LINGERING HAZARDS OF NUCLEAR WASTE

[Rachel's introduction: Despite continuing denials by government, citizens have understood for decades that dangerous wastes were being routinely and deliberately released into the environment as a matter of policy.]
By Kay Drey

More than 20 years ago, environmentalists began warning Missourians that no safe place exists on Earth for radioactive waste. That was even before the Callaway plant began operation, and before it began to fission uranium fuel and generate its first tons of waste. To date no safe, politically viable site has been found, and no technology exists to contain the wastes or destroy their radioactivity.

At the Callaway nuclear power plant, where more than 99 percent of Missouri's radioactive waste is generated, some of the "low-level" waste is so radioactively hot that it must be handled by remote- control equipment or the workers could get a lethal dose. The only radioactive waste allowed to be called high-level is the irradiated fuel after its removal from the reactor vessel; that is, the fuel rods themselves.

All other waste at Callaway must be called "low-level."St. Louisans should know a lot about radioactive waste, because we still have over a million cubic yards of the oldest radioactive waste of the Atomic Age here in our midst.

These historic wastes were generated from 1942 until 1957 for nuclear weapons purposes and now lie splattered in and around the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works buildings near downtown, at the St. Louis Airport, Latty Avenue in Hazelwood, West Lake Landfill next to Earth City, in Coldwater Creek, and along truck and rail routes. A million cubic yards, and no one knows what to do with the first cupful.

A thousand laboratories at Washington University use radioactive materials in research. They share a total of two curies at any one time; most technicians work with only tiny fractions of one curie and treat that with great care and caution.

In comparison, the Callaway reactor vessel while in operation contains some 15 to 20 billion curies, and the spent-fuel pool contains hundreds of millions of curies. No site has been built or even geologically approved for the nation's high-level fuel-rod wastes, and none may ever be.

Some particulate and gaseous wastes leak out of Callaway's 50,000 fissioning fuel rods into the reactor vessel water and some leak into the air inside the buildings. Much is captured and filtered; the rest is released into the Missouri River or the atmosphere. [See Kay Drey's 1991 article on routine releases from nuclear power plants.]When the saturated filters are replaced, they are called "low-level" waste.

That is, the same extremely dangerous fission products that are called high-level waste when inside the fuel rods are called "low- level" when they leak out of the rods. When highly radioactive parts and components are replaced because of accidents, defects or aging, they, too, are called "low-level.""Low-level" and high-level wastes will continue emitting radioactive particles and rays that can mutate and otherwise damage cells of humans and other living creatures virtually forever into the future.

Power-plant wastes have half-lives of hundreds of thousands of years and longer.In 1987 Michigan was chosen as the first state to receive the wastes of the seven-state Midwest Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.

Its citizens and political leaders understandably protested and got their state kicked out of the compact.

Ohio residents are now protesting their status as the Midwest's next appointed host, as will people no doubt do in Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana when each state successively is threatened with becoming the host state.At present, the only "low-level" waste facility willing to accept the nation's commercial wastes -- from nuclear power plants (containing over 91 percent of the U.S. "low-level" radio activity), medical/academic wastes (with only two-tenths of 1 percent), and industrial and government wastes -- is located at Barnwell, S.C.,in a very humid and therefore unsuitable site.

Even though the Barnwell facility is known to generate money for its state's schools, nearby residents no doubt have legitimate concerns.One would think that the federal government would mandate a moratorium on the generation of more nuclear-power and nuclear-weapons wastes until safe locations and technologies are found to isolate the stockpiles that are already burdening countless communities nationwide.

Electric utilities and the public have found nuclear power to be too expensive, dirty and dangerous.

That's why the last viable order for a nuclear power plant in the United States was placed in October 1973 -- 22 years ago.When the Missouri Legislature reconvenes in January [1996], it is scheduled to begin debate on changes to the Midwest Compact. It would be helpful if the legislators and their constituents were provided accurate information about the hazards of Missouri's "low-level" waste. Only then can we be assured that the Legislature will be able to evaluate responsibly Missouri's continuing participation in the Midwest Compact.

==============Kay Drey, University City, is a longtime activist on nuclear issues.