|
|
Dr. Judith Johnsrud: Sierra Club National Nuclear Waste Task Force The Sierra Club's National Nuclear Waste Task Force has received queries concerning the current situation of LLRW management, storage, and "disposal," the status of the LLRW Compacts and siting in various states, expectations for future LLRW policies, and ways for Sierrans to address these issues. Please contact Nuclear Waste Task Force members if you have additional questions or need more detailed materials, speakers, or other assistance.
Congress passed the Federal LLRW Policy Act in 1980, following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, which created large amounts of unanticipated "low-level" radioactive waste (LLRW), and after objections were raised by the governors of the three states (South Carolina, Washington, Nevada) in which the nation had been dumping all of its commercial LLRW into commercial shallow land burial trenches. Several contamination events, plus increasing quantities of LLRW as more reactors came into operation, led them to assert that other states should share the burden. Three sites (in New York, Illinois, and Kentucky) had already been closed due in part to leakage. The Act was modified in 1985. The law mandated that each state must "provide for" the disposal of all "low-level" wastes generated within its boundaries. It could construct disposal facilities to accommodate the LLRW produced within its jurisdiction, or arrange for shipment to a site in another state. To encourage development of disposal sites but also limit the total number, the Act also bypassed the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution, allowing those states that formed compacts to exclude from a regional compact facility the "low-level" radioactive wastes (but not necessarily radioactive materials) generated outside the compact region. The law also required states to take title to LLRW; this provision was challenged by New York and overturned. Members of Congress had been led to believe that most "low-level" wastes were generated by medical and research facilities and did not originate from commercial nuclear power plants. In fact, the opposite is true: in most states, more than 75% of the volume and more than 95% of the radioactivity of so-called "low-level" wastes are produced by nuclear reactors. The term "low-level" has caused decision-makers, media, and the public to assume that LLRW consists of relatively harmless wastes: trash. However the term "low-level" does not mean "low hazard" to human health. All exposures to ionizing radiation, including naturally-occurring background radiation, carry risks to the recipient of somatic injury -- e.g., leukemia, latent cancers, heart disease, and, it is now thought, immune system dysfunctions -- as well as genetic damage, both physical and mental abnormalities. Moreover, there has been little consideration of the synergistic relationships of radiation and other environmental contaminants upon an individual recipient. Although "Class A" wastes are composed mainly of low activity trash, some components may be biologically dangerous in minute quantities and some remain hazardous for many thousands of years. The wastes deemed "Classes B and C" are higher in radioactive concentrations and tend to contain isotopes that have very long hazardous lives. Some LLRW may be declared "Greater Than Class C" in radioactive concentration and toxicity: these wastes are to be disposed of by the Department of Energy (DOE) as if they were high-level waste. The law categorizes essentially all nuclear wastes as "low-level," except for "spent" reactor fuel, some reprocessing waste, and whatever else the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chooses to designate as "high-level" waste, plus certain byproduct materials, weapons-related wastes, and uranium mill tailings. For states that choose not to join a compact, there is little legal precedent as to whether or not a non-compact state can exclude wastes generated beyond its borders. The Federal Act did not address the importation of radioactive materials that might subsequently be determined by a licensee to have no further economic value and hence be declared to be "waste." Nor was the LLRW Policy Act clear about the disposition of wastes in the hands of brokers, handlers, incinerator and treatment facilities: Were radioactive wastes from decontaminated materials and radioactive ash to be returned to the licensee and state of origin; or could they be considered commercially-generated wastes eligible for disposal within the state or compact in which the incineration or decontamination took place? Also unclear is eligibility for disposal of wastes imported from abroad: NRC promulgated import/export regulations only last year. Current Status of LLRW Management, Storage, and "Disposal" In these sixteen years since passage of the LLRW Policy Act and its 1985 Amendments, no new LLRW disposal facility has been opened in the United States. Public opposition has repeatedly blocked LLRW siting in New York, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Colorado, Texas, Pennsylvania and other Host States. Even before temporary closure of Chem Nuclear's Barnwell, South Carolina, site in 1994 (as well as the U.S. Ecology site at Beatty, Nevada), the nuclear industry had responded to steeply rising disposal costs by minimizing volume of waste generated (but not activity), by storing to decay onsite, compaction, incineration, and decontamination treatment. The NRC has tried since 1980 to resolve part of the LLRW problem by deregulating as much as one-third of Class A waste, variously called de minimis ("trivial," as in "de minimis non curat lex": "The law is not concerned with trivialities") or "Below Regulatory Concern" (BRC), and most recently