear Plant Community and Contacts

About three months ago we bought a home only three miles away (and 20 miles to Raleigh) from the Harris Nuclear Power Plant. We considered the many tradeoffs with benefits of living in a more rural area near lakes and forests while being mindful of extra unnatural radioactivity in the environment much less the fear of low probability-high consequence risks of a nuclear meltdown. If you saw the recent NETFLIX docudrama on Three Mile Island (TMI), I can understand how scary it might feel wondering if that could ever happen again? The series does reveal the scarcity and importance of honest corporate officials, vigilant regulators, accurate reporters, insider whistleblowers and community organizers.

So far, I feel safe living so close to Harris NPP based on what I know about building, operating, and regulating nuclear power plants. Power plants have improved tremendously over many decades as a direct result of lessons learned from accidents and world events like 9/11. In 2019, I published a series of eight blogs on Mitigating Nuclear Hazards examining my professional experiences with the nuclear fuel cycle including blog number 5 on Reactors.

Finding unbiased sources of information - people, especially experts, who are not pro-nuke or anti-nuke is essential for getting at the realities of safely living by a nuclear power plant. I highly recommend checking out the series of videos by University of Illinois Energy Professor Dr. David Ruzic including the 2021 overview Dispelling the Myths of Nuclear Power and a technical recounting of the history of TMI.

So I’m just beginning to learn specifically about the Duke Energy Progress Harris plant. I discovered that the sign in front of the closed visitors center (“open by appointment only”) provides an outdated phone number because the area code changed from 919 to 984 so the correct number is 984-229-6261. Some websites and customer service representatives still had the old number last time I checked.

So I reached out to the resident inspectors (who live in our community) with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to get the correct information. This led to my attending the first tour of the environmental center after the Covid pandemic ended public events. The Harris public affairs specialist is Michelle Burton who can be reached at 984-229-2160. She and Nathan Blanton, a senior scientist for radiation protection, provided an overview of the plant operations to a group of 10 people - mostly with the girl scouts.

I also joined a public meeting held by NRC one month ago on the phone focusing on annual safety inspections of the Harris plant. I was the only member of the public to ask questions on topics including cyber security, evacuation routes, upgrades to equipment, and nuclear waste.

I am hopeful to attend a tour of the plant inside the protected area if it’s offered later this fall. I’ve joined my neighborhood HOA safety committee to be a community organizer seeking and sharing accurate information on topics including the swimming pool, traffic, and the nuclear power plant.

For residents living within a 5-mile radius of the nuclear power plant, the company issues a public alert radio. To obtain the radio, I spoke with Dave Bell (984-229-2229) in the emergency preparedness department at the Harris plant who dropped a Midland weather alert radio off at my house. I found preset channel 7 with a broadcast frequency of 162.550 MHz provides the best reception. Now we’re getting many frequent alerts from the National Weather Service. The Harris plant sends weekly radio tests on Wednesday’s at noon according to the EP Booklet which provides abundant community information including on evacuation routes.

So if you’re in the area perhaps on the way to Harris Lake County Park and driving by the Harris Energy and Environmental Center please let me know if they update the visitors sign with the correct phone number to schedule tours. You may also enjoy the White Oak nature trail with short loops and numerous trees identified. Calling the company public affairs specialist and NRC to request public meetings is another way to show an engaged and informed community.

Earth Day 2022

Happy Earth Day 2022!

Thanks to the U.S. government agency NOAA for the infographic posted for this very special day. There are so many good ideas represented in this diagram!

We’re so happy when our son can wake up in time to catch the school bus. Two days this week he needed me to drive him the three miles to school and we noticed 100’s of cars doing the same thing. Imagine how much pollution we can save if more kids take school buses more often! Converting to electric or CNG cars and buses will make for better air quality including less carbon emissions.

If you’ve read previous early blogs you may have heard my story but if not here’s a summary of my health/career bio: I was born with asthma so my parents quit smoking cigarettes. Air pollution growing up in D.C. area in the 1960's as well as allergies triggered many severe, almost fatal asthma attacks. There were red alert smog days when we could not go outside. Becoming aware of my sensitive lung issues made me more interested in our environment, learning about weather and earth science in high school, college, and master's program eventually becoming an environmental geologist. I spent my career working on public health issues and for seven years blogging/photographs on global sustainability!

I just posted this bio on the American Lung Association website and found great information:

What's the State of YOUR Air?

For 23 years, the American Lung Association (ALA) has analyzed data from official air quality monitors to compile the State of the Air report. The more you learn about the air you breathe, the more you can protect your health and take steps to make the air cleaner and healthier.

You can make a difference in the air that you breathe.

SIGN OUR PETITION

SHARE YOUR STORY

For the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area:

• Tied for 1st for cleanest metropolitan areas in the country for Ozone

• Ranked 99 for 24-hour particle pollution out of 221 metropolitan areas

• Ranked 127 for annual particle pollution out of 202 metropolitan areas

Check out the air quality for where you live and see how the air has improved since issuing the Clean Air Act in 1970 but there is still work to do according to ALA:

The “State of the Air” 2022 report finds that despite decades of progress on cleaning up sources of air pollution, more than 40% of Americans—over 137 million people—are living in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of particle pollution or ozone. This is 2.1 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s report. Nearly 9 million more people were impacted by daily spikes in deadly particle pollution than reported last year. In the three years covered by this report, Americans experienced more days of “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality than ever before in the two-decade history of “State of the Air."

