ARTICLE - "Nuclear Waste:
Producing it faster than we can clean or ignore it "

The stage was set, and the scene had all the right players.

A terrible world war, some bright and ambitious émigré scientists, and an economy that knew no bounds. The nuclear industry was born to develop weapons of mass destruction. With this birth was a twin-the public relations (PR) machine-which at its inception during the Manhattan project, was as large a concern as the scientific work itself. To this day this PR machine has remained part of the nuclear industry. Even in the early days, PR quickly identified the need to develop practical applications for what was to be a one shot bomb to end all wars. The PR machine quickly identified-as an afterthought-that one practical application would be to generate electricity.

Cue in the extras.

For those old enough to remember, one of the nuclear industry promises was for cheap electricity, so cheap that it will not be metered and as Robert Hutchins--president of the University of Chicago, the site of the first nuclear chain reaction in 1946--said "Heat will be so plentiful that it will even be used to melt snow as it falls..." The lure of cheaper cleaner electricity production lulled everyone into believing that the nuclear industry will lead us into the future. As a result we have allowed the nuclear industry to develop without much oversight. The waste produced as a by-product grew and grew. And it was o.k. by us then because we were going to reap these enormous benefits.

Cue in the backdrop.

A Cold War, Sputnik circling above, the beginning of an oil crisis, and science replacing our loss of spiritual essence. So the short-term solution was to keep all this waste stored where it was produced and not to falter the stride of nuclear development. Most was stored in steel barrels, some was dumped into rivers, sea and onto the land. Some were stored in large silos which built enough gas to transform the silos into chemical bombs. No one kept an eye on these goings on, no one really cared at the time seeing that the nuclear industry will be the answer to all our energy (and defense) woes.

Some fifty odd years later what we have propagated is an industry that is not only inefficient but extremely dangerous.
The inefficiency of the industry is best exemplified by the market value. In order to meet the competition to generate electricity, nuclear utilities across the country are already receiving legislated bailouts to pass on to us as the consumer. The highest electricity rates are to be found where there is nuclear power. With this guarantee, that whatever the costs can be passed on to consumers, utilities are now selling their nukes to newly emerging corporate entities with price tags a fraction of their original construction cost.

In one sale, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation sold Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and part of Unit 2 to a US-British Amergen for $163.3 million. Nine Mile Point Unit 2 alone cost $6.3 billion to build. Pennsylvania's surviving Three Mile Island Unit 1 sold to the same US-British utility for about $20 million (less the cost of the nuclear fuel at the reactor). Boston Electric Company sold its Pilgrim nuclear power station to Entergy for, again, $20 million. Each of these reactors had book values between $500-$700 million dollars. At least we know where Entegy made enough profit to make $72,550 in contributions to the 106th House Members in 1999 (The Nuclear Industry: A Cash Cow for Congress II: Public Citizen, March 1999).

This inefficiency, subsidized for decades--by the general public in construction, and the electricity consumers in maintenance--is reflected in how the nuclear industry deals with health risks. A danger more insidious and less obvious then economic bailouts.

Cue in the voices of dissent.

John Gofman, the co-discovered uranium 233 and isolated the world's first plutonium during the Manhattan Project, in an interview (Downwind, March 1992) reported that "the nuclear establishment will not tolerate that radiation is dangerous...At every opportunity you see them struggling to make it safe on paper...They are the scoundrels of the earth". One trick of the nuclear PR machine -this year further encouraged by $27 million of public funds (Mother Jones, Nov/Dec, 1999)--is to minimize the health effects of low-level radiation. The PR mantra that "small amounts of radiation is not harmful" has been chanted throughout the corridors of the nuclear establishment, without any real scientific basis. Samuel Epstein, the author of The Politics of Cancer, identified that cancer is produced by two separate processes; one process modifies the cell structure while the second process aggravates cell multiplication. Both processes must be present in order to produce cancer, and there is no limit or safe level of radiation (or carcinogens). Nuclear waste has historically slowly leached low-level radionulcides (and toxic chemicals in some cases) into the environment. But the PR industry continues to propagate a lie, a very plausible lie, but nevertheless a lie.

