Bill 3545, designed to keep the Barnwell nuclear waste site open to the whole country, was reluctantly passed out of the Environmental Affairs Subcommittee on 3/21/07. The bill will go before the full Agricultural committee at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday 3/28/07 in room 410 of the Blatt building located on the State House grounds.

The architects of the bill, Energy Solutions, a new firm out of Utah that recently bought the site, has ten lobbyists working the SC legislators to persuade them to break the Atlantic Compact, which is due to go into effect in July 2008 and would limit the radioactive waste being buried in Barnwell to SC, NJ and Connecticut. They claim that the extra out of state waste is needed to keep Barnwell profitable.

They fail to mention that they tried to build a radioactive waste site similar to Barnwell in their home state of Utah and have been thwarted by the citizens and governor of that state. (Visit http://www.healutah.org/home for more about Energy Solutions in Utah.) There are also lobbyists from out of state utilities and nuclear facilities who are working our legislators. As one of them said, it is easier and cheaper for them to lobby SC to keep the Barnwell site open than it is to build their own.

Please contact members of the House Agriculture Committee and ask them to uphold the Atlantic compact and put an end to SC's role as the nation's dumping ground.

House Agriculture Committee Members