ML20148M768
| ML20148M768 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/31/1977 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY & SAFEGUARDS (NMSS), NRC OFFICE OF STATE PROGRAMS (OSP) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20148M724 | List: |
| References | |
| NUREG-0217, NUREG-217, NUDOCS 8012240031 | |
| Download: ML20148M768 (26) | |
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bii NPC TASK FORCE REPORT ON REVIEW OF THE FEDERAL / STATE PROGRAM FOR REGULATION OF COMMERCIAL LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE BURIAL GROUNDS i-l Manuscript Completed: January 1977 Date Published: March 1977 3..
- 1 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards and Office of State Programs U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C. 20555 l
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l EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
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This is the report of the fluclear Regulatory Commission (i!RC) Task Force L. ~ 3 which examined the programs of the.t!RC and Agreement State, governments to
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regulate the disposal of commercial low-level radioactive waste.
This 1
E report is part of the overall liRC examination of waste management and is h[
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responsive to issues raised by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) and the House Committee on i:
Government Operations.
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The underlying issue explored in this report is that of Federal vs State regulation of commercial radioactive waste burial grounds.
The need for j,
research and development, a comprehensive set of standards and criteria,
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a national. plan for low-level waste management, and perpetual care i
funding are closely related to the central issue and also discussed.
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g Five of the six commercial burial grounds are regulated by Agreement
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States; the sixth is regulated solely by the I;RC (NRC also regulates Special Iluclear Material at the sites).
The sites are operated commer-l i
cially.
The operators contribute to the perpetual care funds for the sites at varying rates.
The States have commitments for the perpetual I
care of the decommissioned sites except for one site, located on Federally owned land.
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Theltays, throu,gh_their regula_torv progrags' have aAquataly ent_ected g
tiie pubh c health and safety.
However, waste disposal is a national
-protiTeTa~and the States have neither the resources nor responsibility to
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develop and implement a national low-level waste disposal program.
The citizens of individual States should not bear the cost of major contingency actions or inadequacies in perpetual care funding for burial sites which l
serve national rather than State needs.
Federal control over the disposal of low-level waste should be lc increased by requiring joint Federal / State site approval, f4RC
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licensing, Federal ownership of the land, and a Federally admin-istered perpetual care program.
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Standards, criteria, and regulations for site selection, operation, monitoring, decommissioning, post-operational maintenance and funding i
requirements need to be either developed or, if existing, need to be j
improved.
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rr The 1;RC should accelerate the development of its regulatory program h
for the disposal of low-level waste.
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- 1 Alternatives to shallow land burial of low level wastes need to be 7
evaluated. Criteria to distinguish between waste to be disposed of by.
shallow land burialo (or alternative commercial metho's)'or sent to a d
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Federal repository. need to be developed.
There is not now a planning base for insuring adequate disposal. capacity without undisciplined site proliferation..However, it'is projected that there is adequate capacity.
in current sites to the year 1990. There is sufficient time to develop
.a national low-level waste management plan, a regulatory program, and' evaluate alternativa methods of disposal before additional disposal'-
sites.need to be developed.
The undisciplined proliferation of low-level burial sites must be avoided.
NRC.should evaluate alternative disposal methods, conduct necessary studies, and develop a comprehensive low-level waste regulatory program (i.e., accomplish the above recommendal tions) prior to the licensing of new disposal sites.
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b APPENDIX B f.!r M
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j HISTORY OF LOW-LEVEL WASTE MANAGEMENT Starting with tne Manhattan Engineering District Program, the AEC generally f rz[I used three methods for disposal of radioactive waste:
dilution and i
n dispersion, shallow land burial, and sea disposal.
Dis.posal of comnercial waste generally confonned to practices utilized.by the AEC's national L
laboratories. Sea disposal was phased out over the past~ decade. Dilution P
i and' dispersion through release of effluents are still permitted under
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existing regulations but with increasing emphasis on maintaining such 9
releases to the environment as _ low as reasonably achievable, most wastes.
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are presently disposed of by shallow land burial. The following ch onology F =:
traces some of the important events in the evolution of the current commercial waste management practices.
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p Chronology of Commercial Waste Disposal Practices
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1940's & 1950's Low-level waste disposal by T
dilution and dispersion, shallow 4
land burial at AEC facilities, P
7 or at sea.
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Commission announces that regional E
l January 1960 land burial sites for couercial low-level waste shall be established on Federal or State owned. land
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sites in Idaho Falls, Idaho and Oak a
Ridge, Tennessee will accept comner-1 cial wastes as an interim measure pending designation of commercial waste sites.
Commission initiates phase out of sea i
June'1960 disposal, by placing a moratorium on 4
issuing new sea disposal licenses.
Existing licenses for sea buriial were D
allowed to remain in effect.
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February 1961 AEC establishes regulations to permit
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comuercial operation of low-level y
burial grounds on Federal or State owned land.
Regulations mainly pro-H cedural with little technical criteria I
g for site selection, etc.
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ks February 1962 AEC in';iates Agreement State program $
which permits Agreement State regula
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- tion of comnercial burial grounds.
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September 1962 Commission licenses first commercial f.5 J
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land burial site located at Beatty, Nevada.
mi 1962 - 1971 Five additional commercial burial sites were licensed by-the AEC and Agreement States.
m May 1963 AEC withdraws interim cormercial disposal at AEC. sites.
q June 1970 Last disposal at sea.
',5 s; September 1974 AEC proposes restrictions on,
burial of transuranic contaminated waste.*
4 Table B-1 summarizes the present licensing and operational status of the six existing commercial waste burial grounds.
Until the early 1970's, no problems were identified in the regulation and operation of the commercial burial grounds.
Problems ubsequently arose at four sites:
fiaxey Flats, Kentucky, West Valley, New York, Beatty, Nevada and Sheffield, Illinois.
A discussion of those problems and additional background information 6 bout the current status of the sites is contained in Appendix C.
None of the problems has created a significant public health and safety problem, but they do illustrate the difficulties facing the regulatory agencies.
They have resulted in irregularities in operation of certain sites and have highlighted the lack of adequate regional distribution of capacity for disposal of low-level waste.
- In 1970, the AEC implemented policies limiting the burial of long-lived transuranic radionuclides (Transuranic elements are elements e
having atomic numbers greater than 92 including plutonium) at AEC operated t
sites. Such waste containing greater than 10 nanccuries per gram were d
sent to retrievable storage facilities. 'The AEC issued a proposed rule nn September 12, 1974 which would have limited burial of transuranic wastes at commercial sites also.
Following creation of the NRC and ERDA, ERDA withdrew the draf t environmental statement needed to fulfill
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NEPA requirements for the rule.
Although the rule has not been implemented, all the commercial burial sites except the Hanford site presently limit the burial of transuranium nuclides as noted in Table B-1.
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e TABLUd_1 Commercial Waste Burial Grounds Originally Licensed Currently TRU Operational location Operator by (year)
Licensed by Accepted Status
- Beatty, Nuclear Engineering AEC (1962)
State & NRC*
<10 nanocuries/ SNM license Nevada Co...Inc. (NECO) gram suspended Maxey Flats, NECO Kentucky (1962)
State
<10 nanocuries/ Open Kentucky gram 3
West Valley, Nuclear Fuel New York (1963)
State 0.1 gram Pu/ft Closed New York Services other elements, yes Han ford, NECO AEC (1965)
State & NRC*
Yes Open Washington a
w Sheffield, NECO AEC (1967)
NRC
<10 nanocuries/ Open Illinois gram
- Barnwell, Chem-Nuclear South (1971)
State & NRC*
<10 nanocuries/ Open S. Carolina Systems, Inc.
Carolina gram
+NRC licenses only Special Nuclear Material.
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a 6 Presently, the West Valley site is temporarily closed due to water manage-ment considerations.
It was voluntarily closed by the site operator in March 1975, af ter the release from the north end of the burial ground of low levels of radioactivity to a local stream.
The tiaxey Flats site is virtually unused, currently, due to economic considerations. A 10 cents per pound excise tax was placed on waste received for burial by the Kentucky Legislature.
This tax makes the cubic foot charge at the site about three times the charge at other sites.
The present Sheffield site is almost full unless new technology can be applied.
Continued use of the remaining portion of the 20 acres depends on technical demonstration of a compact and fill method of trench construction.
Expansion of the site boundaries depends on the outcome of local rezoning hearings as well as NRC safety and environmental analyses.
With regard to program management, it is citar that today's waste disposal system did not evolve out of any grand scheme to meet national.
needs.
In 1960 the AEC published an announcement that it "has determinbd -
that regional disposal sites for permanent disposal. of low-level packaged radioactive waste materials shall be established, as needed, on State or Fed'eral Government-owned land."
The only positive action directed toward implementation of this policy was issuance of a regulation requiring that disposal take place on Federal or State land.
It exercised no posi-tive control over the " establishment as needed" portion of the statement.
It is interesting to note that AEC staff studies in the early 1960's indiccted that the first regional need for a site would be in the North-east.
However, sites in Nevada and Kentucky were licensed be~ fore the one in New York.
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Appendix C
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ss e BACKGROUND It: FORMATION, I;RC AilD AGREEMENT STATE E
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_I_fjSPECTIOil PROGRAMS,. Af 0 REVIEW OF PROBLEMS AT THREE
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COMMER(,IAL BURIAL GROU!10S
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- .s Background Information "I
Six commercial shallow land burial grounds have been licersed fer the
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disposal of low level radioactive wastes.
The locations, operators, licensing considerations, and operational status are summarized in Table B-1, Appendix B.
i Five of the six commercial burial grounds are located in and regulated F
by Agreement States (Beatty, llevada; Hanford, Washington; Barnwell, South Carolina; tiaxey Flats', Kentucky; West Valley, New York). At three of the sites, the f1RC licenses special nuclear material because of a
quantities authorized for possession by the commercial operator. The site located in the non-Agreement State (Sheffield, Illinois) is regulated by the fiRC, although the State licenses and controls activities concerning naturally occurring and accelerator-produced radioisotopes that are not subject to NRC control.
The sites are all commercially operated.
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Nuclear Engineering Company, Inc., operates four of the sites (Hanford, Beatty, Sheffield, and Maxey Flats), fluclear Fuel Services, Inc., operates the West Valley site and Chem fluclear Systems, Inc., operates the Barnwell site. All of the burial grounds are on State-owned land except the Hanford site which is on Federal lano leased to the State of Washington.
The States have assumed responsibility for assuring long-term care and maintenance of all sites although responsibility for the Hanford site will eventually revert to the Federal government.
