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Last revised: February, 1996
Nuke Notes
A Radioactive Waste Dump
Closer to Home
by Tori Woodard
A NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP COULD OPEN UP MUCH CLOSER THAN WARD VALLEY, if the Department of Energy (DOE) is allowed to dump its California "mixed" waste at Livermore Lab's Site 300 near Tracy.
Mixed waste is waste that is both hazardous and radioactive. DOE's plans were revealed in a Draft Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. Waste would be trucked to Site 300 from Livermore Lab, ETEC's Santa Susana Field Lab in Simi Valley, General Atomics in La Jolla, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBL) in Berkeley, The Mare Island Naval Shipyard near Vallejo, and DOE's LEHR facility at the University of California - Davis (UCD).
Livermore Lab generates the most mixed waste of all these facilities, from the nuclear weapons research and development that they are still doing. ETEC researches new designs for nuclear reactors, among other things. General Atomics does nuclear support work for DOE; for instance, they pack tritium into pellets for nuclear reactors. LBL's waste is mostly tritium (radioactive hydrogen) from their civilian research.
Mare Island services nuclear power reactors in the Navy's submarines and warships. Used fuel rods are removed from the ships' reactors at Mare Island, loaded onto trains, and sent to the Idaho National Engineering Lab. Mare Island (like the other five facilities) is sitting on all the rest of its radioactive and mixed waste, and would send it to Site 300.
UCD researches the biological effects of nuclear fallout and radioactive contamination. They are most notorious for putting plutonium into the lungs of over 100 beagle dogs. Because of their research, UCD is now a superfund site. Plans to clean up the site involve sending the waste and contaminated soil to a mixed waste dump such as the one proposed for Site 300. But Site 300 is also on EPA's superfund list for having leaky waste pits. Does it make sense to construct more of the same?
Site 300 is in the San Joaquin River drainage, which means water contaminated there could end up in San Pablo Bay (part of which is in Sonoma County), the San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. Do we dare risk that?
The citizens of Livermore and surrounding communities say "No!" Their group Tri-Valley CAREs has the following goals:
DOE estimates that over the next twenty years their nuclear weapons "Stockpile Stewardship" program will generate more radioactive and mixed waste than DOE currently has in storage from the last fifty years. Fortunately for all of us, Tri Valley CAREs found a very effective way to fight the proposed dump. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the non-radioactive portion of mixed waste. The EPA does not allow burying some mixed waste without "treatment" (treatment means incineration).
DOE's plan included burning the mixed waste in a molten salt incinerator at Livermore Lab. They hoped that would destroy enough of the chemical constituents in the waste to satisfy the EPA; then they would bury the ash at Site 300 or truck it to the Nevada Test Site. Tri Valley CAREs launched a petition drive to kill the proposed incinerator. DOE withdrew their incinerator plan because they didn't want a re-run of the 1988-90 battle in which Tri Valley CAREs killed a rotary kiln incinerator that DOE proposed for Livermore Lab. The Lab suffered a lot o negative publicity over that incinerator, which they didn't want again. The waste must be treated somewhere, or EPA will nix the dump project. The fact that Tri Valley CAREs killed the incinerator at Livermore Lab may undermine the rationale for a dump at Site 300. Why burn the waste far from where it will be buried?
But, I would ask, why burn or bury it at all? Instead, we must find ways to contain the waste and minimize its impact on the biosphere. High lab officials told Tri Valley CAREs that Livermore Lab has already begun talking with commercial (non-military) generators of nuclear waste about the proposed mixed waste dump. If Livermore Lab is designated an off-site disposal facility, their permit could be easily amended to take radioactive waste from commercial facilities such as hospitals, research facilities, and nuclear power plants - the very industries that are pushing hard to open a low level radioactive waste dump in Ward Valley.
For more information, contact Tri Valley CAREs at (510) 443- 7148 or the Sonoma County Center for Peace and Justice at (707) 575-8902.
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