Radioactive Waste Dump Has to Be in Ward Valley : Environment: ‘Benign’ low-level material can have a half-life of 5,730 years--it’s not for local landfills.

A Times Column One story in January, “Caught in Fallout of Waste War,” aptly depicted the plight of hospital, academic and biomedical industry low-level radioactive waste producers. However, the legitimacy of calls for an alternative to the now-licensed Ward Valley disposal site requires full examination.

The crux of the argument surrounding Ward Valley is whether waste disposal at an arid desert site is preferable to other means of managing such radioactive waste. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a vocal opponent of the Ward Valley site in eastern San Bernardino County, proposes construction of an above-ground, temporary holding facility for radioactive waste produced by biotechnology, medical and academic institutions, The senator bases her suggestion on the belief that such waste is, essentially, benign and can therefore be stored for “decay” before disposing of it at a normal sanitary landfill.

Such an alternative ignores two indisputable realities.

First, there is significant radioactivity in “low-level” waste. Prime examples include cesium-137, a workhorse in the treatment of cancer (half-life: 30.2 years) and carbon-14, an invaluable laboratory research tool (half-life: 5,730 years). How will these long-lived wastes be handled (that is, stored and managed) at a temporary facility? Will employees there be as protected against exposure to radioactivity as they would if the waste were permanently underground, in a stable, desert setting? Moreover, who will absorb the costs associated with constructing such a facility? Where will it be located? What laws and regulations will govern it?

Each of these considerations has, in accordance with the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, been painstakingly incorporated into the Ward Valley plan, whereas all remain completely unanswered by Boxer. Also, given the damaging Jan. 17 earthquake in Los Angeles, what makes more sense: a geologically tested and remote desert location, or an expensive concrete mausoleum, possibly in your back yard?

Second, waste is waste. Low-level radioactive waste produced by academic, medical and biotechnology sources is not fundamentally different from such waste produced by utilities. In fact, reactors produce nearly all our medical isotopes. If Boxer’s holding facility is to exclude waste from power reactors, one must assume that it would prohibit waste from medical isotope production reactors as well. In the meantime, the utilities’ disposal needs would also remain unresolved.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has previously considered and addressed the use of temporary holding facilities in managing low-level waste. Its conclusion: Temporary storage should, as the name implies, be of very short duration.

Beyond the issue of long-lived medical radionuclides, there is still the problem of radioactive animal carcasses and human tissue used in medical research and testing. Such waste must be disposed of in a manner that properly addresses the problem of decomposition and infection. In a temporary holding facility, huge freezers would be needed and a power failure would provide a new and pungent definition of a nuclear “meltdown.”

The most ironic aspect of the temporary-holding-facility-vs.-Ward Valley argument is Boxer’s contention that the latter, if built, could become a national depository for low-level radioactive waste. In reality, the temporary facility would be subject to the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, and would therefore not benefit from access limitations provided by the Low level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985. Therefore, it is Boxer’s alternative siting that would become a national waste depository.

Let’s get real. The Ward Valley site-selection process began in early 1986. The state of California then conducted an extensive, four-year review of the Ward Valley site before licensing it. Boxer would have us scrap that entire process in favor of siting and constructing an alternative facility for which there is no legal framework, no funding source and no site. It can’t possibly produce a solution in time to accommodate the already existing disposal needs of biotechnology companies and medical and academic institutions.

By the time Boxer wakes up to this reality, our biotechnology industry--now the world’s leader--will have fled to neighboring states, along with some of our academic talent. Meanwhile, waste stored in hundreds of urban locations throughout the state will be waiting for the next earthquake or fire, instead of resting safely in Ward Valley.

The purpose of the Low Level Radioactive Waste Act was to place the responsibility of managing waste in the hands of individual states. Sen. Boxer’s ill-conceived “alternative” abandons nuclear power-plant waste, cannot possibly serve significant quantities of biomedical waste and does not even address common commercial waste such as most sealed sources. The only responsible alternative to Ward Valley now is Ward Valley soon.