[CPEO-MEF] Save the Valley says Army?s plan for JPG is flaw

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Indiana
Save the Valley says Army?s plan for JPG is flawed.
By: Peggy Vlerebome, Courier Staff Writer
pvlerebome@madisoncourier.com

The Army?s revised decommissioning plan for the former Jefferson Proving
Ground is flawed scientifically as well as politically, Save the Valley
said in comments accompanying its request for a hearing.

The environmental organization also requested that the hearing not be
scheduled until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has finished its
review of the Army?s plan, which the NRC estimates will take two years.

The Army wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to amend the license
that allowed the Army to test radioactive munitions at the proving
ground. The amendment would allow the Army to decommission JPG.

The Army is proposing that it be allowed to stop monitoring water wells,
to not decontaminate the area containing the radioactive depleted
uranium, and to keep people out of the area with institutional controls
including fences and signs.

?Much of the Army?s rationale supporting the Revised LTP (license
termination plan) seems to be predicated on the assumption that
?institutional controls? will be enforceable for a period of time which,
given the half-life of depleted uranium, can best be described as
infinite,? STV wrote in comments submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission last week.

The proposed controls also include continued Army ownership, land-use
restrictions, and the threat of prosecution of trespassers, but STV says
those steps ?fall short of reducing risks to public health and the
environment even over the near term, let alone for the entire length of
time for which they will be needed.?

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.madisoncourier.com/Main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=9625

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