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The principal operations at a commercial land burial ground are the receipt, temporary storage, and burial in trenches of packagsd radio-active wastes.
The packages are normally buried as received, with no processing or repackaging of package contents.
However, in some cases, the primary package containing the waste is shipped in a reusable over-pack or secondary container which may be required by Department of Transport 6 tion regulations for shipment of the particular materials E
involved.
w An average burial. trench at a commercial burial site is about 300 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 25 feet deep and has a volume of about 340,000
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cubic feet. The volume is not completely utilized since there are voids between packages, and between packages and the earth-fill.
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estimated that; about 505 of the volume is utilized.-)
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Currently, about 2.5 million' cubic feet of wastes are buried each year.
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The approximate cumulative totals of wastes buried through the end of 1975 are shown in Table C-1.
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CUMULATIVE TOTAL VOLVE AIID QUANTITIES OF COMMERCIAL ;%STE B'.QlED THROUGH 1975 3
Volume (ft )
13,100,000
~ Byproduct Material- (curies) 3,300,000
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Source Material (kg) 680,000 y
Special iluclear Material (kg) 1,056 Plutonium (kg) 113 fiRC and Agreement State Inspection program.
- 1..1, flRC and Agreement State licensing and inspection programs address site operatinn and performance in both routine and special cases.
ftRC and.
3 State staffs' conduct routine inspe:tions and independent confirmatory measurement programs to assure that operations are being conducted safely and in accordance with licenses and applicable regulations.
Af ter learnirg of the Maxey Flats problem, !!RC staff collected and.
evaluated environmental samples at the remaining sites during flovember and December 1974.
Additional samples were taken at each of the sites t
a during February 1976.
The results of the i!RC independent samples agreed with. licensee and State analytical results and showed no evidence of significant transport of radioactivity through migration, f;RC staff also found that the licensees and States had initiated environmental monitoring programs which considered the major pathways of exposure to the public.
In addition, as a precautionary measure following discovery of pilfering at the Ievada site, special inspections and surveys at other sites were conducted to rule out similar occurrences.
Agreement State regulatory programs for burial sites receive. annual attention from f;RC staf f during evaluation of the programs' compatibility with the Commission's regulations and provisions for tne protection of public health and safety.
Review meetings involve J3 tailed discussions 0
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4 of each State's regulatory program and procedures.- Waste' burial ground license and inspectian files are reviewed approximately every two years, or more frequently if unusual problems are being expe. :enced in opera-h tion of a site.
Routine site visits are conducted about every three b
years; more frequently if problems are experienced.
During each review, the environmental surveillance program conducted at the site by the State and the. operator, any ongoing special site studies, changes in a
perpetual care funding, major changes in the license, operatinal t.
problems, and contingency actions are discussed.
During the site visits,.
f the general. site operations, the burial procedures being.used, and the onsite and offsite environmental. surveillance activities are reviewed.
During 1976, NRC visited all sites, except the Kentucky site.
The Maxey Flats site was visited as part of a special NRC independent study in 1975.
Review of Occurrences at Kentucky, New York, and Nevada Kentucky - In the early 1970's, Kentucky became concerned about the f5 accumulation of water in completed trenches at the Maxey Flats Burial Ground and the increase in the volume and quantity of viaste being
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received at the site for burial.
Kentucky requiru the Maxey Flats site operator (the Nuclear Engineering Company, Inc.-NECO) to institute a water management program at the site which included pumping water from
. trenches to above-ground storage tanks and installing an evaporator to concentrate the pumped liquids for disposal as solids.
In October 1974, Kentucky informed the NRC of the results of their' special six month environnental study at Maxey Flats.
The study, published in December 1974, concluded that the burial ground was con-tributing radioactivity to the local environment, but at levels which did not present a public health hazard. They identified tritium, cobalt-60, strontium-89 and 90, cesium-134 and 137 and plutonium-238 and 239 in individual samples in the unrestricted environment.
The levels ranged from slightly above background to orders of magnitude above background for certain individual samples.
Kentucky reccmmended further
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studies at the site to assess the long range health and safety significance
.of their findings.
Kentucky expanded their Radioactive Waste Disposal Environmental Study:
Design Committee to include members from other Kentucky and Federal 3
agencies and held a meeting in February 1975.
Ths NRC participated.
t The Committee recommended a six point program for further studies at the Maxey Flats site.
The studies included a deep geology study, a weathered d e. e 9
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zone study, and an environmental-biological exposure pathway study.
The Committee estimated that the cost for completion of all studies would
. @f exceed one million dollars.
M 30, 1975, The Governor of Kentucky, Julian M. Carroll, requested On April the NRC to independently assess conditions at the Maxey Flats.dte and to pro' vide him with findings and recommendations.
An NRC review group was appointed and reviewed information about the site, conducted a site
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visit and met with Kentucky and NECO officials. The NRC concluded, on the basis of their study, that there is no significant public health problem associated with the release of radioactive material from the burial ground and that Kentucky has taken appropriate action to implement L
the recommendations made in their December 1974 report.
The NRC also made several recommendations concerning methods to improve the water management program and to minimize the potential for migration of radip-activity.
Governor Carroll was informed of the results of the NRC is review in July 1975.
He subsequently issued a cress release indicatingt the NRC was responsive to his. request and directed the Kentucky Depart-ment for Human Resources to carry out the NRC's recommendations.
Kentucky has taken action to carry out the NRC's recommendations and has continued an extensive environmental monitoring program.
Several USGS research studies are currently under way at the site.
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An EPA press release in January 1976 focused a great deal of public attention on shallow land burial grounds.
The press release concerned an EPA report which presented environmental data developed during Kentucky's six (6) month study, described various potential migration pathways and drew conclusions from EPA's analysis of the Kentucky data.
The EPA report was reviewed by the NRC and comments provided to EPA.
NRC commented that the report failed to give adequate attention to the public health and safety significance of the data and that the paptr was preliminary in nature since it presented several conclusions concerning pathways for migration of plutonium based on data which the author conceded equally supported other possibilities.
The Kentucky Legislature has imposed a 10 cents per pound excise tax on waste received at the site for burial, ef fective in June 1976.
The tax is intended to assure that adequate funds for any contingency are available.
Prices at other sites are determined primarily on a cubic foot basis and 3 to $3.25/ft3 for nost categories of waste.
The range from $1.25/ft additional tax in Kentucky results in a disposal cost that is 3 or 4 times higher than the charges at other sites.
(7 hi flevada - In March 1976, the !!cvada State Department of iluman Resources 5
initiated an investigation at the Beatty, flevada burial ground following 5
a report by the lluclear Engineering Company, Inc., the Deatty burial F
ground operator.. IlECO had reported to the State that a cement mixer used at the burial ground to solidify low-level liqaid ra.dioactive waste had been used in the town of Beatty to pour concreta s. labs at a local saloon and other private properties.
During the coarse of the State's investigation concerning the use of the cement mixer, the State uncovered (u
evidence that other violations of the company's license had occurred over a period of several years involving remor.i of contaminated tools, equipment, and supplies from the Beatty site by ffEC0 employees.
The State reported its evidence to the flRC and the State suspended I!ECO's license to operate the burial ground on March 8,1976, and the flRC suspended NEC0's license on March 11, 1976.
A Federal / State investigation which was subsequently conducted at Beatty revealed that the contaminated equipment, tools, and material had been.
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f, removed from +he site to the town of Beatty by flEC0 employees.
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evidence was found that any member of the public received a significant radiation exposure and contaminated material that was identified during the survey was turned in by citizens and returned to the flEC0 site.
Subsequently, on Ma'y 25, 1976, the tievada Department of Health and Welfare lifted the order suspending fiECO's State license authorizing p
operation of the Beatty burial ground.
The order f{evada issued suspending ti flEC0's license was based on emergency conditions existing in the vicinity of the burial ground and permitted irmediate action to be taken to eli-O minate any hazard to the public health and safety due to the removal of potentially contaminated items from the burial ground.
The order was lif ted by the State on the basis that the emergency conditions had abated and that there was no significant hazard to the public health and safety at and in the vicinity of the disposal site.
The t!RC has not taken action to reinstate its license to ilECO to dispose of. special nuclear material at the Beatty site and will not act until crmpletion of the Department of Justice investigation.
1 tiew York - In March 1975, the flRC was informed of a water scopage problem at the West Valley, tiew York burial ground.
The State had j
noted increased levels of tritium in water samples taken from onsite..
monitoring stations.
The source was traced to water seeping out of the caps of two trenches.
The flow was estimated to be approximately I gallon per day.
The scepage resulted from the compaction of waste in the trench and the filling up of the trench with water and subsequent seepage through the low end of the trench.
The site operator, F
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Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., (NFS). diverted seepage to a holding' lagoon.
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s flo significant increase in radioactivity in the unrestricted environment
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was detected; h
A meeting of Federal, State and NFS representatives was held at the site 3
on March 11, 1975.
Based on discussions between NFS and State representa-F tives, flFS dispatched a letter informing their customers that they were -
a suspending operation until the-requirements for operation of.the site E=
were' known and agreed to by the State.
EE JNFS requested and obtained anproval from the State. to pump liquids from t
the trenches to a. holding lagoon.
The liquids are subsequently processed ya through the reprocessing plants' low level waste' treatment system and released.
NFS and State representatives held several meetings since ~
March 1975 to' reach agreerrt.nt on the conditions for reope'ning and operating the site.
Several studies t-eing conducted by the State, EPA and USGS are also under way at the site.
As of December 1976, no
.:1 agreement has been reached and the site renains closed.
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DECO'OIISSIONED NUCLEAR FACILITIES w
Decomissioned fuel cycle facilities or power reactors can become p
a major waste quantity upon retirement.
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been identified in NRC's regulations:
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Protective Storage (Mothballing): the facility is prepared to
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be left in place safely for an extended period, which night range from decades to two or three centuries.
Potentially mobile
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radioactive materials are removed from the site.
A1.la operational systems and support utilities are placed in a nonoperation mode.
A continuous surveillance program must be established..
2.
Entombment:
this involves all the decomissioning steps of "E
mothballing, but in addition provides for sealing all contaminated facility components in a high-integrity structure. Such contaminated components might include the pressure vessels and internals of a LhR or the major processing vessels of a reprocessing facility.
3.
Dismantling: all radioactive components and materials which exceed the criteria for unrestricted release are removed from 3
the facility site. Once all the radioactivity is gone, all restrictions on the site are removed. Decomissioning may be undertaken imediately after facility retirement, or following a period of protective storage to allow decay of short-lived radionuclides.
