---

---

Source: DOE, September 1995; and DOE, December, 1996.

This extended centerfold will discuss IEER's findings on the current policy for the management of these wastes, based on our 1992 study, High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense.² Our analysis includes four key findings:

1. Radioactive waste is inappropriately defined.

Classification of radioactive wastes in the United States is fundamentally flawed in that waste categories are based on the origin of the waste, not on the physical or chemical properties that determine the hazards of the waste, and hence its safe and proper management. For example, "high-level waste" is defined as irradiated fuel from commercial nuclear power plants, or waste resulting from reprocessing.³ "Low-level waste" is a catch-all category, defined as any waste that is not high-level waste, transuranic waste, or uranium mill tailings. A summary of the current waste classification system and accompanying regulatory status is shown in Table 3.

A major problem of this classification system is that it does not systematically take into account actual radioactivity levels of waste either overall or per unit volume. Thus, so-called "low-level waste" can contain materials more radioactive than those classified as "high-level waste." For example, the radioactivity in the most radioactive portion of commercial low-level wastes (300 curies per cubic foot⁴) is actually three times more radioactive than the average radioactivity in high-level wastes from nuclear weapons production activities (see Table 1, "Low-Level Waste Characteristics").

This skewed classification system poses serious problems for waste management and disposal. "Low-level" waste is routinely disposed of by putting it in wooden boxes or 55-gallon drums and burying it in shallow trenches. Cardboard boxes have also been used. As a result, some wastes which are significantly more radioactive than high-level or transuranic wastes (which are slated for deep geologic burial) are disposed of in shallow pits. Another problem is that waste classification is determined without reference to the longevity of the radionuclides in the waste. Both high- and low-level wastes can contain short- and long-lived radionuclides.

Although transuranic (or TRU) wastes are not classified by their source, there are problems with how they are categorized and managed. TRU wastes are essentially those resulting from plutonium production and processing, namely for weapons purposes. The "Curious Case of Curium" box discusses some of the confusing and illogical regulations that currently govern TRU waste management.

2. Existing regulations and plans for long-lived radioactive waste management and disposal are irrational and incoherent.

Regulations for disposal of long-lived radioactive wastes are internally inconsistent and scientifically unsound, raising serious doubts about their ability to adequately protect public health and the environment.

Currently, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations for Class A and B wastes (see Table 3) require institutional controls at low-level waste disposal facilities for up to 100 years because, according to the NRC, after this time, these wastes will have decayed to levels that would pose an "acceptable hazard" to an intruder. But even many of the so-called "short-lived" wastes in these classes are allowed in concentrations that will not have decayed to NRC-defined acceptable levels after this 100-year period.

For example, as shown in Table 2, wastes contaminated with nickel-63 in concentrations up to 70 curies per cubic meter can be buried as Class B waste. At this concentration, after 100 years (the half-life of nickel-63) this waste will have decayed to 35 curies per cubic meter(10 times higher than the Class A concentration limit of 3.5 curies per cubic meter. If this waste were to be retrieved from the disposal site and re-buried, it would still be classified as Class B waste, requiring the 100-year institutional control all over again. Even after more than 400 years, it would only have decayed to Class A concentration levels, at which point NRC regulations would still define it as hazardous for another 100 years.

NRC regulations explicitly acknowledge that some "low-level" wastes will remain hazardous well beyond the time that the institutional and physical controls set forth in its regulations will be effective. The regulations state that:

Thus the NRC admits that the regulatory controls for low-level waste merely push the hazards posed by long-lived radioactive waste into the future, rather than assure that the public and the environment are adequately protected from exposure.

3. The DOE's management of the repository program for long-lived radioactive wastes is exacerbating these problems.

The DOE is responsible for developing geologic repositories for high-level and transuranic wastes. Its high-level waste repository program is at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (see main article), and its transuranic waste disposal project, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), is located in southeastern New Mexico about 25 miles from the town of Carlsbad. Both of these sites have significant scientific, technical, managerial and environmental problems. Timetables for both programs have slipped repeatedly and costs have escalated.

WIPP

The geology and hydrology of the WIPP site cause concern about its suitability as a repository for transuranic waste. Water leakage, cracks in the ceilings and floors of waste storage rooms, rockfalls, and the presence of natural oil and gas reserves below the site (which could invite future intrusion) call into question the ability of WIPP to safely contain wastes that will remain hazardous for thousands of centuries.