This is how the story goes. We receive most of our radiation from natural sources (mainly radon) at about 300 millirems per year (mrem- one measure of radiation) while 60 mrems are received from artificial sources (medical X-rays etc). We are exposed to very small quantities (less then 1% of total) from occupational, nuclear fuel cycle (mining, processing, and waste) and fallout. But this is the law of averages. Some people are exposed to some type of radiation more than others. For example doctors, nurses, radiographers, astronauts, dental hygienists, engineering researchers, pharmacists, welders, airplane and jet crews receive several additional radiation exposure. The same holds true for workers or the public who live near nuclear fuel cycle activity. So to say that exposure from nuclear fuel cycle is of minimal concern disregards the different levels each of us are exposed to. Although we have control over some of these exposures (eg not to work in the nuclear industry, or not to become pilots), we have very little control over exposure from nuclear waste. There is also a blissful ignorance. The omission of consistent monitoring for radiation, the lack of established federal standards, the immense extent of radioactive pollution, the fact that the effect of radioactive waste takes decades to manifest itself, and the economic stronghold of the DOE on most of the communities where the waste is dumped, are all conditions that conspire to allow us to ignore more and more of this looming reality.

How much waste is there?

In 1991, Congress investigated the environmental record of federal agencies and found systematic violations of fundamental environmental requirements at government sites. The Congress found that "two federal agencies, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, together generated 20 million tons of hazardous and/or radioactive waste annually"(Citizen Law Enforcement: Project for Participatory Democracy, May 1996). Reports on how much nuclear waste there is in America vary depending on your sources, and what you consider to be "waste". The U.S. Department of Energy states that their Environmental Management (EM) program is responsible for:

· 1.7 trillion gallons of contaminated ground water...;
· 40 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and debris...;
· 18 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium...;
· 2,000 tons of intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel...;
· 160,000 cubic meters (of radioactive and hazardous waste) currently in storage and over 100 million gallons of liquid, high-level radioactive waste;
· 4,000 facilities that are no longer needed...; and
· Providing long-term care and monitoring...at an estimated 109 sites following cleanup.
(U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management: Paths to Closure, March 2000).

This list does not include--among other omissions-- 145 million cubic meters of uranium mill tailings (what is left behind after uranium is mined) and 120,000 cubic meters of depleted uranium (uranium which has most of the bomb making uranium 235 taken out, and the remaining heavy metal used as tank piercing missiles). It also does not include Department of Defense 15,987 contaminated sites, their stewardship program for 9,300 threatened or endangered species, and 40,000 underground waste tanks (Citizen Law Enforcement: Project for Participatory Democracy, May 1996). That is a completely different story. From the DOE side, other omissions from this list are the machinery used to mine, process, and contain nuclear material. Most of these have been sold and have diffused into our immediate environment. There is so much nuclear waste being produced that it has started to permeate our life. And the reason for this is that the DOE and the private nuclear establishment have hit upon the idea that one way to get rid of some of this waste is to sell it. Who would want to buy waste?

Cue in big business.

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service reported that in the face of widespread protest and Congressional inquiries, Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson January 13, 2000 announced that the DOE will hold off on the sale-and subsequent recycling--of some 6,000 tons of radioactive nickel from the decommissioning of the Oak Ridge uranium enrichment plant. But the DOE's announcement still allows the sale and recycling of some 120,000 tons of contaminated metals from Oak Ridge. The difference is that the 6,000 tons of nickel are volumetrically contaminated-meaning that the radioactive contamination is spread throughout the material-while the other metals are surface-contaminated, meaning that the radiation is only on the surface of the metals. While it is considered easier to decontaminate surface-contaminated metals, it is virtually impossible to clean them entirely; some residual radiation inevitably will remain. These recycled materials will find there way into products that you and I will purchase as utensils, braces, or appliances.

