Low-level wastes must be stored somewhere
Radioactive Waste: Whose backyard?
In June 2002, an American public already worried about airplanes and anthrax received a sharp reminder of yet another anxiety: the chance of nuclear terrorism in the form of a so-called "dirty" bomb.
Such devices, which federal officials believe Al Qaeda operatives planned to use in the U.S., would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials, causing sickness and increased cancer risks, but above all panic. Investigators speculated that terrorists might attempt to obtain the materials needed to build a dirty bomb in the U.S., rather than smuggling it in from abroad.
The episode was a sobering reminder of the dangers that radioactive materials represent and the necessity of controlling even "low-level" wastes.
Radioactive materials are used in a wide variety of industrial, medical and academic applications. According to Richard Ratliff, head of the Texas Department of Health's Bureau of Radiation Control, Texas has more than 2,500 sites licensed to use radioactive materials.
Radioactive substances are used in everything from the manufacture of smoke detectors to oil and gas exploration. About two-thirds of all modern medical procedures--not simply cancer treatments, but blood tests, angiograms and other relatively common procedures--involve some radioactive materials.
These materials vary greatly in the potential danger they represent. Smoke detectors, for instance, contain only tiny amounts of nuclear material, and many radioactive sources used in medicine lose their potency within days or even minutes. Other "hot" substances, however, are far more dangerous.
Going to waste
Radioactive waste is divided into two broad categories: high-level and low-level waste. High-level wastes, produced primarily by atomic power plants and atomic weapons programs, are regulated entirely by the federal government. Low-level wastes generally are the responsibility of the individual states.Low-level wastes can include a variety of items including contaminated machinery, gloves and protective clothing, waste paper, syringes and other disposable medical equipment. About 95 percent of all low-level waste in Texas is the least hazardous kind, in which radioactivity that will decay in a relatively short time; the remaining 5 percent is more dangerous and will remain so for far longer. The Bureau of Radiation Control recently estimated that 43 sites around the state generate about 29,000 cubic feet of low-level waste annually. In addition, two Texas sites process and compact about 27,500 cubic feet of waste sent from other states each year.
In Texas, several state agencies share regulatory authority for radioactive materials. The Bureau of Radiation Control licenses users of radioactive material, registers radioactivity-producing equipment, inspects licensees and enforces pertinent state regulations. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), formerly the Natural Resource Conservation Commission regulates the disposal of low-level radioactive material except for naturally occurring radioactive wastes produced during oil and gas exploration, which are the responsibility of the Texas Railroad Commission.
Location, location, location
Since the beginning of the atomic era, Americans have reached a nearly uniform consensus on where nuclear waste should be stored: somewhere else.In July, the U.S. Senate decided the fate of the administration's proposed depository for high-level nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain, Nev. will begin accepting the nation's 100 million pounds of high-level radioactive waste, ending a contentious, decades-long search for a final resting place for these substances.
This quest has been mirrored by Texas' 21-year effort to establish a low-level disposal site. The Legislature created the Texas Low-Level Radiation Waste Disposal Authority in 1981 to plan, create and operate a low-level waste disposal facility.
In 1991, the authority recommended a site near Sierra Blanca and applied with TCEQ for a license in March 1992. Studies--and controversy--continued until 1998, when TCEQ commissioners unanimously voted to deny the license request. In 1999, the Texas Low-Level Radiation Waste Disposal Authority was abolished and its duties assumed by TCEQ.
Gone missing
The Bureau of Radiation Control estimates that 53 sites around Texas are storing nearly 38,400 cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste. About 26,300 cubic feet of that is located at the two Texas waste brokering plants, and another 3,000 cubic feet is kept at Texas' two nuclear power plants, the South Texas Project in Bay City and TXU's Comanche Peak power plant in Glen Rose. That leaves more than 9,000 cubic feet of radioactive waste scattered among dozens of Texas universities, medical facilities and private companies.Proponents say a Texas low-level waste disposal facility would improve security by concentrating these materials in a secure facility, an important point given the current international climate and the frequency with which radioactive sources are lost or stolen.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently reported that nationwide about 300 radioactive sources went missing each year between 1996 and 2001. Less than half, 44 percent were recovered. A Bureau of Radiation Control incident summary for the third quarter of 2001 report eight incidents of lost or stolen radiation sources in Texas, five of which had not been recovered at the time the bureau prepared the summary.
Most such incidents involve tiny amounts of radioactive material posing no significant threat to public health. This is not always the case, however. In March 2002, for instance, a Hertford, N.C. scrap-metal plant found a discarded industrial gauge with a "significant" amount of cesium. According to an official with the Federation of American Scientists, it was enough to build a dirty bomb capable of contaminating 40 city blocks.
Richard Ratliff says, "If we had a waste site in Texas, we'd have one place that could have much greater security. We wouldn't have to worry so much about the waste being a terrorist target."
Where to build?
Most of Texas' low-level waste ultimately is sent for disposal to a facility in Barnswell, S.C., one of only two functioning low-level waste disposal sites in the nation. The Barnswell facility, however, intends to stop accepting waste from other states in 2008, underlining Texas' need to find another solution."The situation gets more critical every year," Ratliff says. "The South Texas Project replaced their steam generators this year, so they've got [the old ones] in a secure storage area awaiting a disposal site."
He downplays the risks posed by a low-level facility.
"The low-level stuff is fairly innocuous, and the risk from a low-level disposal site is minimal. Your biggest risk is having it above ground, kept at individual sites."
And Texans are by no means universally opposed to the creation of a waste facility. The citizens of Andrews County have testified for three legislative sessions that they want a low-level waste site to generate jobs.
The Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club believes Texas should look to the major sources of radioactive waste for storage answers. Erin Rogers, project director for a recent report on low-level radioactive waste in Texas, says that since 96 percent of the low-level radioactive waste generated in Texas is produced by the two nuclear power plants, "it makes economic sense, and safety sense, to keep that waste where it is, rather than building huge dumps that would become national dumping grounds."
Moreover, when a nuclear plant is finally decommissioned, "the plant itself becomes low-level waste," Rogers says. "So keeping the sites there, and hardening them and protecting them against terror attacks, could be a very viable option."
Rogers also notes that four of six low-level waste depositories in the U.S. have been closed, and all four leaked. One, in Sheffield, Ill., which closed in 1978, is now a Superfund site.
"Our options for getting rid of our low-level waste are dwindling," says Susan Jablonski, TCEQ's low-level radioactive waste specialist. "Currently, there's no alternative for the waste that goes to South Carolina. Right now, we don't know where that waste is going to go."
Storage at a nuclear plant, however, would require federal legislation.
"[The power plants'] licenses don't allow them to take possession of waste, only to store their own," Jablonski says.
She also notes that "Those older storage facilities were not done under the current [federal and state] rules."
All of them simply buried waste in trenches, with no regard for groundwater contamination.
"Actually, the current rules were a result of those sites leaking," says Jablonski. "A site that would be licensed today wouldn't be anything like those sites. The last conceptual design for Texas included concrete canisters, which none of the old sites had. They didn't have redundant barriers. They didn't have a special cap system to retard the infiltration of groundwater. Today, we have better technology, better design and stricter requirements."
Jablonski is confident that, sooner or later, Texas will take steps to dispose of its low-level radioactive wastes.
"There's a learning curve to it," Jablonski says. "It's something that's going to take a lot of open, honest, factual discussion. The technology is there to do it. It's just a matter of coming up with something the public finds acceptable."
Bruce Wright
