October 27, 2000Study: Levels Of Nuclear Waste Unknown
The Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — A Department of Energy study suggests the amount of plutonium and other radioactive contaminants buried at sites around the nation's nuclear weapons complex could be 10 times greater than previously believed.
The DOE listed Los Alamos National Laboratory as having the third-most waste buried or dumped into the soil.
However, estimates for the northern New Mexico lab did not increase much from previous numbers, and lab spokesman John Gustafson said officials believe they have a better idea than officials at some other nuclear sites of what was dumped where and when before 1970.
The Energy Department conducted a two-year inventory in response to a 1997 complaint from environmentalists that the DOE had no idea how much material had been dumped into the soil or buried in flimsy containers near nuclear sites.
Environmentalists say the DOE now should commit to cleaning up that waste because it could leach into water supplies and because there could be so much more of it than scientists had believed.
"Protecting the purity of water is essential," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which asked the DOE to look into the issue. "Development in the West is defined by water resources. It would be irresponsible of DOE not to begin looking at ways this waste can be retrieved and stored."
The report, released this summer, estimates 126,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste from weapons work were buried or dumped into the soil across the nuclear complex. The material studied is radioactive waste with a long half-life, meaning it would take a long time to decay.
The study looked at material buried or dumped before 1970, when the federal government required nuclear sites to package and segregate such waste.
The buried waste has generally been left where it is.
"Historically, with some possible exceptions, these wastes have been considered irretrievable except by extraordinary means," wrote Carolyn Huntoon, assistant secretary for environmental management.
Makhijani believes the department should put a priority on cleaning up contaminated dirt and old radioactive dumps.
Otherwise, he says, the nation's water could end up contaminated with radioactivity, which has been shown to cause cancer.
James Bearzi, chief of the state Environment Department's radioactive and hazardous waste bureau, said it's not clear whether cleaning up some disposal areas from the early days of Los Alamos' nuclear work is the best idea. Many DOE and lab workers say it would be more dangerous to dig extremely contaminated material out of the soil or old waste dumps because it would disturb the material and expose workers and the public to the contamination.
Many of the old disposal areas at Los Alamos are on dry mesa tops and are unlikely to leach in to the aquifer or the water supply, experts say.
Previous DOE estimates said radioactivity in retrievable waste, which would be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, constituted about 97 percent of the nation's contamination and the waste dumped or buried made up about 3 percent. The new DOE study says buried waste makes up about 30 percent of the nation's radioactivity.
The study looked at Hanford in Washington state, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Los Alamos, the Nevada Test Site, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
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