The 1992 Land Withdrawal Act requires that DOE comply with EPA regulations for permanent disposal of waste. But DOE and its contractors successfully lobbied to water down the requirements of the EPA compliance criteria. DOE's subsequent Compliance Criteria Application was found to be incomplete and the EPA is requesting additional information. Even if WIPP opens, DOE does not plan to use the site to dispose of existing buried TRU waste or transuranic contaminated soil, which together pose the greatest environmental risk and make up the bulk of TRU wastes. (There are hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of buried transuranic waste and transuranic contaminated soil.)

The DOE has spent $2 billion on WIPP over the last 20 years, and the project has cost $14 to $15 million per month since the late 1980s, even though no waste has been put in the repository.

Yucca Mountain

Like the WIPP site, the Yucca Mountain site has significant technical problems that may make it undesirable as a high-level waste repository. The site is located on or near 32 active fault lines, including one which intersects the underground storage rooms; it cannot be certified to meet EPA radiation release limits for high-level waste for carbon-14; there is a potential for volcanic activity in the area; and rainwater percolation into the site is a concern, as is the possibility of the water table itself rising and flooding the repository. Finally, though proponents of the Yucca Mountain repository imply it is a suitable site by describing it as a "remote desert location," the land around Yucca Mountain is used as a source of food and water: Yucca Mountain is located on land claimed by the Western Shoshone people, and there is a farming community 20 miles from the site.

Rather than recognize that the problems with the site may pose unacceptable exposure risks if used for high-level waste disposal, the DOE and much of the nuclear industry have chosen to argue for more lax disposal standards and repository suitability criteria. After it appeared that the Yucca Mountain site could not meet the EPA carbon-14 standard, Congress passed a law signed by President Bush exempting Yucca Mountain from this high-level waste standard applicable to all other repositories (see "The Road to Yucca Mountain"). In another example of sidestepping Yucca Mountain's technical deficiencies, in 1995 an ad hoc committee of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences made a recommendation for standards setting that would result in the abandonment of explicit groundwater protection, and could exclude from consideration those individuals at risk of receiving the highest radiation dose (see editorial by Thomas H. Pigford, who dissented from this recommendation).⁶

4. Taken as a whole, current policies entail high risks in terms of both economics and environmental protection.

DOE's cost estimates for disposal programs have continually escalated though little has actually been done to properly manage and dispose of radioactive wastes. For instance, high-level waste repository costs in constant dollars increased by about 80 percent from the time work under the 1982 legislation began to 1990. At WIPP, DOE's estimates of operation costs for the first 5 years have jumped from $531 million in 1989 to roughly a billion dollars in 1996.⁷ DOE estimates WIPP's lifetime cost at $8.4 billion.⁸

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted in searches for low level waste facilities under legislation from the 1980s that transferred responsibility for low-level waste disposal to the states. Billions more are being spent to stabilize uranium mill tailings, and to fix the problems caused by past shallow land burial of low-level and transuranic wastes at commercial and military sites. DOE estimates the total cost for cleaning up the waste generated by nuclear weapons production activities alone will be $227 billion over 75 years.⁹

Given the illogical waste management regulations, technically-flawed repository sites, inadequate provisions for disposing of TRU waste inventories and DOE's history of mismanagement of repository programs, it is unlikely that current radioactive waste management policies will result either in minimization of risk to future generations or wise use of financial resources.

1. A cubic meter is about 1.3 cubic yards. The weight per unit volume of waste varies widely from fractions of a ton per cubic meter to several tons per cubic meter, depending on the density of the waste.

2. This report is currently out of print, but photocopies are available from IEER for $5. Key portions of the report are also available on this website.

3. Reprocessing is the chemical treatment of irradiated reactor fuel to separate it into its constituent parts: plutonium, uranium, and fission products. It was used throughout the Cold War primarily to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. See SDA Vol. 5 No. 1, Energy & Security #2 and IEER's report, Risky Relapse into Reprocessing

4. A curie is a unit of radioactivity equal to 37 billion disintegrations per second. If a radioactive element is present in the amount of one curie, it means that 37 billion nuclei of that element undergo radioactive decay in one second, and thereby become transformed into another element.

5. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 10 CFR Part 61.55[a][1] (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1988).

6. For more on the 1996 NAS report see SDA Vol. 4 No. 4.

7. DOE, The 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report, Volume III New Mexico-Wyoming, DOE/EM-0290, (Washington: US Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis, June, 1996), p. 79, New Mexico section.

8. ibid. This estimate does not include transportation costs or waste treatment costs. Furthermore, it excludes costs for 68 of the 100 years of active institutional controls to be employed at the facility after its scheduled decommissioning in 2038. See "Reader's Note," p. 82.

9. DOE, The 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report, Volume I, p. 4-1.