All three of the decommissioning alteraatives have been employed:
-- four reactors at Hanford and the Fenni reactor in Michigan have been placed in protective storage and F
remain mothballed.
-- the Hallam (Nebraska) nuclear power facility has been entombed.
-- the Elk River (Minnesota) reactor was disnantled after shutdown in 1968, and the reactor site returned to unrestricted use.
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Other facilities have also been subjected to these decomissioning technologies.
F However, the most pressing waste management / decommissioning issue before the NRC at this tifae is the NFS facility at h'est Valley, N.Y.
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G Tne NFS site presents a dual waste management problem in that the l
site contains 680,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste in storage, and the General Accounting Office has recommended that
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a waste management program for this material be developed and that W
the site itself be decomissioned.
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NRC has had underway for some time a technical assessment of d
the requirements created by the deactivation of the West Valley facility. The Comission has concluded on the basis of i
M currently available information that the wastes can be stored
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as they are at present until ERDA and its contractors can develop a set of disposal alternatives and their associated E::
Q costs and risks.
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3 The NRC staff will work closely with ERDA to identify those alternatives which are realistic from a regulatory viewpoint.
1 The review of alternatives can be used c.s a focusing mechanism
==f for the concerned parties in negotiation of an agreement for
~ disposing of the waste and in determining attendant financial responsibility.
The GAO has assumed that there is no further use for the West Valley site, and it must be fully decommissioned.
NRC agrees that this is a viable option, but further information is needed from the co licensees at the site (NFS and NYSERDA) as a basis for developing regulatory guidelines (NRC has no regulatory guidelines for decomissioning reprocessing facilities).
d Tne NYSERDA has suggested, in the name of the State of New York, that ownership of the site and responsibility for its contents i
be transferred from NYSERDA to the Federal Government (ERDA).
Negotiations on this question are still in process.
u-Although NRC does not presently have established criteria for f
decommissioning of reprocessing plants we have had Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories prepare,a draft report on such deccanissioning, and it has been made available to the public.
II. sofar as this report is useful for application to the NFS i
situation, it will be relied upon by the staff.
Spec!fic guidelines, tailored to the future use or disposition of
!'I the plant, will be developed as appropriate.
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'lktablitim! IIL15 June l'M7 V Ame 236 Number 6 v
The Disposa of Radioactive
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r A aSIes aom 11ss1on t,eactors A substantial body ofevidence indicates that the high-level radioactive wastes generated by U.S. nuclearpowerplants can be stored satisfactorily in deep geological formations by Bernard L. Cohen yhc task of disposing of the radio-rate of about 600 pounds per second. the total volume produced annually by 3 active wastes produced by nuclear Carbon dioxide is not in itself a danger-a 1.000-megawatt nuclear reac.or is powcr plants is often cited as one ous gas. but there is growing concern about two cubic meters, an amount that of the principal dravcbacks to the contin-that the vast amounts of it being re.
would fit comfortably under a diniug-a
.ued expansion of this country's capacity leased into the atmosphere by the com. room table. The coreparatively small to generate elecuicity by means of the bustion of fossil fuels may have delete. quantit'es of radioactive materials in-
- lear.f:ssion process. Actu'.liy the rious long term effects on the world's volved here make it practical to use wsk is not nearly as difficult or as uncer-climate.The most harmful polhitant re.
highly sophisticated waste management tain as many people seem to think it is.
leased by a coal.hurning power plant S procedures. whose cost must be viewed Since 1957. when a committee of the sulfur dioxide, which is typically emit. in relation to the price of the electric-i4ational Academy of Sciences first pro. ted at a rate of about 10 pounds per ity generated. For a 1.000. megawatt posed the burial of such wastes in deep, second. According to a recent study plant that price is roughly $200 million scologically stable rock formations, a conducted under the auspices of the Na.
per year.
substantial tody of evidence has accu. tional Academy of Scien:cs. sulfur di-The second distinguishing character-mulated pointing to the technical feasi-oxide in the stack et!!uents of a sing!c istic of nuclear wastes is that their po-bility, ceonomic practicality and com-coal fired plant causes annually about tential as a heahh hazard arises not from parative safety of this approach. In 25 futulities. 60.000 c.ncs of respiratory their chemical properties but from the recent years a number of alters.ative discus and $12 million in property radiation they emit. There uppears to be schemesmome of them invohing un.
damage. Among the other poisonous a widespread misapprehension that this der.sca buria!--have also been put for.
gases discharged by coal.but nin; power factor introduces a considerab!c decree e ard, but deep underp.round burial re.
plants are nitrogen osides. the principal of uncertainly into the evaluation of the mains the b;>t understood ar.d tr.ost pollutar;ts in automobik exhausts (a potential hcalth hazards associated with widely favo:cJ solution to the problem large coal fired plant releases as rm.ch nuclear wastes but the truth is quite the of nuclear.vc..tte dinosal.
of thue as 200.00a automobiles do).
opposite. The effects of rrdiation on the in what I. Tows I shall describe th; and b;ntp3 rene. the main cancer-caus-human body are far better understood nature of the ns:es produced by naelc-ing i cut in ci.taret:es. So!;d wastes are than the effects of chemicals such as air.
i.r power rea, ton. cvaluate their po:en. aho r:oduced, pari!) in the fom of tiny pol!utants. food additives and pesti.
tial impact er. pid lie heahh and the ca.
partic;n in the U.S triday such "tinc cides. Rudiation is easy to measure ac-sironment enf outline current plans to particulate" material is censidered see-curately with inexpensive but highly dispose of tNm in !,ccure underpound ond in impr>rtant e eMy in sulfur dia. side sensitive instrumentst indeed, that is repositor;es.
as an air-ro'lutio, t a/ard. app oxi.
wity radioactive isotopes are used so matel) a sisth 01 ai! man made hne-v.idely in biomedical research
.\\ lore-
\\\\r/h:u m; the special characteristics particu%ie pollutien comes from coal-over, a large body of information has
\\ o:
..u r i mt wastes. an.' l..m bun.m : p m w r p!.. % l'imd!) d.eir is been compiled over the years from Im-m do the) Ji:1. tron; the u a an pmAed the a m ine of:.5 s. v !ns h f or a 1.000 man c.spaaue to intense radiation in-in the w: i -
iu.: ot ether f ueh a, cen-me;. a att w.d hi
" e.ccumubic at cimhn;; the atomic-bomb attacks on Ja-6 eihsu
. ' I m th, sat,e at o.u.
a r.a. of almut W p...nds p. r se on.l.
Pan. ruedical treatment with diflerent
,. Bison e n.
ht be Nipful to wn
'c
'I he e asin fi e.. a nucle.a rov er forms of radiation and the inhalation of
- s. seitia;: from :he o; ci a pl m! vi tquival;.
d.:!cr b e:n :he e a.lon gas by miners. 'I he avail ihle data f.i si the ih m 4f a 1?
t ] 8 'Ol' l'.W;;.s.\\ all) L o:tl h) j" 6dlieb of s. !simd"blioniQ t y. o it th e l$ect). map /ed inten'.i%el) h) It J -
j t oi:.";
p! mt Ii.re I'm rr
,d hu p,
- v. a.. 1.
- c. it it tor..! i;u m tional and inicrnational r.:oups, inchid.
, asic...
. J..iu&. v his h i...ai:
til) i.>. '... ', o:
m d'. i w ho r;i the N.dional.\\tademy of Smoces
- , a h er.
! r,t% nhm:st u.n i s.u a a b.
s,
. ire r c p. i.1 for sh siw al.
Conuniitge on the Itiolo;;ical lititets of
g,
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an y.
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lf E,
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...,.,,l.......
l c.
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y s
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o
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9 I
s I
f n
e ss 5 2
l'
,ti l
,0
[
!pg240
,,/
j
/
m 4
1
, Cs '37 f
O l,
/
/
! /
~
n y
- ~3s
,c i 6
I
/q Cnm o
a.#
o 110 330 550 770 990 110 330 550 770 990 01 DAYS IN REACTOR DAYSIMREACTOR
.. BUILDUP OF REACTION PRODUCTS per metric ton (1,000 kil.
which to:cther constitute about 5 percent of the total All the other Fograrns) of uraniurfi fuel in the actise core of a typical U.S. power hotopes hai.n result from nuclear renetions in which uranium nuc!ct reactor of the light. water type is plotted here on two different verti.
In the initial fuel are trommuted by neutron. capture reactiofes, fol.
cal scalt-s as e function of time over the thret. year pernod the fuel lowed in sorae rases by radioactise decay. Leveling off of the curve cu.stomarily resides in the core. The hundreds of products resulting for fasionable plutonluin 239 means that near the end of the cifee.
frone the fasion of uranirm 235 nucleiln the fuel are represented by live life of th r luct this botope is being consumed by fission reactions tuo characteristic f>>slon fragments, strontium 90 and cesium 137, and neutron.captura reactions almost as fast as it is beleg created.
INITIAL FUEL (1,000 KG)
EPENT FUEL (1,000 KG.)
A r
T MOrtTED FISSION e
FHOOUCf3 (35 KG )
2
/
U ss (33 KO)
U235(dhG)
/
t VAR!OUS ISOTO*ES OF 4
PLUTONIUM (0.9 KG )
V THREE i
/
sg
+
e...
YEARS
[
U23s4g7 goy gm y3yo, j
I ff s
e.h
/
1 U33'(4.6 KG.)
j r'p # ( 5 KG.)
CmW (.04 KG)
.51.OCK l>lAGilA.\\! prosido another graphic *iew of the tramfor.
- I mation that takes place in the composillon of the nuclear fuelin n reducing she cn41st rnent"of uranium 235 from 3.3 percentin.ft per.
- j a
cent. I'ranium that is consumed b conecreed into 33 kilograms of as.
idl.t. water reactor os er a three.) ear period, l'or es try I,000 Lito, hortt l 1.wiim ;>rinlucts li.9 kilogrann of sarious hotopes of plutoni.
.]
grams of uranium in the initial futi inad (ira) 24 Lilogrann of ura.
nium 235 and 25 kilograna of uranium 235 nre comumed (center),
um,4.(, kil.:; rann of seraniur. 23/s,.5 kilo; ram of neptuulum 237,.12 i
Lilogram ut americium 243 ml.04 kilogram of curium 244 (ring -
22 I
.E n
,g
.a a.
1
lonizing Itadiation and the United Na.
