The future of nuclear waste

It's one of the biggest issues facing the nuclear power industry: what to do with the radioactive waste?

It was supposed to be buried 11 years and several billion dollars ago. While the federal government tries to find a solution, local power plants are forced to keep their waste, on site. But people who live near the plants, say the waste wasn't part of the deal.

"It's just not right we're being dumped on," said Carlton town chairman David Hardtke.

Once fuel rods are no longer used to generate electricity, they're stored in these pools. The water is used to cool the rods and shield the workers and the environment from radiation. After five years in the pools, some of the rods are transferred into dry cask storage. The radioactive waste is sealed inside a metal cylinder which is then enclosed in a metal or concrete shell.

"It's a dump," Hardtke said. "It's a nuclear waste dump and the town should be compensated for it."

Carlton is home to the Kewaunee Power Station . In August, the plant, located right on the Lake Michigan shoreline, began storing spent fuel rods above ground, in huge concrete and steel casks.

"I don't know if people know that but there's high-level nuclear waste sitting 50 yards from the best freshwater body of water in this world and it's just sitting there on a concrete pad," Hardtke said.

"Dry cask storage is safe," countered Democratic State Representative Jim Soletski, who worked at the Kewaunee Power Station for more than 20 years. He said the storage at Kewaunee is more like 100 yards from the lake.

"The amount of waste is really a small amount," Soletski said.

A few miles away, more spent fuel rods are being stored at the Point Beach nuclear power plant . Point Beach started storing the waste in dry casks in the 1990s. Soletski said the storage at Point Beach is 700 yards from the lake.

"If Lake Michigan got that close to it we'd have a lot more troubles to worry about that just nuclear, dry cask storage," Soletski said.

The on site storage was supposed to be temporary.

"When they first put it out there we thought that but as we're moving on I'm not so sure anymore," said Two Creeks town chairman Lee Engelbrecht. Two Creeks is home to the Point Beach nuclear power plant.

"It is probably a risk," Engelbrecht said. "But I think everybody living around here feels fairly safe with it but it doesn't belong here. That's our feeling."

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , the casks are "...safe and environmentally sound." The casks are designed to withstand "...floods, tornadoes, projectiles, and temperature extremes."

FOX 11 wanted to be able to show what the dry cask storage looks like at both plants but we were not allowed on the property at Point Beach or Kewaunee. We also spent more than one month trying to talk with the plants for this story, but neither would sit down for an interview.

Advocates for nuclear power like Republican State Representative Phil Montgomery have no problem with the on-site storage.

"Where it is stored right now, in the dry cask storage is perfectly safe," Montgomery said. "There has never been death, an accident or an injury associated with storage or transportation of spent nuclear fuel. So it is entirely safe there."

While some environmentalists, like Katie Nekola from Clean Wisconsin , say a long-term solution needs to be found.

"They're sitting there exposed, of course we need a plan," Nekola said. "We need safe geologic storage for the nuclear waste that's being generated."

Professor Michael Corradini is the chairman of Nuclear Engineering program at UW-Madison. He said the waste needs to be buried deep underground.

"The honest answer is the ultimate resting place would have to be geologic disposal," Corradini said. "It's solid material, you're not going to burn it. You're not going to throw it into space. You're not going to throw it in the ocean. So you have to bury it somewhere just like we bury all our current waste which is solid. So it has to be buried."

That was the plan for more than 30 years. The federal government even had a site all picked out: Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The waste was going to be put deep underground in tunnels. We even paid for some of it already. Utility customers have paid more than $16 billion dollars into the Nuclear Waste Fund. More than $350 million of that came from us in Wisconsin. But the plan has been plagued with politics. Earlier this year, the Obama administration put what may be the final nail in the Yucca Mountain coffin. The plan was essentially scrapped as the federal government "devises a new strategy for nuclear waste disposal."

Town leaders near the plants aren't shy about their feelings.

"I don't want the town of Carlton to be known as a high level nuclear waste dump," Hardtke said.

Towns like Carlton and Two Creeks are trying to force the issue. They want to start charging the plants for keeping the waste on site.

"Towns that host landfills are compensated for