termed "Incidental Radioactive Material." The agency intended to permit LLRW dumping in municipal solid waste landfills (as it already allows for some medical waste, sewage sludge, smoke detectors and other low activity wastes), more radioactive liquids into sewers, and especially the recycling of unmonitored, unlabeled "low-level" wastes into a wide array of consumer products and nuclear industry practices. The NRC's deregulation plan was thwarted by the 1992 Energy Policy Act, but is now being revived. The Energy Department has adopted "low-level" waste recycling. Now that disposal costs at the reopened Barnwell burial site have risen to $350-$400 per cubic foot and are expected to go even higher, industry demands are increasing again for NRC deregulation. Even more important are the drive to discredit the linear non-threshold relationship of dose to response, which is the basis for radiation protection standards, and the effort to reduce governmental agencies' budgets by eliminating part or all of federal and state regulatory programs. The NRC's 1995 proposal to close down its LLRW division altogether is particularly significant, because NRC has preemptive power that overrides states' regulatory controls, and it conducts waste isolation research that the states can't afford. It regulates DOE, requires compatibility between federal and state programs, and licenses LLRW imports and exports. One regulator now suggests a methodology for prioritizing agency expenditures for regulatory control of radiation exposures. It is based on dollars spent per life saved. An industry proponent offers a solution adapted from air pollution credits trading: an "Open Market Trading Rule" for radiation doses; let the affected community decide for its population if it wants to pay for reducing risks of fatal cancers and other adverse health and genetic effects from the various sources of ionizing radiation and other contaminants encountered by individuals in their environment, life styles, or medical treatment. As waste volumes (but not radioactivity) decreased, the "crisis" need for centralized disposal sites in the ten compacts and eight unaffiliated states also has diminished. Better housekeeping by generators, NRC's waffling about the duration of onsite storage, possible LLRW export, and emergence of the privately-owned Envirocare site in Utah for surface disposal of low activity wastes have also reduced the urgency. The NRC and industry now estimate that three or four sites will probably be sufficient. If a few disposal sites are finally opened, Congress may be asked to declare those the national sites. However, it is not known how much more, or less, "low-level" waste will be added from future decommissioning of aged nuclear power, research and naval reactors; possibly from weapons-related DOE or other military sources; and from the remediation of the more than 45,000 sites radioactively contaminated or potentially contaminated sites that have been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency. Increasingly, as budgets tighten and costs of waste isolation rise, regulators are considering decommissioning criteria based on "How dirty is clean enough?" They would permit licensees to leave behind a still-contaminated site for "restricted" "brownfield" use. In 1994, NRC staff proposed for "a few tens" of heavily contaminated sites, onsite stabilization and disposal "despite the failure to meet the 100 millirem per year [dose] cap" [to the average member of the critical group of those expected to be exposed]. The final decommissioning criteria are to be promulgated in the near future. The technology of radioactive waste "disposal" for even just the 300-500 years required for Classes B and C, remains, obviously, experimental. Chem Nuclear has continued to use shallow trench burial at Barnwell, despite commitments to build above grade, mounded, retrievable, monitored storage vaults. French vaults, containing long-lived wastes, have been in service fewer than ten years. Industry consultants are already arguing that occupational doses will be lower with shallow land burial than above grade vaults due to less handling. But stability of waste forms, for example, remains in controversy. A June 1996 report on microbial degradation of cement issued by NRC states: Testing conducted with the developed biodegradation test has convincingly demonstrated that cement-solidified LLW waste forms can be attacked and degraded by the action of ubiquitous microorganisms that are present at LLW disposal sites. It was shown that during the degradation process, large percentages of those elements composing the cement matrix of waste forms were removed. In addition, it was conclusively shown that the ability of cement-based waste forms to retain or retard the loss of encapsulated radionuclides was compromised due to the action of microorganisms. (NUREG/CR-6341; INEL-95/02i5) Moreover, some researchers are joining environmentalists in recognizing a simple fact of basic physics: we don't "dispose of" anything; we can only change the locations or forms of matter. This realization is sparking the demand for an independent reconsideration of all of the nation's radioactive waste programs -- and even legitimizes the call by Sierra Club and others for curtailment of waste production. How Compacts and States Are Doing At mid-year 1996, both Chem Nuclear and U.S. Ecology admit to financial problems, and LLRW siting is still in disarray. U.S. Ecology's Ward Valley, California, desert site near Needles remains uncertain; industry and regulators believe it is key to their program's success, but Interior Department's land transfer and issues of a plutonium cap, radiation pathways to the nearby Colorado River, and concerns for the desert tortoise, an endangered