[NukeNet] Fate of "Low-level" Radwaste After Barnwell Closure Discussed

[Mike Ewall]

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071216/NEWS06/712160329
[Visit page for photos]

Article published December 16, 2007

Ohio, Michigan running out of ways to store their radioactive waste
But closing of S.C. landfill isn't sounding alarms yet

[Photo: The radioactive waste dumping site at Barnwell, S.C., appears 
to be set on turning other states away by July. Other states are 
scurrying to find another viable place to store their waste.]

By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Michigan and Ohio are among 36 states that will have a greater 
buildup of radioactive waste after July 1 if a South Carolina 
landfill follows through with its plans to start turning them away.

But the two neighboring states won't likely exchange words as harsh 
as they did in the early 1990s, when both took turns scouring their 
landscapes for a possible site to bury tons of low-level radioactive 
waste from several Midwestern states.

"Like almost everyone else, we're hoping that Barnwell doesn't 
actually close next summer. But by all indications, it will," Thor 
Strong, chief of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's 
radiological protection section, said.

He was referring to the low-level radioactive waste dump near 
Barnwell, S.C., one of only three in the country and one that almost 
all states outside of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain 
regions have relied upon for 36 years.

Open since 1971, the 235-acre Barnwell site has taken in all three 
classes of low-level radioactive waste at its facility near the Georgia line.

INTERACTIVE MAP [http://toledoblade.com/assets/swf/TO347801216.SWF]
SEE: an interactive map on low-level radioactive waste dumps
It is operated by Utah-based EnergySolutions, formerly Envirocare, 
the same company that operates a low-level radioactive waste dump in 
Clive, Utah, some 80 miles west of Salt Lake City.

[Note: that map is missing the 4 leaking "low-level" radioactive 
waste dumps (in IL, KY, NV and NY) that have already been closed and 
the new ones being developed in west Texas. -Mike]

The Utah dump is licensed to accept only Class A waste, which emits 
the least radiation.

Washington facility
Barnwell's only equivalent is the low-level radioactive waste 
landfill operated by U.S. Ecology Inc. at the federal Hanford Nuclear 
Reservation 23 miles west of Richland, Wash.

Low-level radioactive waste runs the gamut from medical clothing to 
nuclear tubing, virtually everything with radiation other than spent 
fuel that's been pulled from reactor cores of nuclear plants such as 
FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse in Ottawa County and DTE Energy's 
Fermi 2 in Monroe County.

A 1998 report by the Government Accountability Office - then called 
the General Accounting Office - acknowledged that low-level waste 
should not necessarily infer low levels of radiation to the layman, 
though, because the definition is so broad.

SOURCES OF LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE
• Pipes, pumps, valves, filters, tools, and equipment inside the 
radioactive part of a nuclear plant.
• Much of the concrete and steel used to make the plant.
• Protective gloves and clothing worn by nuclear workers.
• Filters and resins inside the nuclear plant.
• Test tubes, syringes, bottles, tubing, and other objects at medical 
facilities that came into contact with radioactive material.
• Dead laboratory animals that were injected with radioactive 
material for research.
• Miscellaneous hospital waste.
• Radioactive materials used by commercial and industry firms to 
measure objects and determine their age and condition.
• Radioactive materials used to analyze wells for oil and gas 
exploration, plus other research and development.
• Waste produced during the manufacture of certain gauges, luminous 
watches, exit signs, and smoke detectors that contain radioactive material.
SOURCE: NRC, Ohio State University Extension, and Blade research
Spent nuclear fuel is the only thing in civilian hands classified as 
high-level radioactive waste. Research continues into whether it 
should be buried inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain or some other 
repository the federal government might develop.

Nuclear plants generate most low-level radioactive waste. But it can 
be found in hospitals, medical laboratories, and other health 
facilities, universities, and certain types of industries.

For now, the waste likely will pile up on the various sites where it 
is generated or, in the case of medical facilities and universities, 
taken away by manufacturers or their contractors responsible for 
storing it elsewhere.