105I~
ti:ns Scientihe Committee on the Ef.
i
- m fccts of Atomic 1(adiation. The result h a fairly rch.ble set of estimates of the
.-mimum erects of various !ctcls of ra-F 1. ion on the human body.
k'"
hat are the radioactive substances
. _.. i 70 in the waste products of a nuclear
@i 'L 1
.,s
' e,u s reactor. and how are they formed? In n E 6c -
.y.3,.
light. water reactor (the type of nuclear y
.p7
, gg f
plant now in guncral service for generut. 2
\\
i.F ins elect'ricity in this country) the fuel 5 10
\\k 2
V p!
consists initially of a rni.sture of two 5
\\
\\ \\
\\
J 5
isotopes of uranium: the rare, readily g
e.
2" N cs'34 fissionable isotope uranium 235 ;"en.
\\
i Rh"'
riched" to 33 percent) and the abun. g to M (g dant, ordinarily nonfissionable isotope p Pr*
St uranium 238 (96.7 percent). The fuel t:
Y mixture h fabricated in the form of cc.
^*ru ' hi remic pellet > of uranium dioxide (UO ).
V t
2 which a e scaled inside tubes of stainless 8
{g steel or a zirconham alloy. In the course [
/
cmus of the reactor's operation neutrons pro-g N /o duced initially by the fission of some of a to-t purss/
the uranium 235 nucici strike other ura.
nium nuclei. cither splitting them in two {
Tc"s (and thereby continuing the chain reac-5 i
i Sb es I
tion) or being absorbed (and thereby in.
o io-:
3,p es creasing the atomic weight cithe struck y
{
Thrag\\-
nucleus by one unit). These two types of E p,at:
reaction result in a variety of nuclear s
\\
products, which can be plotted as a g.3 j
function of the time the fuel is in the i
ste \\
actm. Usually about three years [sce Cs"5 ff po
,,./
\\
\\
- p illustwtiv.. cn opposite pa.ge).
Po
\\
L The most important reaction m a g
'0" light water reactor is tbc fission of ura-Ratz: spu g
nium 235. which creates hundreds of different products. of which strontium 90 and ec.sium 137. two characteristic 5
io we g
as we if fission fra;ments. constitute abmyt_5 YEARS A.*TER REMOVAL FROf.1 ftEACTOR percent of the total. hnother impoltant rp TrGtTo7iGrIEpture of neutrons by llLAT GENEP.ATED h3 the sariou. radioactis e i otopes in the spent fuct from a nuclear ha uranium 23S nuelci which gives rise to power plant must be atic,wed to chsipais marcly, which nicans that in any lun:-term storare plutonium 2.W. (Actually the neutron. plan tw cankters cont,ining the high-testi unstes must be sprred out os er a fairly large area.
capture renttion firtt yicids uranium The problem can be sub,tantially allesiatut h) resorting to an interim. storage period of about 10 3 sars kut-f r<nn t en 1 Ich the heat genere.ted 13 each canhter wirl hase fatten 239. whit h then deca)s radioactively in c,1f tr> ubcut 3.41.Itowaus.4. afier ut:
1he gra3 curs es trace the contri'vations of the ruure important ra.
tu o steps to plutonium 239.) The pluto-dia mc hqws m tw oscran be ht, which In torn b indicated by the blacis curs e.
M c
nium 239 does not continue to buihl up F
linearly with time, becaux it ma) also h
particip.ne in nut! car reactions. For ex.
ample. a n. deus of plutonium 239 may lowed by a radioacthe deca). !!y the gram of curium 244. Since only 25 kilo-tiwion w nca a is struck h) a reutron. or same token f necenhe neutron tartures grams of uranium 235 are consumed 1
it may aNo:b the neutron to become a beginning with uraniam 235 can rgcc-and a fifth of that amount is converted i
nudeus et l-!a:enium 240. ~I he ta cting livel) ghe rise to ur. nium 236. neptuni. into uranium 236 and neptunium 137 b
ott of the rhuonium 2.W eurve means itm 237 and plutonium 238.
one can casily calculate that only 60 per-
+
thm ne.n tie end of the effective life of cent of the energ>-releasing fiwion reae.
il the inJ ix ' ibis iseiope i being de.
por evet y me ton (l.000 kilogams) tions actually take placc in uranium i
s: toyed E.
ch prnems at usarh the el m amom m the initial suel lead 21 133. Thi:ts one percent occur in pluto-
- j same rat a iht rate at v hkh it h bein
- : kitorrams of uranium 23M :nd 2f 1.ilo.
nium 239. 4 percent occur in plutonium
,and grams of uranium ? i4 me s ons.:
<d in 241 and 5 percent are indneed h> hi:h-H t
s pimem v.
2 m can nho capime a the three. year p. tiod. iede.in; the en.
enern neutrons in uranium 2.tS. I1 hese nemron.mJ become phseanno 2 II.
ii.hment of the cramum 2 4.s I:e n U hgttres. re averages user the three scars 1
'n.h.. a tm n t uher h don or tap-1.cr. e nt to.5 pen o.
lo the pre.. n p"j.,i, the fuel civ.tomarily i in the reat tor.
Il ti a u.:
,. en on anst h ectoe ph.to.
rM n I.ib u 'n
- x of dzs tia. l en.
Near the end of that period ori!> 30 per-mn
-aomum 2 I? can be son c:rs ank pt.1.:
ami the s.. anbun cent of the tr. ion reactions take place m L
.]
er tnl +
capnac et still anmher ih it i. ten anacJ is onnen ted. o,.y uranium 2M. with 5 5 peacent oesort inc
.j s
s ttr
..n s ic ou,
.hf'..
m 1d- - m's of w + 4 tr ot, i,e
.i.
in plutonhnu 219. lit pertrat in plutoui-
..s.
. r 't i luu 2 Il tod i peseent ill utasuutu ? I. In taict i. s.
i.uho.h1:.e d.OL) i: 00i
" i
.o.': b n 61 i and !. s.'. c\\ en a*a.j.
It'.. n l I h I '!. ' ' 11 - t.( 'a! a i.
'Sh siew of the t tillent ptdilse tentroter%v
,]
' ho i.nu ol o -. u u n.' i t ' t ' I :!. I m er the. projected futme tus hna on g;
O t e a. i i, ' t i i :
- a. d
.i
~
u m.. e..'. J..i nRii n vi i t i. ui ' U D ui.e h u.ite 6 it 1 !.o. mi.in h. l c.ni.
3 n'..-, ei....'s.su.
- l'.i. h l.i. e31
\\
Wj
- ia ;o o siw se.e... a n..., car 6.cl.:
in.l. r u i'l ia t. s n I e >c.it.! inside a thiek s
st.iiol.
sinhc.c.ir : lle e w.v.te e.mi.
j i
/
Alb r the peed ti f i. reea...d toaa i
i ti n-se.ctor it
's
&.it ter ses ec.it ters w t:6 then I e W;yr.1 to a l'ederall>
rs
- m. : :!n in eid.r to s hi.. t!n-hi.h. m
.sper i:. J ier.a.it.9 3 fer b:..ial. On ui:h a shi'rt raitio.wtb e b..ll hfe to de par's u a.to fr om a siHe 1.ta3',me;u.
i t.n. (This ten per:o).: 'r ge is p u t n u-watt casic r rner ! ant id!'.:ointo 10 Tl p
E ::fu:
larly impert.mt u hh sc>pe,1 to un i o-so h c.a.ister<. and the e.inhters will 1-e tope su.h a. io.lin.: 111. One of the mo t 't o.-led 'ab mt. 10 met (ts.irart; henec
~
l Funt:Act d.ia et ons insa.n pn.3 co. s hich h... a e.w h u.b.h i.s iH ee.n;* ;. irca of it 0 i
r i
f rcu occ. arts c )
Mf.
f
- @..L I k 4 e-und.dl 10 e.mimr> will pii l
0' evt '.he o; tio:n u. uhl I e to send the tale i.p I t.:45 wguare meter. It lias been F
SPnAY CHM.?tRa spe H iuct to Islb e Jal-refrecessing estim.. ed that an all nitebear U.S. s' Ice-
- i l,
/
plant, where the fuel ;Tn uouhl lv eut trie-rower s.3:.m w ould require rough.
F
~ d' VAPOrt into 3hert lengths, di. solved in as-id and 13 4001 (10* megawatt g !.ints, capable g
. gh_.J)
'l put throu;h a series of chemicubwpara-of generating 400.tiod megawatts at full R,m 5
)
I tion processes to remove the uranium capacity compared with the present av.
1lj md plutonium. which would then be crage electrie-power usa::e of about y
r-asailable to make new fuel. Everything 230.0a0 megawatts. Accordingly the to-FILTEA clse (c.seept for eertain gases, which tal high.lesel w astes generated annuall) l l
/STAu l='!
=j w ould be discharged separately, and the by.m all. nuclear U.S. electric power pieces of the metal fuel pins that do not sysicm wot.!J oecupy an area of less
! s disso!ve in the acid) it referred to as than h.df a square kilometer.
I
.. U:.
l l
),.
..hi;h level" w aste, in addition to all the The main reason for spreading the can.
FAIT l
- 1..
. 'c lission products, which are respomible isters over such a large area is to dissi-I !
['"'
for the bulk of the radioactivity. the pate the heat generated by their radioae.
E]"--
- /
high level wastes would in this case in-tivity.The problem of dealing with this
~, ~
' N j 1 clude the isotopes of neptunium ameri-heat can be substantially alleviated by cium and curium, along with the small waiting for 10 years after the reprocess-amounts of uranium and plutonium that ing operation. at which time the heat a
\\#
d' would not be removed in reprocessing, generated by each canister will have I'
~
owing to ine!Iiciencies in the chemical fallen oiT to about 3.4 kilowatts. The CALCINATEo WASTES y,'
separadons.
advantage of delaycd burial is scen morc clearly when the heating clicct is j !.
"T'hc simplest and most obvious way to translated into the estimuted rise in tem-oivEnTER 1 dispose of the remaining high level pcrature that would result at the surface j
jj wastes (once an economically sullicient of a canister buried alonc in rock of av.
quantity of them began to accumulate) crage thermal conductivity [sce top t/lus.
