Radioactive Waste Dump Sites

Your Dec. 3 article and Dec. 4 editorial on radioactive waste disposal appear to have ignored important information. Because of the impasse over Ward Valley and the high cost and other problems associated with shipment of radioactive waste to Barnwell, S.C., most medical research facilities and other users of radioactive materials have been forced to store such waste on site for many years. [I’ve been informed that] the University of California campuses alone are currently storing on site 5,271 cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste. When you add this to the radioactive waste stored at the many other medical facilities, universities, military, commercial and industrial facilities, it is not surprising that the volume of such waste sent to commercial disposal sites has dramatically decreased.

The Utah facility can only accept limited types of very low-level waste and there is no guarantee that the Barnwell facility will remain open for disposal of radioactive waste generated outside of South Carolina. Many institutions are running out of storage space for these wastes. These facts alone attest to the need for the Ward Valley facility. The California chapter of the American College of Nuclear Physicians views the decrease in volume of radioactive waste shipped out of state as one symptom of the problems we face, rather than as an indication that the status quo is satisfactory.

MARVIN B. COHEN MD

President, California Chapter

American College of Nuclear

Physicians, Los Altos