Nuclear Waste

One would never know from your article (June 20) that California taxpayers won a major victory in the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the court, the responsibility for commercial so-called “low-level” nuclear waste (which includes plutonium and uranium) will now rest with those who generate it, and not the taxpayers of California. No longer can the nuclear industry threaten that if California does not site the Ward Valley nuclear dump near Needles, by 1996, we would own the waste and be liable for its disposal.

Medical and academic nuclear waste accounts for less than 1% of California’s nuclear waste stream and is very short-lived, decaying in safe storage on-site in a matter of weeks or months. This waste does not require a nuclear dump. Thus your alarmist report of a crisis for medical and biotech firms is unfounded.

Given California’s budget crisis, the last thing we need is to provide a welfare program for the nuclear industry by owning and licensing a nuclear dump. The Supreme Court has saved us from that fate.

LAURA LAKE

Director, Americans for a Safe Future

Santa Monica