//
f,,[ [ '
.ould be to bury them permanently tration en p 16]. It is evident that l>uri-
]: STAINLESS.
deep underground. On the face of it al after a wait of a Scar would lead to a i
STEEL such an approach appears to be reason-temperature rise cf 1.900 degrees Celsi-I CANISTEA ably safe. Since all rocks contain traces us, whereas waiting for 10 years would 5
of naturally radioactisc substances such reduce the rise to 250 degrees C. The
}.,,
as uranium. thorium, potassium and ru-difference is critical, since glass devitri-j :: ;
bidium.and the total amount of this nat-tics (crystallizes and becomes brittle) at in 7 9 urtd radioactivity in the ground under temperatures higher than 700 degrees.
h
[j the U.S. down to the proposed nuclear-In rod. of average thermal conductivity I
i 0 w aste burial depth of 600 meters is encr-the maximum ascrage temperature of kl i.J,
f mously greater than the radioactivity in the ro:L just above and helow the burial l
the wastes that would be produced if the depth v.ou!d be reached 40 years after
{!
>1 MOLTEN country were to generate all its electric burial. when the ascrape temperature at f
-]
$sS power by means of nuclear ti'sion. Of the b.irint depth would be increased by 1 i WASTCS Course, the radioactivity of the nuclear 110 dc.gces bce bonom illustratton on i
3 I
wastes is more concentrated but in prin-p ip.Mj. If the canister were to be buried
'NcNGnEES Ch i ' l the biolog.ical c r:et:, of radiation are mal conJuctnity. the rne m tempera.
1 ci !# th"t docs not make Jny dhf,crence; in sah. %hi;!) hat a much grCatCr ther.
' "I I
i 5z l
l e1i generally assumed to have a linear re-ture at the burial depth after 40 years lation to dosage. so that distributin;: a wool ! be Ins: 35 derrecs.
t-----
J
="~
gisen total dosace among more p.:ople la salt an additional uffect rnust be wouhl not chaa;;c the num!:cr of ad.
taken into account. since the heat will CUlttu;NT PLAN for handling hi;:h inet ver se hcalth cifects. (l.f l]@, *',1,ine:n i.t y hv-cause the migration of wa!;r toward the pothe s,i were to he al ant,!,nned. surt :nt waste c.inistcr. Typical nit formations Giisii,{s of the potential healih hayards contain about.5 purcs:nt water trapped radioacin e unsin caih f or their incorpora,
- tc sion into gim cylinder, about 300 centhne.
un torn: nnd 30 centinaten in dianietcr. In from nuclear wastes and all other av in tiny poetets. Ihe soluhility of salt in H
the ningh. sup cotid;r.cai;on procew depicted pects of the nuclear powcr indmtry water increases with temperature, so H
bere H e liquid hiah.tod wa3 e h hnt con.
woubt have to be dr.Niyyjly te3h cd.)
that if the temperaturc on one side of the t
E ric t nin a fine powdcr inude a enicunng
!he detailed proveihires for handlini pocket is raised. more salt will go into
- .inaur troga. t!.en miu uith glamnaking the hi;
- h levd wastes are not set definite, solution on that side.This raises the salt trit tud.l.n.) anni finnH3 mcHed into a black but present indications are that the content of the water abo.e the satura-or gt.w w uin,n the thhk stainhm-steri canh.
ter in w hhh it iu n eninany be stored Put-
".astes wm be.nnorporated into a boro-tion point for the temperature on the muo. t hen cankhr h inn, ihne h mih hed Wieate nlm b,uintar to Pyres). which oppo.ite side of the posket. however, by a dhirtir sabe into n new canhter dm-
^ill be hibricahrd ia the form of cylin-catning the salt to precipitate out of 50 on outh u n bence the proccw h continuum.
dcrs about 300 centimeten long und 30 lution on that side. The net cifect is a
...[
.~.
-j rectmn os thelu,e water pocket in the di.
A. (7' ',.,.
migt.ition of th j,#
.,,,'s-gh;r temperature,which is of course the direction of the buried M '9.. -
I-r ' ' f A. Y A /N M
rf.
' waste cani ter.The rate of the migration
'? T M h g >
~ -c deper.d5 on how rapidly the temp;rature
~
increases with distance, and on how rap-h:;2 9::
7 idly the temperature gradient, as I have
, Stu1 AGE AnEA FOR 7
I,1 f/:f!CD f>AT ERIAL cxpheined, falk off veith time.
This process is c.s.pected to ! cad to the
." ;. l
.=
collection of water around each cunister
- - 6; ' :
$. './
I 1
year: within 25 pars a total of 25 ti-
~
- '. j'J;.,.: -
9 at an initial rate of two or three liters per
.s g:.
'. - T.~If "* " -
ters will have collected, with very little ns 3.. [ G D ?.;
further collection exp cted thercafter.
~
~~
Since the temperature at the surface of f
~
l' the canister would bc higher than the
.2
' ' M..'
. M ' '. '.-l.4 ~ '. l-boiling point of water, the water arriv-
- l.,* 7 ing at the cunister would be converted j
stone coaRAL
- - r;,t.L.
into steam and would be drawn off by the ventilation system (assuming that
..N.'.
the repository is not scaled). Small
~
amounts of water would continue to mi-,
grate toward the canisters af ter 25 years.
2*
carrying corrosive substances such as hydrochloric acid arising from chemical reactions induced in the salt by the radi-
. _, ~ ' '
r 2
ction from the canister, it is therefore t
n usually assumed that the stainless steel 5
casings will corrode away, leaving the 0
- i 2
waste containing glass cylinders in con-SHALE tact with the salt.
1 T.. Tow can one evaluate the health haz.
~
E 11 ards presented by such radioactive wsste naterials? The most dircet hazard is from the gamma radiation emitted by 4
.... ^_
the decaying nuelci. Gamma rays be-have much like X rays except that they 1
arc even more penetrating. The cffcet of
'~
gumma rays (or any other form of ioniz-
, 1
- ~
ing radiation) on the human body is measured in the units called rem. cach of w hich is equal 1o the aruount of radia.
'" - SHAFT FOR HICH LEVEL WASTES if
- i tion that is required to produce the same biological cliect as one roentgen of X vadiation. (" Rem" stands for ~ roentgen equivalent man.") In analyzing the im.
8^
pact of radioact ve wastes on pr'>lic i
health the only significant radiation ef-l' fccts that need to be considered are those that cause cancer and tho<e that induce genetic defcets in progeny. Ac-i cording to the be.si available c>timates.
q
[l,'
for ul.ote body radiation such ::s u ould g
<Y,NN ' W08 R:ep(hh..g.
. m,--- %
& c MS.SW t,m.cronAc.E AnEA FOR HIGH-LEVEL WASTES be dein caeJ b) a snurec of gamma rap.
i J
outside the body the risk of ineuning a i
g( f. W.'$p $ s9,sMg'-
y,r'r S.
T,T g4
.g radiathsn. induced fatal cancer h up.
,i '. M.
- i prosim..tely 1J chances in to.t00 per s
k
.M 0Y:..itO /'p(g y,h;p,sN gi s'
rem of ra.hation es posure. The estiinat-wAstEcAvsTE v W,.:
ed is!. ter total s u oiu.d :eneti, d. l cts
~
1 D
in proA t;) is.t ho u t 1.5 shanies in N
,.N,[,
l0.thl:t pct lef t) of f adiation dwih cied to g'(~,p e
ihe a a...h m.ia e can is srn..I oui
-s s
e
. en ' og(r.d'out th e, coc! atiolis). ht the dis-b cowieta that it l'ol. s !.sh.dl be tel'elrinS 10 fot'Tr.rG 00 METEFG on!v to canirt s. but n should 1 v L pt in udn l h.*t tlP l c.M e lu a.ltlllloa.I MIDra
'"'I'"
I"" "
6.d'-
e i.p., t. in t ir i.*. t.er th tapr le r un sloral:e et bi:h-hisI raelianto r mastes. les th. ide.alved i
is t
. In.illelI h;:1 8 'v! t'l
.e s. '.81, i D. I.
6 Ma d l'h
@l 4
b W b him dw um geoceh del sts e. tm d l') espotute to
.g,., i n ei.
t. a d es a da g n. oN pH sin-e n le a r/ oh. ie aH) mtdc s.s4 iorruation.
3 g
onn
,I
' ;i t in..:.h s :
- J.
ir 'k H b..d pe ne it.e...dsti as thi s n emt; 1.c im.ir*: alnust Itl enrea rs af. art; Ibc t ':a vo.. s i d.uua :e deDJ hs.i I:n. i:a h... t.-r s.amt.t on s,p,i an :er.-a e f ash.na 100 squ. ire un ters. (sse this tsavis the antal
~ ~
,o c.
ene th plots the ::.t:tt'n. sa) eneed, enutte.t pts b ond ca
's att 6 1.:. t!..
w aste s :enhmg f rom ene 1till ye::t e.
a 1.1 ci. r;". f u:.!:= I lu.ed out a!! ::q.
m etear generation of ele. Die powwr [w
~
~.
-rett < *r*:
tlhntrstriert ett
'94 oiWsste pstee]'
I rom such a graph one e.m see that Ier the period isIwten ei;ht.mJ loo
.o.
E after tcp.oecoisy the J.uaio int co ::rL 2
btilit*n t69 tt:e total g.tH"Ha Ta) CinIWen..
O is made l", cesium I t' :m.! its imme [.5 3
-dtate de.a3 p:oJoes tritium 1.tL 1)ar ' b;.i;;;;;;;
m; this four. century rerioJ the total hp
-l 4
, gen,
/
/
s
?
gamma ras b.rrard falls by more than p,n 3
/*
/
four orders of magnitude.
f
[
j One wa> to grasp the potential hazard u uv../,./
/
\\ \\g pre.sented by this amount of gamma ra.
.c t s r..r.
f 3u"-m~
E~
i
- N
\\i diation is to consider what would hap.
?
ren if the source of radiation were to be E
distributed over the entire land surface Y
DURIAL AFTER of the U.S. The number of fatal cancers E'
500 5 7 YEARS (5 KW) gggggg jg ggg gp g goggg hg gg g
high as many millions. Cl.;urly the mate.
rial that gives risc to the radiation must us E
suRIAL AFTER On the other hand, gamma rays are at.'
to YEARS (3.4 MW)
A tenuated by about a factor of 10 per foot in passing through rock or soil. so that g
.ccot
.001
.o1 i
to too YEAns AFTcR suRiAL there would be no danser of this type g from wastes that remam buried deep un. }.
ADVANTAGE OF DELAYED IlURIAL h esklent in this graph,in which the beating effect derground.
cf a single wate canister is tramt.ated into the utiniated rise in ternperature that w suld result A measure of the care that must be at the surface of the canhter if it trere buried alone in rock of nterage thernant conductisity.