The DOE declined even to permanently ban the recycling of the volumetrically-contaminated nickel, saying that it would wait to receive NRC standards on unrestricted release of contaminated materials.

The DOE already has released at least 1,300 tons of "grit-blasted" radioactive steel and copper from Oak Ridge to various facilities, despite opposition from the metals industry, which has a "zero tolerance" policy against contaminated metals.

Waste is big business. Bigger then we can ever know. On the clean-up side, the U.S. Department of Energy states that the EM program from 1997-2070 is estimated to cost between $168-$212 billion-a big chunk of taxpayers' money. But how well is the "clean-up" going?

The cost and abuse.

At a hearing of the House Budget Committee Task Force on Natural Resources on the 12th July 2000, Ms. Carolyn L. Huntoon, Asstistant Secretary for Environmental Management, Department of Energy admitted that an emphasis on project management had been lacking in several key defense and environmental clean-up projects. The officials further stated that these projects were administered by personnel lacking sufficient expertise and that they had failed to heed recommendations from outside experts.
Members of the Task Force sought answers as to why these conditions had persisted in light of repeated warnings from government accountants, government investigators, and independent reviews. At least two reports from the General Accounting Office, one in 1996, another in 1999, highlighted deficiencies in DOE project management. In response to questioning, GAO official Ms. Gary Jones indicated that she was "not confident that the cycle [of problems at DOE] has been stopped . . ." She said DOE is still "not holding contractors accountable" and that "problems continue."
It comes as no surprise therefore, that according to the General Accounting Office and the Inspectors General, the Department of Energy Contract Management and Superfund Contract Management have been at "high risk" for waste, fraud and abuse for the last ten years. A damning report if ever there was one. However this is just sloppy bookkeeping, what about the scientific merit of the EM program?

Cue in the cavalry.

The Stewardship debacle.

"Stewardship" is another PR nightmare. Instead of cleaning up contaminated sites DOE will employ a number of factors requiring citizen participation to "control" potentially dangerous contamination from spreading. For sites containing wastes that will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years, "stewardship" enters the realm of impossibility, if not lunacy. A recent report, this time conducted by the National Academy of Scientists (NAS) commissioned by DOE has indicated that most of these sites where the federal government built nuclear bombs will never be cleaned up enough to allow public access to land. More worrisome is the conclusion that DOE's reliance on long-term stewardship is problematic. Among a number of damning statements documenting current breakdown of DOE's conceptual policy called "stewardship," the NAS report states: "the likelihood that institutional management measures will fail at some point is relatively high," and "DOE's preferred solution...reliance on engineered barriers and institutional controls-are inherently failure-prone". Bad science, sloppy accounting, inexperienced staff, and insular vision. Is this the legacy of the nuclear establishment?

This national scenario is played over and over at the local community levels. Inexperienced staff, management that is doomed to failure, incongruous and misleading information fed to the public, and the final weapon....denial and lies.

A local example will help clarify how our tax money is being spent. After several attempts, and public debate, a "citizens oversight group" funded by DOE, the Sandia National Laboratories Citizen Advisory Board managed to employ an independent consultant - an expert scientist with no substantial ties to DOE - to review some of the data collected on one contaminated site (of 200 plus sites) at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The hurdle of hiring an independent consultant to assess this contaminated site, known as the Mixed Waste Landfill (MWL), broke down the otherwise insular and nepotistic hiring at the DOE, and specifically at SNL. The site is a 2.6-acre landfill comprised of 51 pits and trenches where radioactive and chemical debris - by-products of Cold War weapons development - was dumped over a course of three decades (1959-1988). The MWL sits just outside the Albuquerque city limits, "upstream" from the Pueblo of Isleta and a number of South Valley neighborhoods, and directly adjacent to the proposed Mesa del Sol subdivision of anticipated 100,000 residents. Additionally, it is perched above Albuquerque's sole-source aquifer supplying water to the state's largest population center. The MWL is no longer active; however, due to long-lived radioactive waste buried in the landfill that will remain hazardous for centuries, the dump poses a threat to the environment and the health of communities downstream.

