Well, she just committed political suicide. HoooRaaay!
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Last Updated: 7:06 am | Sunday, October 29, 2006
Schmidt considers nuke waste
BY HOWARD WILKINSON | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
This doesn't happen every day: An incumbent member of Congress, in the middle of a re-election battle, says that storing nuclear waste shipments from around the world in her district may be a good idea.
U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt does say that, and her support for studying the idea has become an issue in her re-election campaign, especially in rural Pike County, in the far eastern end of her sprawling Southern Ohio District, where the nuclear wastes would be stored.
"I'm not advocating for it one way or the other," Schmidt told The Enquirer. "I'm saying it is something we need to look at."
Schmidt said she sees potential to create "hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs" in an economically distressed part of the state, where double-digit unemployment rates are the norm.
Schmidt has signed on to an effort by the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) and a Cleveland-based company called SONIC to seek a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant of up to $5 million for a study of whether the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant should be a site for temporary storage and recycling of spent nuclear fuel rods. The 3,400-acre site near Piketon produced highly enriched uranium through the Cold War years for military purposes and for civilian reactors until 2001, when that activity was consolidated at the similar Paducah plant.
A decision on the grant could come this week.
The idea of nuclear waste storage on a site that is still being cleaned up from its previous use has infuriated environmentalists and neighbors of the plant in Pike County and nearby Scioto County, prompting a communitywide petition drive and vows to fight the storage plan to the bitter end.
That and the fact that Schmidt's Democratic opponent, Victoria Wulsin of Indian Hill, has come out against the idea, mean that the issue could have an impact on Schmidt's re-election - meaning it could help determine who represents 650,000 constituents from Greater Cincinnati to Portsmouth.
"All I can tell you is that when it became known that she supports this, every Jean Schmidt yard sign in the county went down overnight," said Geoffrey Sea, a writer whose home abuts the Piketon plant.
'STUCK WITH IT FOREVER'
Sea is one of the organizers of Southern Ohio Neighbors Group (SONG), an organization of Piketon neighbors who are trying to convince local leaders to stop the possible import of nuclear wastes.
"They say this is just temporary storage, but the fear is that there is going to be nowhere else for the wastes to go and we will be stuck with it forever," said Sea, who is writing a book about the 50-plus-year history of the Piketon plant.
Opponents of the idea fear leaks of the kind they saw in the days of the old gaseous diffusion plant, which some say affected the local aquifer, caused health problems for workers and are still being cleaned up. The plan, they say, is too much risk for too little gain.
SONG has found an ally in Wulsin, who toured the Piketon facility this month. She said she came away as a supporter of the plan that the former 2nd District congressman, Rob Portman, helped put in place - to turn the old facility into a new operation called the American Centrifuge Plant, which most experts believe would be a much cleaner and more efficient way of enriching uranium.
But the plan for importing nuclear wastes, Wulsin said, is "a bad idea."
"I can't support just dumping wastes in that place," Wulsin said. "It makes no sense."
Schmidt said the only reason she is backing the study is that it seems to not only have the overwhelming support of business leaders and public officials in Pike County, but also in surrounding counties whose residents have worked at the Piketon plant for decades.
"All I'm saying is let's get the money to study it because, in the end, it is going to be up to the folks down there to determine whether they want this or not," Schmidt said.
At the urging of SODI and SONIC, Schmidt wrote a letter last month to U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman urging DOE to consider Piketon for the nuclear waste storage and recycling program.
"An ideal site with a skilled work force and significant community support, the (Piketon) site is an outstanding choice for hosting new technologies supporting our nation's energy programs," Schmidt wrote.
Similar letters have gone to the DOE from elected officials and business leaders from four southern Ohio counties - Pike, Jackson, Ross and Scioto.