Mr. Strong said he doesn't "foresee a resurrection of the earlier 
Michigan siting process," one that fell apart in 1991 over 
consideration of 13,700 acres in Lenawee County's Riga Township 
across the state line from Sylvania and 15 miles from downtown Toledo.

Michigan, Ohio, and five other states - Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, 
Missouri, and Wisconsin - had united to form an interstate compact in 
response to a 1980 federal law that made states responsible for 
selecting and licensing sites.

Michigan, the compact's original host state, was to take the lead in 
establishing a site.

When it failed to do that - in part because of the backlash over the 
Riga Township land - it was ousted from the Midwest interstate compact.

Ohio, which generated the most waste among the Midwest compact's six 
other states, then was assigned the task. It never settled on a site, either.

The controversy fizzled in the Ohio General Assembly largely because 
South Carolina - despite repeated warnings to the contrary - kept the 
Barnwell site open to states outside of its Atlantic interstate 
compact, which includes Connecticut and New Jersey.

States found it easier to pay rate increases than risk the political 
backlash of developing sites within their compacts or on their own.

But such pressures intensified within South Carolina, leading to the 
current dilemma.

David Umphlett, a South Carolina legislator who at first supported a 
bill that would have kept the Barnwell site open to the rest of the 
country through 2023, told a South Carolina newspaper last spring 
that the 36 other states using that landfill "need to get up off 
their backsides and start doing what's right."

"They want to stomp us in the ground and beat us up and say, 'You 
bunch of country hicks.' I'm just getting tired of it," said Mr. 
Umphlett, part of a contingent that killed the legislation.

But Keith Sloan, chairman of the Barnwell County Council and owner of 
a South Carolina accounting and tax firm, said in an editorial posted 
at www.truthaboutbarnwell.com that the current situation has been 
exacerbated by fear mongering. He said it will be a mistake limiting 
Barnwell's clientele, one that will "create an economic crisis in my county."

The landfill provides 15 percent of Barnwell County's budget, as well as jobs.

"Limiting Barnwell to serving only Connecticut, New Jersey, and South 
Carolina makes no sense, unless your ulterior motive is to thwart 
nuclear power," Mr. Sloan wrote.

State on notice
South Carolina's message apparently has gotten through loud and clear 
to the right people in this area.

Yet they seem to be relatively unfazed by it.

Bob Owen, chief of the Ohio Department of Health's bureau of 
radiation protection, said he's "not aware of any move afoot to keep it open."

Roger Suppes, assistant chief of the Ohio health department's 
prevention division, said waste generators have been preparing for 
years, incorporating methods to reduce their waste volume and operate 
more efficiently. There also have been advances in treatment 
technology to help minimize the contamination, he said.

"That's why we're in a better position than before," he said.

The two Ohio health officials, as well as Mr. Strong of Michigan, are 
keeping their fingers crossed for promising options on the horizon, 
including the possible opening of a new low-level radioactive waste 
dump in west Texas.

It would be operated by Waste Control Specialists LLC, of Pasadena, 
Tex., at its Andrews facility on 16,000 acres adjacent to the New 
Mexico border.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is deciding whether to 
issue a final license to the site for the disposal of tons of waste 
already at the site. It came from a former Energy Department 
uranium-processing plant in Fernald, Ohio, 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati.

Federal options
Area officials also are hopeful Congress will offer some federal 
options, such as storage or disposal at secured U.S. Department of 
Energy laboratory sites, including the Nevada Test Site west of Las 
Vegas; the Energy laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Hanford 
facility in eastern Washington.

"I don't think there's that emergency disaster problem," Mr. Suppes 
said, though acknowledging the radioactive material likely will pile 
up before a replacement for the Barnwell site is confirmed.

Mr. Strong said there are "a number of options, none highly likely in 
the short term."

"Clearly, there will be some that will need to be stored on site," he 
said. "Nobody is looking at it as a waste-management crisis if 
Barnwell closes down [to Michigan and Ohio]. For most entities other 
than nuclear power plants, it's a small amount of Class B and Class C waste."

Contact Tom Henry at:
thenry at theblade.com
or 419-724-6079.



Mike Ewall
Energy Justice Network
215-743-4884
catalyst at actionpa.org
http://www.energyjustice.net