Holtec, NRC hold meeting in Gallup

A meeting was held May 21 at the Downtown Gallup Conference Center regarding the possibility of nuclear waste being transported through Gallup and parts of the Navajo Nation by Holtec International.

The nuclear waste would be placed at proposed nuclear waste storage site in southeastern New Mexico in Lea County between Hobbs and Carlsbad.

Along with Holtec, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was on hand as well for the public meeting to gather feedback on what features they should study to determine the environmental impacts of a proposed nuclear waste storage site.

This is part of the beginning of likely a three year process to determine whether NRC would grant a license to Holtec to build their facility and to transport waste to New Mexico.

Based outside of Washington, D.C., Holtec constructs the containers that store radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. It’s a steel canister within a concrete canister. The current policy is to bury deep underground at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and for a variety of reasons, primarily politics, that has not happened to date.

Meanwhile, Holtec offers an interim solution to build the facility in the Land of Enchantment.

Holtec International Program Director Ed Mayer said the purpose of the meeting was also to educate the public and hear their concerns about the project.

“It’s the NRC’s meeting and it’s a scoping meeting,” he said. “We submitted our license submission, and the NRC wants to hear from the general public just to make sure that the scope of our submission was correct. If there’s things that we didn’t cover, and the general public knows about, the general public has the opportunity to tell the NRC [sic] increase the scope of our submission so it covers the correct items.”

According to Mayer, the plan is to transport the waste from commercial nuclear reactors around the country to southeastern New Mexico by rail, which presumably would come through various parts of New Mexico, including Gallup. He wants to educate the public on Holtec’s safety measures, and to address issues that have arisen.

“I would say that we’ve already addressed the hard issues,” he said. “Our technologies are the safest technologies on earth. Our storage it’s the safest in the world. It’s not the cart before the horse, we’ve had the horse before the cart, we’ve addressed those concerns already. What we want to do is educate the general public and make sure they understand our technologies. I think if they understand our technologies, it will take a little bit, they’ll be more comfortable with the facility.”

David McIntyre, of NRC’s public affairs division, discussed the NRC standards in regard to the comments that were heard in the meeting.

“Well, our standards are regulatory standards for safety and environmental protection are pretty strict,” he said. “We won’t change our standards because of what we hear today, but what we hear tonight would potentially influence what we look at for environmental review and that’s what we’re here for. I want to be careful and say that what we hear tonight won’t have an impact because it will, we’re not holding a yea or nay referendum, although it’ll sound like that at times. Of what comments we get through this process, we’ll definitely influence our review.”

Many concerned citizens got the chance to speak and voice their opinions, such  as Jonathan Perry, a Navajo Nation Council delegate.

“My purpose is to state the positions and concerns that my chapters have with the majority of my colleagues on the council,” he said. “In regarding nuclear development, nuclear transportation, and uranium mining. We oppose this project, we oppose the transportation within the region, including Gallup and portions of the Navajo Nation through railway.”

Perry also stated the concern of emergency response and where would it come from, and does the area have adequate support should an emergency arise. Albuquerque is the nearest location with a hazmat team to respond, and even at that, are they able to handle a major risk should it arise?

“What we found out that the nearest hazmat team that can respond to anything of this magnitude is Albuquerque – there is nothing local. So that imposes a major risk. The other part is the infrastructure; the roads, railway … are we adequate to support this type of project,” Perry said.

Right now, according to Perry, the roads are not suitable for major transportation, and so this is a major concern. The other portion is the health and contamination of the environment.

“With the history on the Navajo Nation regarding uranium mining, this is still a major concern,” he said. “There’s a lot of misconception that nuclear energy is clean energy, but they forget the first portion which is uranium mining and transportation, so that’s a major issue as well.”

Concerned citizens who know about uranium mining and the effects of it is, Mervyn Tilden of Eastern Navajo Dine’ Against Uranium Mining.

“I think the main emphasis should be the safety of the people along the corridor of that leads to the eventual storage site of this nuclear waste,” Tilden said. “There has been little information given to the people and I think that one of the most important things that needs to be included in this process is public involvement. Not only the experts of the NRC, or the state of New Mexico, or Navajo Nation, but the people themselves who are going to be impacted.”

