UW Handed $800,000 To Waste On Useless Study
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the team an $800,000 grant to span the course of three years. This is the first time the DOE is funding a study that looks at how nuclear energy affects environmental justice.
Before I explain why this is a massive waste of time and money we have to look at what they mean by "environmental justice."
Lead researcher Rachael Budowle said environmental justice means that specific populations should not experience inequalities because of development (Wyoming Public Media).
Budowle said an example of environmental injustice in Wyoming is on the Wind River Reservation. The Susquehanna Western uranium mill operated from 1958 to 1963 and left behind nearly 1.8 million cubic yards of radioactive waste. In 2010, the DOE reported that uranium levels in many nearby wells spiked to 100 times the legal limit and similar issues continue to this day. (WPM).
There was a time when energy projects of all kinds left massive environmental messes behind. In many cases, contaminated soil and water affected poor communities near where this work took place.
But we've come a long way. We have learned from our mistakes.
We don't need to continue to study the same thing over and over again.
States like Wyoming have figured out how to drill and dig for energy, and even create electricity, with little environmental impact.
Our reclamation, after the project, has become so good it is near impossible to tell that anyone was working there at all.
Because of that, we do not need to spend 3 years and $800,000 dollars to study the impacts on poor and indigenous people, or anyone else for that matter.
We just need to make sure we keep up with current environmental standards while we are working and when we are done.
Studies like this are part of the reason that a project, which could be up and running in just a couple of years, will take over a decade or more to complete.
Just drilling for oil at a new site, which should only take a little over a month to set up a well, often takes a decade due to useless government bureaucracy like the study mentioned here.
All we really have to do is make sure the project is clean from start to finish. Problem solved.