species, prevent its completion and operation. Congress is being pressed to override these concerns, as it did with the 1987 politically-based designation of the Yucca Mountain high-level waste geologic repository site in Nevada, which appears also to be failing to meet health and safety standards. At the closed U.S. Ecology Beatty, Nevada, site, tritium contamination has been found. An upcoming report on the six older LLRW dump sites omits all data after 1994; hence, no mention of Beatty leakage. U.S. Ecology's proposed Boyd County, Nebraska, site has also been delayed by admission that wetlands had been ignored in site characterization. Its older Richland, Washington, site now accepts LLRW from only the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Compacts; earlier, U.S. Ecology had also been hit with some heavy expenses by the state. This spring the company was reportedly near a declaration of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Similarly, Chem Nuclear (CNSI) has a disappointing record at the reopened Barnwell; its North Carolina site is stalled by lack of funds. With more than $90 million reportedly spent, some $26 million more are needed for the site approval process. On July 10, North Carolina terminated its contract with Chem Nuclear to construct a LLRW facility for the Southeast Compact at the Wake County site, according to a July 18th report and the June/July 1996 LLW Forum Notes (from DOE funded Afton Associates). Almost all CNSI workers were dismissed, except for a skeletal crew that was assigned to remove equipment and structures from the site. Illinois, after failure of Chem Nuclear's Martinsville volunteer site, is still revising its siting criteria and must start over. In Pennsylvania, a new Republican Administration has abandoned the strict technical siting process to identify three "of the best" locations, as is required by law, in favor of Chem Nuclear's volunteer "Community Partnering Plan." Environmentalists are blamed for encouraging counties and municipalities to adopt protective ordinances and to place land in Agricultural Security Areas. State regulators threaten to "abbreviate" the remaining mandatory technical review, or to change the law. Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey volunteer processes have failed thus far to produce a LLRW site. The contested Texas site at Sierra Blanca awaits a licensing decision; the Texas Compact with Maine and Vermont is before Congress but not of this date approved. Michigan has adopted onsite storage for the foreseeable future. Massachusetts has repeatedly delayed siting action. No one wants to be first. A Responsible Response for Environmentalists: Beyond Backyards 1. We all surely agree that the radioactive wastes we (all) have allowed to be produced for half a century pose a significant biological hazard to humans, to many other life forms and ecosystems; and that they must be isolated from the biosphere for the full duration of their hazardous lives. Yet, given the situation of ongoing, open-ended waste production and the many political and economic uncertainties of waste generation and regulation, quite rightly no one wants to offer his or her own backyard as the site for an endless. perhaps increasing, burden of long-lived nuclear wastes. A major ethical responsibility for us all is, after all, to the future as well as present survival and well-being of our species, our descendants, and the other inhabitants of the planet, whether we depend on them or not. This is also our national policy, enunciated in the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. 2. Those of us who have warned of problem for years -- decades -- are now told that it is we who are responsible for providing "solutions" that will allow the nuclear industry to continue to produce ever more radioactive waste. And because we want to seem reasonable, positive, or constructive, there is a great temptation to recommend relocating the problem: Send it to a desert wasteland; keep it onsite where people must have wanted reactors and where they supposedly benefit from the electricity; or airlift it to Dagestan or West Africa or Mexico where folks need the money: derive some economic benefit from it by recycling into consumer products (just a few more millirems from each one); trade off one risk for another. These are surely temptations to be resisted for all the reasons a good environmentalist understands. 3. But then what can we recommend?
We can empower communities to monitor contaminants and exercise greater control over their generation and release into air, water. and soil. Even though some waste would be produced in the process, it might be feasible to encourage waste generators to seek less damaging ways of earning a profit, by beginning to set annually permissible release limits for environmental contaminants that are increasingly restrictive, moving always toward the zero release goal, requiring improved pollution control year by year, and offering companies opportunity to adjust their investments and production activities to more benign ends. We can even suggest that there are more beneficial ways of perceiving reality than our culture's near-religious faith in technology's ability to solve all environmental problems permits us to use. Idealistic dreaming? No. Impossible to achieve? Only in the short term. For, as dedicated environmentalists, we surely understand that the ultimate survivability of life on earth does depend on our willingness to move our political, economic, and social structures into conditions of greater compatibility with the earth. In the face of fifty years of failure to dispose of radioactive wastes, perhaps there are even some decision-makers who are now willing and able to listen to what we have to tell them. Up to Top |