One audience member had addressed the concern of the lack of city officials, including the mayor and New Mexico Rep. Patty Lundstrom, D-Gallup.

Similar meetings were held in other places in New Mexico.

For more information on Holtec, contact (856) 797-0900 or visit website www.Holtec.com

By Dee Velasco
For the Sun

GMCS opting to make McKinley Academy STUDENTS alt choice

An April 30 letter from Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools Superintendent Mike Hyatt has sparked debate on the possible revocation of a 16-year-old charter school that was the first early college high school in the state.

Middle College High School was first opened in 2002, offering students educational opportunities to earn their high school diploma while simultaneously earning college credits at UNM-Gallup Branch.

The letter was addressed to parents and students of MCHS and states that the school district has received questions from parents regarding the possible revocation of MCHS.

“The questions thus far are: What options does my student have to continue their early college program? Even though the McKinley Academy application deadline has passed, can students still apply?” stated Hyatt in the letter.

An open invitation without the need to apply to McKinley Academy was extended to families in the letter, including contact information for two staff members from the acdemy.

Sharlene Platero has twins enrolled at MCHS and said she is “very disturbed about the letter that was sent out by Mr. Hyatt.”

She said the school has a 92 percent graduation rate and has a student body that is 40 percent Native American.

Platero said aside from the letter, the school district has made no official contact with the school or parents on why the revocation was proposed.

“My children came from Rehoboth and I’m a product of Rehoboth, too. I just felt that my children needed to be more challenged academically,” she said of her decision to enroll her kids at MCHS.

The pressure from parents on the school administrators grew once the news became public knowledge.

Dr. Robert Hunter, CEO of MCHS, said the school was inundated with calls from angry parents after the letter was sent out by the school district.

“That letter worried us, it got our families upset,” he said.

Parents began rallying to fight the revocation and convened to discuss the problem.

“I guess some of them even decided to go to the media,” Hunter said.

MCHS offers high school students the chance to earn an associate’s degree or complete much of their first two years of college while earning a high school diploma.

“There are at least two dozen of these types of schools,” Hunter said.

Besides the motivated students focused on attaining an advantage on their collegiate career, MCHS is also a school of choice for other students.

“We serve a very broad range of students,” Hunter said. “We also get students who just don’t fit into the regular high school setting. We are a place where they don’t have to worry about (fitting in with) all the social cliques and things like that.”

The school district has identified serious legal issues with regard to the open meetings act as the primary reason why revocation was considered.

“There’s some serious issues that the school district has discovered with respect to Middle College as of late,” Hyatt said.

The superintendent noted that in addition to open meetings violations, the CEO of MCHS is making decisions unilaterally without the school board’s consent.

An effort to increase the school enrollment by 20 students was decided by the CEO and brought before the district school board twice, Hyatt said.

“Those items were never approved by the school board to increase their enrollment. It was only done by Mr. Hunter according to their board minutes,” he said.

“In addition, when they tried to renew their contract with the school district starting July 1, 2018, again, he did not go before his board to approve this item.”

Another concern from the school district is MCHS’ grade from the state, which has dropped from an A to a low C over the past two years, Hyatt said, adding that claims by the school ranking themselves as 12th in the state is misleading.

MCHS offers a link to this statistic from Niche, an online platform helping parents discover schools and neighborhoods that fit their plans. Niche ranked MCHS as New Mexico’s 12th best high school, and 7th among charter schools.

Their data sources for information include the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core Data, Private School Universe Survey, parent surveys and others.

“(MCHS) performance is dropping in the state of New Mexico. Their performance is sub-par, they rank 106 out 215 schools. That’s all public information,” Hyatt said, referring to the N.M. Public Education Department district report card.

The district report card reported 54 percent reading proficiency, 19 percent mathematics proficiency and 58 percent science proficiency for MCHS.

“There have been a lot of rumors regarding this situation regarding the county and one of its charters. I appreciate those that sought out both sides of the story so they can make an objective opinion,” he said.

As for funding formulas, Hyatt said MCHS receives $12,500 per student. Other schools in the district receive about $7,500 per student.

By Rick Abasta
Sun Correspondent