"Ihe noinbers labeling each curse Indiente the heat generated by the canister (in kilowatts) taken in handling the waste canisters is af ter a ph en Interim-storage pstiod (in years). The burist after nue 3 ear (top currc) would indicated b} the fact that a dose of 500 "F came a teraperature the of 1,900 degrees Cehim, wherens waiting for 10 } ears (>ntium currc) rem (which has a 50 percent chance of w<>uld reduce the increment to 250 degrees C. Colored area at sco $3 mbolises critical fact that being fatal) would be reccised in 10 gl.tu desltriries (cr36tattises and becomes brittle) at temperatures hi;;her than 700 degrees C.
minutes by a human being standing 10 meters away frora an unshic!ded nc.w waste canister. There is no great tech-nical difliculty. however. in providing shiciding adequate for safe and effective
.h d_
remote handling of the waste canisters.
if any of the radioactive wastes werc to enter the human body. their biologi.
40 YEARS AFTER BURIAL g
7 g gg g.g g, g 4 gg g 8
radiation they would emit wouhl strike human tissue in all directions and since the exposure would continue for some,
9 ico time. Accordinsly one must consider '
y the two major possible entry routes: in.
j.100 YEAnS AFTER BURIAL gestion un I inhalation. The ingestion m
O harard can be evaluated in terms of the y
number cf cancer-causing doses in the g
wastes productd by one year of all.nu.
3 clear clectric powcr in the U.S. [secillus.
d g
p to YEARS AFTER DUntAL tmriors o.r pu.ec 14). In this graph the val.
ue of 10's at 104 years. for example, g u,
$ so rnenns that if all the wastes, after aging i YEAR AFTEn BUntAL for 10.t100 ) ears. were to he ConvertLd into digestible form und fed to people, 11
.a l
~,. soo YEAnS AFTER BuruAt one could capect a million fatal cancers.
F to ensue. This " worst casc*' scenario as.
E y
.sumes, of course. that many millions of !
s m
pcople are involved, but in view of the linear relation between dose and effect
=,
generally assumed for calculating such :
o
- - - - radiation ri>Ls it does not matter how k 9
many milliom there are. "1 he derivation b 0
M
'00 W
DISTANCE AnOVE OR OFLOW BuntAL DEPfH IFEET) of such a gr sph is rather compicX. in. '
AI ANI'.lt 31 AVEltAGE TDIPEftNI CILE nf the rusk ju I alun e and brinn the Imrias vt>lving for cash radioactive species the
<Itpih of the wasic canhart nnuld he reached.80 } cars af ter burial, when the as trage tempera.
probability of tramfer across the intesti. gr leire ut the burial depth wuphs he intreased by ahnus 140 degrees C.11 the wage tanhtir were nal wallinto the bloodstream: the prob. ;..
tu he buried in uit, the corresponding temperalore increments w oulJ be enmiderabis reduced.
ability of trunsfer from the blood into F
- _~ _
r L
y rah buJy organ: the time the radioac.
-~-
hj; ii., s.i utance <,p nds in cach organ: the t
ir::rg;y of the radiation cmitted by the p
substane.c and the fraction of the energy
/
h f
)
HOTTEM nEG4*,P4
{"... /rorbed by the organ: the man of the cooLEh nEGt's WA1ER 7,j organ; the rclative biological cliccts of g
y
- r-d the different kind. c.f radiation emitted.
amt hm:lly the cancer risk per unit of sat.T onECPITAT SA'.T otSSOt.hES radiation absorbcd (in rem).
... _... _...,.; :.: a t;dia.g all this rhdioactive material to IN SAllr the heat frtim the unste canhter wou!d cause the migration of tiny pockets of water.1 pvople is hard!) a realistic scen trio, in the direction or the 14her temperature, since the satt wouta tend to go into sutution on:'_
howcycr. so that one might comider in.
the botter side of the pocliet (ri.;ht) and to precipitate out of solutiosa on the cooler side (fcA).]
stead the conwqucnces if the wastes
~
were to be dump:d in soluble form at random into rivers throughout the U.S.
Actually such quantitative represen. that ground water will come in contacti I or this scenario, which comes close to tations of potential hazards are virtu. with the buried wastes. Icach them intoll awuming the most carc! css credible ally meaningless unlcss one also takes solution. carry them through the averly handling of the disposal problem, the into account the possib!c pathways the ing rock and soil and ultimately into..
- raph shows that a million fatalitics hazardous agents can take to reach man.
food and water supplies. Human expo /
..a could result.1: is unlikely anyone would Therefore I sha!! now turn to that sub. sure would then be through ingestiort l
suggest such dumping but in any event ject. It is generally agreed the most im.
From the analysis of the ingestion route...
it is cicarly not an acceptable method of portant health hazard presented by nu.
outlined above one can deduce that thchi disposal.
char wastes arises from the possibility hazard from ingested radioactive matc0 In evaluating the inhalationhazard by t
far the most important effect that must he taken into account is the induction of ice
~
'O, lung canccrs \\see i!!ustration on page 29}.
b.
Ilcre again the graph shows the conse.
- d quences of a situation approximating go,..
/csm + es"#
h the most careless credible handling of gos i
the wastes: spreading them as a fine powder randomly over the ground
.l throu;hout the U.S. and allowing them e
to be blown about by the wind.
{$o P"*
to' Much attention is given in public s c:
statements to the potential hazards rep-E.
k.
l
- ruented by the scales in such graphs N 105
'p d c.
-l
~
that show the number of cancer > cxpect. 6 d::
J cd if nll the radioactive materials in.
volved were to be ingested or inhaled by l io4 d
r -!.b 4
peopic. One often hears. for example, o io 41r I
that there is enough radioactivity in nu.
8 p,m clear wt.stes to kill billions of people.To E h:
.l d
2 put such statements in perspective it is 3 10 e,m h.lpful to compare the known ha7.ards g 10 ZF
.l 8.j '
d of nu: lear wastes with those of other o u
co" l
r poisonous substances used in large 5
'g e\\
gl, l
quantities in the U.S. [sce (Ilustration 8 b~
t i
a:
m Nec 30). Such a comparison shows t.
w Sb* f gm/
k
[
that there is no:hing uniquely danscreus @
g, 10
\\
/'\\\\
- to ' F about nuclear westes. Nevertheless.,t cs*
ns/
t Am of is ofisn emphaned that raJinactive j
w aun remain hantdous for a lon'; time.
z snm
/
Non;aJioacthe l'arium and nrunic. on
~
g2 4 the 0:hcr hand. t ernin poisionous, for-n2
~
vser. h mi.;ht al:0 be nrgued tnat the gs N
efrit I.wardou, subalances are already gg
,:q to esis'e s.;e. v.!P;rs as nuclear u a:. ten are to 5 y g
(
,d 8
1
\\
- ?O 3 1
a oc.4 cremcJ ha7ard Rom:51) half i f il. L : S up;^ of 19. Wm and ar re.
g,p -
g j
_,,j i
i[
. t
,j
]
> c.t s. a m rently impo.e.l. and to 2 h
- i... ths q lia..o.l are also bliaj. inti o-8 5
to' 10' j
in
,72 10' 10 10
'y ta o om n~.'. nal en.
g3,g g g.r m-mm b
s en -
e.l. (Ing v'. er impori.i.it i'u'ivre
[
s. i..'
rms.: cn e.ics t.n mted. an.! that is \\ f f hl I'litif I lil: A 't !! !! r/. Alt!' rresentos b) radioacabe unstes arisen fram the rauf ma e atLhu i n iu. d I,. me dreasian um tet. 't he hiptoaital dama::r stone to a gauun.i f a) r. i' '
th it i:-v shes.v.- c' g oi.om are not care.
O O'"'I""*
I 7"i#dhH'd' I" b L'""T!')I !*L'Hif In II8is grDP 8 lbf II48Hm3*'d) I'"'IEI' I
li:!!s Ims i. d.' s
- re:gh rpotgad,:s ii the
"*"" ' ' I'"'"t*" I" ' h' " d ' ' '"I'";t I '"" "."u" I " P " *
"'""'*4
"d
-u ua1n i.ui c.l.
[ ?.o: !o: 1I v s t s)sters taaai 1.wmuluc lau 1.optt.aurt:ani t1.HJ w
~1 s
aa
!;no.l..
4.s.. lv. hi.pou ap 1 s ei 't h..
' 4 lis ed as.i h.,i bp 4
2 m
iu.d ; m ma.r.4) hasarit toth b) murr than four criless of nu C*pdtktk
..I I
foutunly *li4 c..!
M 'i s h r ei.. *.s.'
i oii.
- c..Iin i..y..v1,.ir.
- j. o, i.....y.., u,;,,, a,,,,,,,.,..,,,g.y
,,g.. n. n..n n.Our i ar it ui. s
.t..W l
l
..-.....n;.......
In i.ondsed >c. irs. In sas t. ene c.m uit.
ily in sh r on -
...of:,ei.s mou the warwf the bini.d oper.:nons.
.cus!!y of Ir n h.! the (.mi. tere e.dcd sleepinsiste a s et Ih..I aIter Ral pm a t mon I a.uld.'i.q r.. !!-
e..
it h:nc to in;.c t.pprminrod> 1 :ill' :h, d. ;. wr.'
m:m.1 i;n a ctunent a 1:i;imk u ystalline maw.
s
- . :.t9dofthelua.: J w.i te to io.:or a.50 '."ai&delm?: pre ne i i, rrm i l.
S.mt o.e. howes er. v ater does somt-l t...a thance ol sut!cain;: a Icthal c.m.
3.! tor the rit t..i '.ites!w thel > car.s
!.o s mana.:e to 1:et into cracks in the
< t r. It is reasonaHe to conclude that it is in the onine, nme delap iatrinsic to roc!. formation in u hich she waste is
.my co:wtim% rulea e tw e.s. 't he ht:rted. What harts.ns then? The rost fa. u.s > unportant the e.astes be i.ohned i
from human coniaet for the initiit few mo t im; ort.iut of ths...cl.! tional safe.
.mu!d of course tv cho en to Iv imper.
ho:. h ed > cars. ! h:.il first ide up that Maarit h v.to Jo' hhthe.
edon of a vicut to water. so tlw ihere wont.1 be a p eblem but shall rtturn to the hmter. stor ate siic. S h.s h i, Jeer e dh)uco. se.xnd delay wlule the rock was i.eir.;
term one, logical study to be not caly f.ce of cireu. leahed away Ivfor e the waste plass v.as ji When people first learn that noelcar latin.: grotmd a ster now ha Ao likely esi o eJ to w ater, !!.onlJ seem th.: [.
wa tes must be isclated for hundreds of to remain fruc ef it for a. er) lon; time there wou!d not tw much delay in >ah E
> ear <. their immediate response is often to come in t.eehnical ternu a few him.
