Nuclear Waste to Be Shipped to Long Beach

Highly radioactive nuclear waste from an undisclosed Asian country will be shipped to the Port of Long Beach and then trucked to South Carolina for reclamation beginning in March, federal officials said Saturday.

Department of Energy officials informed port authorities of the decision Friday, said James McJunkin, executive director of the Long Beach Harbor. While harbor officials were not “overjoyed” by the news, McJunkin said Saturday that there is no plan to try to divert the shipments.

Federal officials assured him the transport would be safe, McJunkin said, adding that harbor officials will study the plans more closely.

Selection of Long Beach as the port of entry for foreign nuclear waste marks the first time the Department of Energy will use a California harbor for such a purpose, said James Gaver, director of the office for external affairs at the department’s Savannah River Plant near Aiken, S.C. However, shipment of such materials to the plant from Europe and elsewhere in the United States is commonplace, he said.

The shipments will consist of spent nuclear fuel rods from a research reactor in Asia, McJunkin said. The transports, 18 in all, are expected to reach the port every six weeks for the next two years. Encased in steel and lead casks, the rods will be taken by truck to the South Carolina plant.

“This is business for a port, and ports are looking for business,” Gaver said. “The shipments meet stringent safety requirements and can be handled safely by port personnel and by land transportation. It poses no health or safety risk to the general public.”

Long Beach Harbor Commissioner Louise DuVall said Saturday that it is too early to tell how the city’s residents will react to the radioactive waste shipments. “It’s just a shock to read something like this,” she said. “I know there are people out there who are concerned anytime that type of cargo goes through any port. You’re always going to have people who protest that.”

In Washington state, protesters, including congressmen and the governor, had opposed use of Seattle, the government’s original choice for the shipments now to be moved through Long Beach. Gov. Booth Gardner claimed that his state’s opposition forced the Energy Department to choose another site.

Gaver, however, denied that claim, saying Long Beach was chosen over the northwestern port because trucking charges were cheapest in Los Angeles and that the area provides a more direct route to South Carolina. Oakland has been selected as the backup port, he said.

DuVall said the five-member Long Beach Harbor Commission has not yet been formally advised of the decision. “I really don’t know enough about it,” she said. “I’m sure we will discuss it at our next meeting,” which will be Tuesday.

Receiving foreign and domestic nuclear waste is part of the U.S. government’s nuclear nonproliferation policy, Gaver said, which “controls who possesses nuclear materials that might be used for malevolent purposes.”

“This is not the first time that the U.S. has accepted fuel from a foreign test reactor,” Gaver said. “It has been going on for a number of years.” Gaver said he could not disclose the country where the shipments will originate. “The State Department has instructed us to neither confirm nor deny reports” by Associated Press and United Press International that the waste will be coming from Taiwan, Gaver said.

At the Savannah River plant, the rods will be stored until they undergo a reclamation procedure that extracts plutonium, a byproduct that forms in the rod during its use as fuel for a nuclear reactor, Gaver said. The reclaimed plutonium will be used for nuclear reactor research.

Secondary Function

Although the Savannah River plant’s primary function is to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, it has been receiving foreign and domestic nuclear waste for reprocessing since the mid-1970s, Gaver said.

In 1984 and 1985 the plant received nuclear waste shipments from foreign countries including Austria, Italy, Spain, Japan and France. It also received shipments from states such as New York, Tennessee, Michigan and North Carolina.