Friday, October 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Low-level waste repositories draw interest

Senator says Congress might have to set up sites for disposing of growing volumes of medical, industrial materials

WASHINGTON -- Congress might consider establishing federal repositories for low-level nuclear waste, after states have failed to open new facilities on their own, a Senate committee chairman said Thursday.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he was interested in the idea, which was raised during a hearing on disposal for growing volumes of medical and industrial materials that become contaminated with radioactivity.

"I like the suggestion as a practical one," Domenici said. "We have a lot of public land" that could host repositories.

Licensed commercial sites in South Carolina, Washington and Utah that accept low-level radioactive waste will run out of storage capacity or face volume restrictions later this decade, while efforts to open new sites have failed so far, members of the Senate Energy Committee were told.

Domenici said the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will begin work on a low-level nuclear waste bill next year.

"While not an immediate problem, we must now play close attention to prevent a potential future crisis," he said.

Low-level waste is distinct from and not as radioactive as high-level waste generated by power plants that the Energy Department plans to bury at a Yucca Mountain repository over the objections of Nevada leaders.

Domenici did not mention possible locations for low-level nuclear waste repositories.

But a California official who appeared before the Senate Energy Committee said a low-level waste disposal area the Energy Department operates at Frenchman Flat on the Nevada Test Site is underutilized and might be able to store more material while Congress considers a long-term solution.

A 2001 DOE study concluded the test site and a burial site at the Hanford Reservation in Washington are being used at less than 50 percent capacity, said Alan Pasternak, technical director of the California Radioactive Materials Management Forum.

Nevada leaders plan to closely watch the issue, believing the state could be proposed as a possible recipient for more nuclear waste, according to Bob Loux, director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"Clearly, most people in Nevada would just as soon see importation of low-level waste halted to Nevada," Loux said. "Most people believe Nevada has done its share."

A commercial low-level radioactive waste dump that operated in Beatty was shut down in 1979 by then-Gov. Bob List after a series of environmental and safety problems, Loux said.

Michele Boyd, energy legislative director for the Public Citizen watchdog group, said ongoing fights over the Yucca Mountain Project should discourage the idea of creating a national repository for low-level nuclear waste.

"The government's attempt to force a high-level waste dump at Yucca Mountain has been a fiasco and does not bode well for a federal low-level waste dump," Boyd said.

But Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said burial for low-level radioactive material might be "somewhat easier to sell."

Plans for regional repositories have run into opposition from potential host states. Nebraska was sued and has been ordered to pay a $151 million judgment after leaders were found to have plotted to keep a dump from being built in a rural county.

Pasternak urged senators to get the federal government more involved.

"States have failed to provide the necessary disposal infrastructure and are unlikely to do so," he said.

"A long-term national solution might include congressional authorization for one or two disposal facilities, possibly by the Department of Energy or commercial entities, on federal land," he said.

The California Radioactive Materials Forum is an association of public and private groups that promoted nuclear waste disposal at Ward Valley, 21 miles west of Needles.

Efforts by U.S. Ecology to open a Ward Valley dump were abandoned five years ago after meeting strong opposition from American Indian tribes and environmentalists.