Ivet.use it is so soluble in water, but in R to say this is virtually impossible: man's dred years is a short time. so that predic. fact the quantitics of unter deep under. I" socid institutions and political systems tions of this kir..I can be hip.ly rutiable. gremnd are not large and the mass of sait I anil the structures he builds rarely last Since the pat: erns in v.hich ground. is huge For example. if all the ground 1 that long. This response, however. is water flows can be chan.;ed by carth-v.ater now dowing in the region of the ba:ad on experience in the environment quakes. only tectonically s:.tb!c areas proposed Federal wa>tc. repository site,_
cncountered on the surface of the curth, would be chosen. Salt formations offer in New hiexico were somehow diverted E....
What one is actually dealing with are additional security in this regard, be.
to flow through the salt it would take I ~
rock formations 600 meters below the cause when s dt is subjected to pressure. 50.000 years for the salt enclosing one s.
surface. In this quite different environ. it flows plastically. Thus it is capable of year's deposit of nuclear wastes to be L ment the characteristic time intervals re.
sealing cracks that develop from tecton. dissolved away.
A third delay arises from the time it would take to Icach away the waste glass itself. There is some uncertainty on this.
10 "
point, and the~ matter is complicated by.
to' the fact that leaching rates increase rap.,
idly with temperature, but it seems fair-3po ly certain that the low rate at which the glass can be leached away will offer con-
~
'O, siderable protection for at least a few hundred years. If new teaching rate g
t; 3p y
studies indicate otherwise,it would not g
_,p g be too ditlicult or expensive to switch to e y ceramics or other more resistant materi-o F
F W als for incorporating the wastes.
U U
A fourth delay arises from the length
$,p
,p 3, 3 of time it ordinarily takes water to reach d the surface. Typical flow rates are less a
g Q than 30 centimeters per day,and typical o 10
'\\
ei z distances that must be covered are tens 7
a $ $ or hundreds of kilometers. For anything p o
io 5
go to travel 100 kilometers at 30 centime.
u Q ters per day takes about 1.000 years.
Md,j
_. gm:4 g Q
The radioactive wastes would not.
Q however, move with the velocity of the '
N Pu24h 10 3
/
eo Cround water even if they went into so.
P lution. They would tend to be filtered :
239
\\
out by ion.cxchange processes. For ex.
g,o s _ Pu \\
./
I ample, an ion of radioactive strontmm 23r /
%.&, m in the Wastes Would of ten exchange with Np l* p an ion of calcium in the rock, with the
,p
/
result that the strontium ion would re-ic"
\\-
main fixed while the calcium ion would L
\\
mo.c on with the water.The strontium ;
spo
\\-
ion v.ould eventually get back into so.
I ludon, but because of continual hold.
,p na225 dare irr ups of this type the radioactive stronti-pg i
um would moec 100 times slower than ;
the water, thus taking perhaps 100.000:
i 39 I
I i
i tTc" l
important wastc components the holdup ;
years to reach the surface. For the other t 10 102 103 104 105 104 7
10 10s YCARS AFTER HEPROCESCING is even longer.
IF A1.L WASTES %I:RE TO lie INCESIT.D, the bl.aoglut cHects on the hmnan poputa.
As a result of all these delays there.isanj-E tien..t the U.S. wouta be comiderable. As thh nrnph sham, the numb c or sanscr.canang extremely high assurance that very[
stuso in the unun pruausca by one par or nit.nurtur aiutric p.r cr in the l'.s. h sush tue ir l
an the wmtn.orur acin:t far in,voo 3 cars, wsre tu be convuica hita di;niitae form n,.d tyd to litde of the wastes will escape throuGil pro,de, one w oula espnt a anluion ratal cancers to enwe b..elr at 1.fi). It tasa nts the watn the Found-water routc during the first j,
wrie in be convnte 1 into soluble form umt irumediately arter ru roccoing dumpa ut randoni few hundred years when they are most L ir.i., then throughout the U.S., the roott conhl again be a ninion tat.utio bcnte at rida).
dangerous. Indeed, the time delays offer T 23
sy subtar.tial protection for hundreds of io'8 s ' '. -
,o thousands of years. I:. hall give no tredit
/ '"m C
for thn f a: tor.hnv.ever. in the following discuwinn of the potential longer. term iott Se**
W hazard.
,c,iar ia i
As we have seen. the "50 percent Ic.
R.
"that" dose of nuclear wastes ingested af.
g e
3 ter 600 Scars would be half a pound. t; 10'* " puras
~
W giu This h Intdly a rotent poison. and its y
^*m /
m2 3
D dangers seem partieularly remote when ci p_ g Q
one comiders that the material 15 care. $
,os
..,,, 3 fully buried in low.leachability form j so2 Q (y notated from ground water a third of a g
'Puru more po::at poisons are routinely kept M Io' Pu,,,, y gb mile below the carth's surface. Many i
$[8 a.2 10 in the home. It is true, however, that 8 nuclear wastes remain poisonous for a 5 s
a
~
very long time, so that they could con.
a:
u i
ccivably present a, hazard.
l'O
~
Np231 /
To evaluate this long. term r, k one n
s.~.
cc5 o
r must develop on estimate of the proba. (
Q pe u.
to' gua /
bility that the wastes will escape into the environment. How can tLs be done? $
Tc" #
\\
~ 'Op5 One way is to make a umparison be.
p c3 H
tween an atom of nuclear waste buried
'O,
~
at a depth of'600 meters and a typical
'O,,
~
ato.a of radium somewhere in the rock or soll above the waste canister, assum.
b I
ing that thewaste atom is no more likely 10' I
I
I than the radium atom to escape and find 1
10 to' 103 to' tos gos got its way into a human being. This would YEARS AFTER REMOVAt. FROM REACTOR seem to be a conservative assumption. IF AR WASTES WERE TO ltE IN![ALED, the most important health hazard would be the I
since "the rock or sod above the waste induction of Inng cancers. In this graph again the scale at lef t shows the total number et cancer.
canister" includes the material near the causing doses in the wastes oroduced by one > var of atl. nuclear electric power in the U.S. The surface. where the crosive forces of scale at right shows the number et deaths espected by the inhalation route if all these wastes
' wind surface runoff, frecze. thaw cy.
were to be spread as a fine powder randomly oser the ground abrou:hout the U.S. In both
= cles, vegetation and to on are active.
this graph and the one on the opposite par,e the short colored line at the lower rlght Indicates It is difficuh to calculate the escape the corresponding long. term heattb huard represented by the natural radioactivity in the probability for an atom of radium in a uranium ore that would be consumed by such an all. nuclear electric. power s> stem in the U.S.
particular area, but the average escape probability over the entire continental U.S. can be estimated. To make such a from the sollinto rivers is the product of probability, and it assumes that all the comparisen meaningful one can assume these two numbers, or 300 grams. Since radium ingested is taken up by the body.,
that the wastes are buried in a uniform radium is a product of the radioactive a factor that increases the trnnsfer prob. ~
distribution over the entire country, but decay of uranium, from the average ability. These problems can be avoided for calculating averages it is equivalent concentration of uranium in rock (2.7 and the calculation can be simplified by '
to assurne that they are buried at ran. parts per million) one can readily esti. estimating the number of human can. :
dom lo:ations across the country and mate the amount of radium in the top cers induced annually by ingested radi.
always at the same depth. When the as.
600 meters of the U.S. as being 12 bil. um (12) and dividing that number by the sumption is stated this way, it is clearly lion grams. The annual transfer proba. number of cancer. causing doses of radi.
conservative: one would think that by bility is the ratio of the aunual transfer um 11 the top 600 meters of the U.S. (30 t making u<c of all the information avail. to the total quantity. or.000000025 per trillion). The first quantity is obtained r :
ab!c from geology, hydrology and li.
year. Thc inversc or this number.40 mib from actual measurements of the' thology one could choose a burial site lion years. is then the avera;c lifetime of amount of radium in cadavers com. E
'i that w.,Id be rnuch securer than a ran. rock in the topf00 meters of the U.S.
bined with generally accepted estimates !
domly chosen one Theiefore the assumption is that cath of the risk of a person's getting cancer ;
llaving made these two basic mump-atom of buried nuclear waste has less from the radium. The result for the an.
Lions-random burial and an equal es.
than one chance in 40 million of escap. nual transfer probability obtained by,
care prob.1bilii) fer atoms of w;Ne und ing each year. About one part in 10.000 this method is in close agreement with :
a radium-one nccJ only estiman the av.
of river llow in the U.S. is ingested by the figure derived by the preceding i
~.
ciaN Probability that an atom ef radi. human beings, but owin;; to various pu.
method. It therefore is reasonable to i um in the top 60d r.cters of the U.S. will ritication procewes the fraction of thi.
multiply the dosage scale in the inces.
escape. One appi cach has two steps: cab radium in rivet flow that is inusted is tion graph on the opposite page by cul.itin the prob..Niity that a radium clo>er to 1.5 part in 10'.t000. \\lultiply..0000000000004 (four chances in 10 l 5
utom v.i!! e>eare fro:n the soiliaio riv.
ing this ovmber b) the annua! probabili. trillion) to obtain the number of fatali.
p~. eis and raulti; lyia. this number by the ty for e.eape into rivers (.000000025).
ties expceted annually from the nuelcar psobabihty tint a rhen sample of wmer on, Imally obtaim the tobl imnual wastes produced annually by un all.nu.
v ill be in,es!nt by.. human beim 't he transfer probab.hty of a radium suom tieur U.S. electric power system.
hrst few hundred years of stora:;e dur incra"..on. cra.mn of radiora in riv.
from the rock i'un : human being. It i:.
What all of this means is that af ter the ers Un o r:ams per 10 tiiPion liter >) an t rou;;hly t'our chanecs in 10 trdhon i
C.c to:.d.nnnal t..rvr llow in U.S s is eis Th.re are at ! cast tv.o !!aws in this ing which we would be protected by the '
11 $ sp... !r dhen hicis) use knov a quan.
ealinlation. It i..nos ca tramft r threu;h time dehtys diseuned above, one con!J !
Im
& anno,1 transfer of rmlium food a factor that redwes the transfer expect about.000001 fatality per year '
F
l or h s..ittributable to the Imrivil waste.
life that micht be h <t to burkd saJioae. three orders of inaputu.le greates th m
, 1... this toll is a l.ltd up. it comes to.1 tive wa.tes.
the result obtaineil n!we !ct the wa.se.