Western U.S. wildfires burning more frequently and intensely are increasing due to climate change which is the main reason for the increasing air pollution. We all need to do more to celebrate this beautiful Earth every Day as well as give back and find ways to make a difference to improve all life.

Celebrating Yellowstone!

Happy 150th Birthday Yellowstone National Park! The central Wyoming hot spot, home to Old Faithful and Yellowstone Falls (shown in my photo from September 2019), was the first designated location for an American National Park.

Yellowstone was one of the first national parks that my parents and I visited when I was just 17 years old. We drove from our home in northern Virginia across America to see many national parks and other beautiful places. Luckily, I had just gotten my driver’s license so I enjoyed the trip much more by being behind the wheel about half of the trip.

Seeing Yellowstone’s incredible geology, ecology, and wildlife - as close to nature as I had ever been - motivated me to want to learn about the natural sciences. I vividly recall getting very close to a moose in Yellowstone next to a wetland but my Kodak Instamatic camera made the animal look far away.

I read a book on Geology of the National Parks that served as the foundation for my studying geology at Guilford College in North Carolina and in graduate school at the University of Wyoming.

I’ve been back to Yellowstone many times. One time during winter, I stayed with a friend at a West Yellowstone cabin and we cross country skied into the park. The fresh snow covered a harder icy layer so conditions were great for making new tracks. We skied into the park about 10 miles on a closed road. Unexpectedly, on the way back we noticed animal tracks following our ski marks - big prints made from a bear! Seemed unusual to have a bear coming out of hibernation so we imagined how good we must smell to a hungry bear which motivated us to return with alacrity!

Taking my wife and young son to Yellowstone in 2019 fulfilled a dream of mine to share my wonder for park. We could hear reintroduced wolf calls and see his excitement for huge bison herds.

I’m so grateful to our ancestors including Hayden, Grant and others to create and protect Yellowstone and many other national parks. Ken Burns aptly stated that National Parks are “America’s Best Idea.”

Charge It!

Filling our PHEV battery at a public facility requires three things to charge it: the charging station, a “smart” phone, and a credit card. For the past week I’ve attempted to find several public charging stations to learn the process: some EV stations were broken, some cost more than gasoline, and some locations are free! The difference depends upon the location owner who purchases and maintains the charging station.

The first charging station we discovered, located in front of our apartment office and the largest across the United States and Europe, is made by ChargePoint Holdings, Inc:. -chargepoin+. I downloaded the app on my iPhone which provides map locations and used my credit card to maintain a balance of $10. They make and distribute hardware and software but did not claim responsibility for setting up and operating the station when I called their customer service to seek help. They said our apartment location was not listed on their network and had not been properly installed. Strike one.

They sent me to the nearby Whole Foods that claims to offers a free charge but it was also not working. When I called again to ChargePoint customer service, a different agent told me it’s been broken for many days. Turns out the plug-in charger locking mechanism had been broken on both outlets and has not been repaired in at least a week. Maybe sabotage? Strike two on public charging!

The next day on Saturday searching for another free charging location the ChargePoint app directed me five miles away to an empty office parking lot at the MetLife building located at 1000 Weston Parkway in Cary, NC. Using my iPhone to unlock the cable charger for the first time it worked - A single! We took a family walk around Lake CrabTree reservoir on a chilly day so we only stayed about 30 minutes and added 1.62 kwh, an estimated four miles to the battery. Then we found the West Regional Library provides a free charge manufactured by EATON that recharged faster than the last place with a full charge taking 4.5 hours.

The first EV charging station requiring us to pay money was in downtown Raleigh in front of the Museum of Natural Sciences which is free to visit. However, street parking costs $2 for a maximum of two hours. For the ChargePoint charger I paid $1.75 to get an estimated 14 miles of charge which works out to $0.125 per mile which is more than the cost of gasoline that costs about $0.08 per mile.

The next day I returned to our apartment and asked the manager about operating the charger. She said some people have been able to use it but they did not know how it worked. After a few attempts I discovered that by repeating the process to unlock the charger three times with my iPhone finally opened up the power cable and since it is not installed to the ChargePoint network there is no cost for using the charger. A home run!

We also just began to rent a one-car garage that has an electrical outlet so we can use the 110v cable to get a full charge in about 12 hours. This process of looking for charging stations has made me feel like a e-vampire searching for a free energy connection!

Does charging the lithium-ion battery affect it’s lifetime? According to driving electric:

“1. Don’t overcharge it: constantly topping up your electric car to keep it fully charged can actually damage it. Laptops, for example, lose battery capacity if they're plugged in all the time. It's better to let the capacity run down to 10 or 20%, then recharge to around 80%.

2. While electric-car batteries have a built-in thermal management system to keep them cool, it’s still worth seeking out a shady spot on a hot day, or even a garage or car port if you plan to charge at home.

3. It’s also advisable to avoid immediately charging your electric car following a particularly spirited drive. Give the batteries a chance to cool down first . Limit your use of rapid chargers. Obviously, there are times when you need a top up in a hurry, and the fact they can give you a quick boost of up to 80% in a short space of time will be invaluable to higher-mileage drivers. But don’t rely solely on rapids to keep your car topped up, as they’re not good for the batteries in the long run. Slow charge whenever you can and especially if it's cold outside.

5. Don't park your car uncovered for long periods of time in very hot conditions.”

Combining my experience with these recommendations indicates that EVs are most suitable for people who can charge their cars in their home garage overnight.