DOE and SNL do not intend to clean up the MWL, instead proposing the dangerous and inadequate solution of "stewardship" - covering it with soil and "watching it" - as long as there are funds to do so. Stewardship will save the nuclear weapons industry millions in clean-up costs. However, in the end, the health of communities around the country situated around these contaminated sites - including our own - will be compromised.

The report on the MWL, by one of the top geophysicists in the country, Dr. Mark Baskaran, with over 150 published refereed papers (a scientist of caliber incomparable with SNL EM program) concluded that:

i) There is non-naturally occurring uranium in the groundwater beneath the MWL;
ii) Uranium, plutonium and strontium have already reached the groundwater;
iii) Non-global fallout plutonium is observed in soil samples below, and in the air above the MWL;
iv) Tritium has migrated from the MWL to adjoining areas;
v) SNL prediction models of the migration of radionuclides from the MWL are wrong.

New research reported in Science Magazine (February 4, 2000) is corroborating these findings. Emerging results show that plutonium reacts differently than previously assumed when exposed to air and water, and becomes very soluble in water. The fact that plutonium can, over time, transition to a chemical form that will rapidly move into the biosphere calls into question the viability of burial as a disposal method.

But there is no reason to worry.

Cue in the three monkeys...hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil.

Listen to the DOE strategy of minimizing the risk, confounding the issues, and ignoring reality, let us overhear what was said in just one interview published by the Albuquerque Tribune (14th August, 2000).

... "Most of the stuff in the landfill is innocuous," said John Gould, environmental program manager for the Department of Energy's Kirtland area office, followed by ..." Even if the waste contained in the landfill were to start leaking out of its containers and into the ground today, it couldn't travel well through the sandy soil and therefore would not be a major threat", according to Bill Rhodes, health physicist and manager of the radiation protection program at Sandia Labs Rhodes added (for our clarification), "Rocks and soil tend to filter stuff out," . Or just ignore the evidence as Fran Nimick, an environmental manager at Sandia, does when he contends that there is no evidence for unnatural levels of tritium, plutonium, or uranium in the groundwater. These comments were made AFTER the report was published. This is not just ignorance, but deception.

Lets consider these comments. If rocks and soil could actually filter "stuff out" we'd have the answer to cleaning up contaminated sites permanently! Brilliant but misguided (or misguiding). Also the content of most of these sites, despite its innocent-sounding designation as "low level" radiation, poses an even greater health hazard for longer periods of time. Low level radioactive debris is increasingly being linked to various cancers, childhood leukemia, kidney failure, and a host of other illnesses, despite federal funds sponsoring studies to show otherwise.
The PR machine keeps on working and churning it out oblivious to facts. The American Board of Health Physics might be interested these fanciful conjectures.

The DOE should not be in the business of cleaning the environment. We have an agency which has been established to do just that--the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA needs to take-over these program and to take this responsibility away from the perpetrator of this waste. The DOE argues that since they have the expertise to generate this waste they have the expertise to clean it up. An interesting argument not supported by actual facts. The expertise they have in producing nuclear weapons is not shared with the EM program. They are separate and distinct entities within the DOE, they do not share staff and there is a real and obvious discrepancy in the level of expertise between the weapons manufacturing and the EM program. Moving the EM program to the EPA will also ensure that there might be increased expertise and real public input to clean-up activities. The involvement of the EPA might also serve to rid us of the PR machine. Local input is imperative since the community will be the final caretaker. States have the opportunity, right and responsibility to protect their citizens' health. In 1980, Congress gave states the responsibility for "low-level" radioactive waste. Local input and federal responsibility can only be achieved with state, community and religious leaders championing citizens' rights.

Cue in music, and card "to be continued."

Mario Garrett, Ph.D.
Citizen Action To Clean Up Albuquerque's Nuclear Waste Dump
To join our independent citizen's group and coalition dedicated to clean-up of the MWL call (505) 280-1844 or visit our website at: www.radfreenm.com