Wilson Seeks Nuclear Waste Shipment Ban

While Gov. Pete Wilson continues to push for the Ward Valley nuclear waste dump, he is also trying to ban waste shipments out of state despite his assertion that stockpiles of radioactive refuse pose a health and safety threat.

Wilson has for years blamed opponents of the proposed Mojave Desert low-level nuclear waste dump for forcing hospitals and research institutions to warehouse dangerous radioactive waste in store rooms, back alleys and other unsafe locations. Moreover, he has argued that research into cancer and other diseases that depend on radioactive material will grind to a halt.

Now, Wilson’s latest action to restrict the export of radioactive waste to other states willing to accept it has raised questions about the severity of the waste crisis. “If there is an emergency, the Wilson administration is fomenting it by trying to stop waste generators from shipping to other dump sites,” said Dan Hirsch, president of Bridge the Gap, a group of antinuclear activists leading the campaign against the Ward Valley project.

Last year, the opening of a disposal facility in Utah and the reopening of one in South Carolina gave California waste generators new options.

Meanwhile, the prospects for the Ward Valley site have grown dicier. The firm licensed to run the dump, U.S. Ecology, is in serious financial difficulty, with auditors raising doubts about the ability of its Houston-based parent company, American Ecology, to stay in business.

The auditors attribute the firm’s troubles to millions of dollars of unforeseen costs growing out of two recent acquisitions. However, American Ecology officials blame their predicament on delays in the Ward Valley project, where the company says it has sunk more than $40 million.

The federally owned dump site has been controversial in part because it is 20 miles from the Colorado River. As a low-level waste dump, Ward Valley would be able to accept virtually all radioactive debris except for the spent fuel from nuclear reactors.

After more than a decade of study and debate, the Clinton administration has delayed transfer of the land to state hands until more studies are done to make sure radioactive waste won’t leak into the river.

In response, Wilson has appealed to Congress to pass legislation transferring the land without further study. Sponsors of the legislation, pending in the Senate, are repeating Wilson’s argument that on-site storage of waste at universities and biotech firms jeopardizes public safety.

In Sacramento, officials of the Wilson administration insist that the proposed export ban on radioactive waste does not undercut the claim that there is a storage crisis in California.

Elisabeth Brandt, chief administrative law judge for the the state Department of Health Services, said the ban would be waived if an exporter could prove that shipping the waste out is necessary to protect public health and safety.

Brandt argued that the export ban, by ensuring a higher waste volume for Ward Valley, would mean lower costs for the companies and institutions that eventually use the site.

“I am particularly concerned that small research firms, critical to the growth of the state’s economy, not face staggering disposal costs,” Brandt said.

Donald Womeldorf, secretary of the Southwestern Low Level Radioactive Waste Commission, which must approve the ban, said there has been almost “universal opposition” to it from businesses, hospitals and universities that use radioactive materials.

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Alan Pasternak, technical director for the California Radioactive Waste Management Forum, called the export ban “a very foolish proposal” and said it contributed to the false impression that the storage of radioactive waste wasn’t a problem.

“A fire that started after the Northridge earthquake came precariously close to a laboratory at Cal State Northridge where waste was being stored,” Pasternak said. “I know of at least one major firm that is not taking new work that involves radioactive materials because it just doesn’t have any place to put the waste.”

Yet there are indications that the problem of disposing of nuclear waste is not what officials feared it would be 15 years ago, when plans were laid for Ward Valley and similar facilities around the country.

Both the current and past chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission have stated in recent speeches that the United States needs no more than three or four disposal facilities, not the 14 or more under consideration. There are three in operation now, although their capacities are limited.

At the same time, several institutions, including Stanford and UC San Francisco, are employing new technologies to reduce the volume of their waste as well as building new facilities to safely store short-lived waste--radioactive material that loses its toxicity after three to five years and then can be thrown in the garbage.

“We have developed strategies for dealing with most of our waste,” said John Holmes, radiation safety officer for Stanford and three nearby hospitals.

Holmes said he wants to see Ward Valley built. But, he said, “At this point, Stanford does not have a health and safety problem. And I would say we might be in good shape for 20 years.”