't... ay li.r the hrst million > cars phr.an
' lim 3 on :na long time v.ife oudvar hem.m all.noclear g oaceil.ptem s ' wwial four fatalities over the m st pmu r mini b.
b weil w. + me:in< of if the risk ot in c ting radioactiu luo million years.
deamia:t the ea th of radi%io u). I his u aste materials w ith feo.1 or water is $o Iact becomes intniaisely dear ahen one Imv. what alumt the rhk of inhalmg
' } f enc is to consieler the publie.heelth considers thet ewry atom s i us amum is them us airborne p.irticulate matter?
2 cifects of radionetivity over sm.h de.hned. vento.dly to dee..) with the
't he potential h.varsis from inhalin;:
l lori:: periods one shmdd alsa t.de into. emiwien nf eichi alpha p.mlo thcli. such materlat, ure much greater anl d
unount the fact that nuclear puwer um nuclein. hmr of them ra(ally fo!!ow. leu}er. lasting th.m the h.u.u J, frem in.
I horns up uranium, the principal sourec ing the (crmation of radow.n. 'I hr ouJh gesti.1; them. It is dillicult, huwes er, to f could be released as uirhorne parti of radiation expo'.ure for human beings the breathin.; precess namre kn Frosid, ima;:ine how huried nuclear wastes tmlay. For example. the uranium in the cd an easy pathway for redon to gain cround under the U.S. is the source of entry into the human bo.ly. In nuclear lates. The largest nuclear bombs yet p p
the radium that causes 12 fatal cancers reactors the uranium atom is converted considered would not diaturb material in the U.S. per year. lf it is assumed that into two fission. product atoms. whieh at a depth of 600 meters. Sleteorites of',..
the original uranium was buried as se.
decay only by the emissic n of a beta ray suflicient size to do so are extremely n curely as the waste would presumably (an electron) and in some cases a gamma rare, so that their uverage expceted ef.._
be, its eventual health effects would be ray. Roushly 87 percent of these emis-feet would be a million times lower than Li greater than those of the buried wastes. sion processes take place before the ma.
that from ingestion. Volcanic eruptions E in other words. after a million years or terial even leaves the reacten moreover. in tectonically quiet regions are also ex. ((.
50 more lives would be saved by urani. beta rays and gamma rays r.re typically tremely rare: morcover, they disturb...
um consumption oct year than would be 100 times less damaging than alpha. par. comparatively small areas. so that their [=;
lost to radioactive waste per year.
ticle emissions. because their energies effcets would be still smaller.
The fact is.however.that the uranium are lower (typically by a factor of 10)
Rc! case through ground water could now being mined comes not from an av.
and they deposit their energy in tissue in lead to a small fraction of the radioac. u g
crage depth of 600 meters but from less concen'. rated form. making their tivity being di.spersed at the surface in I h
quite near the surface. There it is a biological effectiveness 10 times lowcr. suspendable form, but calculation indi. i.7 9
source of radon, a highly radioactive The long term effect of burning urani. cates that for this pathway to be as haz. -
gaseous product of the decay of radium um in reactors is hence a reduction in ardous as ingestion all the wastes would
- p that can escape into the atmosphere. Ra.
the health hazards attributable to radio. have to be dispersed through it. Wastes y
don gas is the most serious source of activity.
dispersed at the surface would also
..q radiation in the environment. claiming in this connection it is interesting to constitute an external radiation hazard thousands of lives in the U.S. per year note that coal contains an average of through their emission of gamma rays, according to the methods of calculation about 1.5 parts per million of uranium, but another calculation demonstrates used here. When this additionallactor is which is released into the environment that this hazard too is less than that of 3 aken into account, burning up uranium when the coalis burned.The radon gas ingestion.
t in reactors turns out to save about 50 from the uranium released by one year None of the estimates I have given so 1
lives per million years for cach year of of an all.cos!. powered U.S. electric. far takes into account the possible re.
E all-nuclear electric power in the U.S..
generating system would cause about lease of nuclea'r wastes through human more than 100 times more than the.4 1.000 fatalities per million years, a rate intrusion. Let us therefore consider that
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NUCLE AR WASTE S (AFTER 100 Y3AnG) b L
1 10 102 jos gp gos go6 io jos jos t
ugots[
goso 10H 1012 gois go LE tHAt. DOSES i-CO.\\lPAltlSON Ol' llEALTII IIA 7.AllDS prnented by high.les el wasto..\\lurenver, the nuthor notes, actiernical pohans are not care. { -
radio.nthe wastn from a uclear reacton with those of other pnhon, fully terried deep underr,ruund as h the plan for the nuo
- w ast n; 6.
hm subst. men routinely used in large quantitin in the ILS. denoun.
Indecil, snuch of the nrsenic h used as a herbicide and he we is rou. p 6 train that there b nothing uni juely dangerous about the nm har tinely scatterrd around on the pround in regions where for 4 is grown."
i l:::
possibility, f1mied waste wouhl not be ios
~
..a A httrMiive tarpel for Mahotcuts bc.
cause of the great bmount of time, cf.
fort, eq'tipment and personal danger f
b"., that wout.1 bc needed to remove it. Only j
arclease th*ou3h madvertent human m.
' trusion.sah ns drilling or mining.n.:eds g
to be considered. The current plan h to cu E
L, )
b M
retain Gon rnment ownership of reposi.
tory si:cs and to maintain yurvei!!ance gd in and long.histmg warning sign 6. so that y this prob!.m would exht only if there g were a tot.tl collapse of civili/ation. One M of the criteria for the choice of a reposi. d tory site is that there be a lack of valu. qg able mirarals and the prospect of dis. L covering them. (Indeed, the principal d@g factor delaying the development of the proposed New hicxico site is the possi.
bility that it may hold potash deposits.) H in t
@Q Nevertheless. if there were random ex.
pioratory drilling in the area at the rate of the current nverage " wildcat" drilling S
for oilin the U.S., the effects would still be much less than those of release in 10-8 ground v.atcr. If there were mining in the arca (presumably for minerals not now regarded as valuabic). the opera.
tions would have to be on a scale up.
'O,
proachin:; that of the entire current U.S.
' \\:
'O
'O#
1N
'O coal.minh; enterprise before their ef.
YEARS AFTER DURIAL OF WASTES fcets would equal those of ground water relcase.
DANGEit FTt03! INGESTED WASTES can be shown to be very great at rtrst but much less [
Wastes buried in sah might seem to be af ter a few hundred pars. As this graph shows, after 600 years a person would have to ingest [
. a poor risk against the possibility of approximately hatt a pound of the buried wastes to incur a 50 percent chance of contractinat intrusion by mining, since salt is wide, a fatal tancer. Sush a calculation su;: gests that although it h alously very important to too.
ly mined. The quantity of salt under. late such wastes from human contact for a few bundred years,it is tess imperative thereafter.
ground, however is so huge that on a random basis any given area would not be mined for tens of millions of years.
Again the probabilhy of release through moving operations. Therefore guarding options for our descendants to exploit this pathway is comparable to that buried nuclear wastes would only serve for materials. hiorcover, we are b arning through ground water, cxcept that here to reduce that already small toll.
hydrocarbons-coal. oil and, gas-at the.
the wastes arc in insolubic form and, if Even if guarding should be consid. rate of millions of tons cach per day ingested much less likely to be taken up cred advisab!c. it would not be very ex.
depriving our descendants not only o.
by the bcdy. A pathway would seem to pensive or diliicult. Once the repository fuels but also of feedstocks for making :
exht thron;h the use cf salt in food, but is scaled the gua ding would consist plastics, organic chemicals. pharmaccu.
only 1 percent of the salt mined in the only in makinge7iohe insrections of ticals and other useful products. These U.S. is so used, and it is purified by al.
the surfEielicaMITout ib milcL~uarc burdens are surely far heavier than any l lowing insoluble components to settle for the wastes from 1.000 > cars of all. conceivabic burden resulting from the e out. Thus exposure through this path.
nuclear power-to make sure that the appropriate burial of nuclear wastes.
wa) wout.i be reduced roue,;hly to that warning signs are in good order and to What makes this comparison particu.
thtough the use of salt in industrial see that no one has uncspectediv unt tr.
larly pertinent is that the only way we i
preresses. All in nil, then, the proba. taken minim or,dTeiriEGfinTidi. can compensatc our descendants for the bility of the relea'e o! sto:cd nu:! car tion occa3ional v atWEijEs might be materials we arc denying them is to,
umtes through human inmion is les drawn from nearby rhers and wells leave them with a technology that will :
than th.d of their relea e thrpu;.h to check for increased r.uhouetivity. cnable them to live S reasonable com.
~
pround v ater, ilence keeping watch on the wastes ac.
fort without these materials. The key to :
cumulated over 1.000 yects of albnucle. such a technology must be cheap and :
I t b often said that b) producing radio, ur electric po.cet in the U.S. would pro.
uhundant energy. With cheap and abun..
aet h e c.a.tes our cenera titu. places an vide a job for onl) one person at a time.
dant energy and a reasonable degree of !
unia.ui...Me Lenbm en f eture pe.ca.
perhaps the best v.ny to put it.io per.
insentivenen man can lind substitutes !
tivin u n quiring the:n in go ud apin,:
spective the hm Jtn we ue phemp on for nearly anything: virtually unlimhed 11.3 n I.
.I1.ie ;t 4.ould I'r!le rsc.
Our descenJanh by sucing nuclear quanlities of iron und aluminum for orni. e.i t'...t the e.wnate ef the hc.thh wastea h to temroe that burden with metals. hydrogen for fuels and so on.
- iliccis of nutlear sau s I have yhtn-Wrs w e are pl.s ins on them. Probably Without cheap and abundant energy the a cu nt.ul.t f aialh,. for ea,b 3 ear of the s orst will is ihe burden reuhing options are much narrower and mint W ns !.: ptmer
.w as bned oa no from our (on'.un plion of Ihe c.o th's surely lead back lo a quite primitive es. ;
- e'.
.! :dl. 'll., niinnir u m. Je.
hinhpade mir.ial roocrees. WPhin a islence. It seems clear that we who aie [
ined D "I a comp. ' t.oa with t.nhnm, les renei nium o sh.dl b ne uwd up alhe today owe our dexecndants a 'E
..e i u ab.b : t% s om.ii)'s all tiie u oil iN < i ono*ui..dly rt con r.
soorte of cheap and abundant energy. t
....:. gi.us to ; a wn. (N.a h o.n able o.p;'c. ha..... i.v t.'ai s. I a.1 a m t The vnly su.h source we can now guar....
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