The Atom's Global Garbage

Carter unveils a plan for nuclear waste

In rural Cattaraugus County, 40 miles south of Buffalo, the West Valley nuclear reprocessing plant has been shut down since 1973, when the Getty Oil Co. ceased operations there. Meanwhile, the radioactive waste created by the plant is buried in landfill trenches. Some of the poisonous garbage periodically leaks into Cattaraugus Creek, which feeds into Lake Erie, the source of water for Buffalo and surrounding communities.

In France, a reprocessing plant at Cap de la Hague, near Cherbourg, stores its nuclear waste in giant steel tanks. But the tanks leak. The storage area has reached three times the acceptable levels of radiation. Traces of plutonium are being found along the Normandy coast, and crabs in the area have begun to show ulcerous sores.

Examples like these underscore one of the most frightening challenges of the atomic age: how to get rid of a rising flood of radioactive sludge that results from reprocessing uranium to extract plutonium, which is used to make atom bombs and as fuel for fast-breeder reactors. At the moment there is no technology for disposing of this deadly garbage. But the stockpiles of nuclear waste smoldering away in upstate New York are only part of the problem. In addition, each of the nation's 65 nuclear generating stations also produces waste in the form of spent uranium fuel rods, which are stored in dumping areas next to the plant. These storage areas have now begun to fill up, and the power stations have discovered that it is becoming difficult to find additional storage areas--a problem that could soon slow further development of nuclear energy or cause some power plants to shut down altogether.

Last week the Carter Administration took a long overdue step to deal with the nuclear waste from generating plants and proposed that the Government take over responsibility for storing the spent fuel. The companies would transfer the material to the Government on a voluntary basis and pay a storage fee. How many storage sites will be needed and where they will be located has not yet been decided. So far, the industry's inventory of spent fuel is 2,500 metric tons, and by 1985, when some 75 new nuclear generators will have come into production, the backldog will be nearly ten times that amount. Estimates put the inventory for the year 2000 at an awesome 190,000 metric tons.

Though the program is expected to be selfsupporting, the White House will probably have to seek congressional authorization to spend up to $100 million for construction of a storage facility. The Government favors eventually depositing the spent fuel on a more nearly permanent basis in geologic formations like salt beds. But studies to determine the feasibility of such storage methods will not be completed until the mid-1980s.

One aspect of the plan that is certain to draw the fire of antinuclear groups is the President's offer to have the U.S. store the atomic waste of foreign reactors that use American fuel. Spent uranium rods used in reactors can be reprocessed to yield plutonium, which could be used for military purposes. By holding the spent foreign fuel in the U.S., Washington hopes to curb the global proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The industry's reaction to the plan is generally good. Says Gordon Corey, vice chairman of Chicago's Commonwealth Edison, the nation's biggest user of nuclear power: "I'm pleased as punch with the program. It's high time." Until now, atomic-powered electric utilities have had to keep their spent fuel rods in water in large on-site storage tanks that resemble swimming pools. For a time, the U.S. also sealed a small amount of its waste in containers and dumped it into the ocean. That practice was stopped in 1970, but concern about it lingers on. Last week researchers using a specially equipped submarine began an examination of an underwater atomic dumping ground 50 miles off San Francisco. They were attracted by reports that the metal barrels have broken open and are allowing radioactive waste to spread across the ocean floor.

Growing public concern about the environmental impact of atomic waste is hurting some utilities. In California, which has two nuclear generators in operation, worried state legislators last year passed a law blocking the licensing of any additional facilities until the waste problem is solved. A recent Energy Research and Development Administration study reported that as many as 23 nuclear plants may have to shut down entirely by the mid-1980s if alternative storage room is not provided. The Administration hopes its plan will prevent these and other plants from shutting down. If such shutdowns were allowed to occur, the White House would have no hope of increasing nuclear production from its present level of 10% of the nation's electricity supply to the 1985 target of 20%.

Still, no expert in or out of Government regards the plan as anything like a permanent solution to the waste problem. Critics of nuclear power contend the program does not amount to a hill of isotopes; the only way to deal with the deadly waste, they argue, is to slow or even discontinue the development of atomic power. Says Environmentalist Barry Commoner: "All the program does is take a difficult problem off the backs of the utilities and put it on the back of the Government. It's dodging the issues. The real difficulty is that there are no adequate ways of dealing with the waste."

Commoner has a point. Unlike spent fuel rods, which are comparatively easy to handle, a great deal of the radioactive, material is sludge and extremely difficult to contain. This highly poisonous witches' brew is left over in the reprocessing of spent fuel. Much of the present inventory has been produced by the Government's nuclear weapons buildup. The waste is stored in massive underground steel tanks like those near Richland, Wash., Aiken, S.C., and Idaho Falls. It totals 75 million gals., enough to fill a supertanker to overflowing. Because of its intense radioactivity, however, the waste regularly eats through thick concrete and steel tanks and seeps into the ground. The last major spill occurred at Richland in 1973 when 115,000 gals, spilled undetected into the ground, significantly raising the radioactive level in the area. One way to resolve the problem would be to solidify this sludge, package it in concrete or glass and bury it deep in the earth. But as yet no technology for doing this exists, and estimates of the cost of developing one range from $2 billion to $20 billion.

The ultimate nuclear headache, however, is disposing of the reactors themselves. By 2000, there will be roughly 300 nuclear facilities around the U.S., and at least 15 of them will have become obsolete and dangerous to operate. Short of welding shut the entrances and placing the facilities under guard forever, the only solution is to dismantle them and bury the pieces. The difficulty of the task is now being underscored in the desolate Santa Susana Mountains, 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, where a small Government-built experimental generator is being torn down.

Workmen, using remote-control cutting torches and closed-circuit television, are slicing up the reactor a piece at a time. The slabs are then hoisted by a crane into an 8,000-gal. water tank, and will eventually be transported in sealed containers to a burial site in the Nevada desert. The task will take another year to complete and will cost about $8 million. To pull down an average-size commercial reactor today could conceivably cost as much as $100 million, and that cost is likely to soar in the years ahead.

Like the U.S., Europe and Japan are also struggling with the nuclear-waste problem and have yet to devise a way to resolve the issue. In Britain, for example, a reprocessing facility at Windscale on the Irish Sea is now the focus of a highly publicized government inquiry, following a still unexplained storage-tank leak last March. France's La Hague reprocessing plant has been a center of controversy almost from the time it was built in 1961. Critics charge that the aging plant is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Many areas of the plant that were once serviceable have become so radioactive that workers must wear heavy, protective suits. Moreover, the contamination is spreading throughout the facility, and breakdowns have increased dramatically. As for safety, signs inside the plant warn: IF THERE IS A CRITICAL REACTION YOUR BEST PROTECTION IS TO FLEE.

West Germany and Japan both have their hands full trying to dispose of the mounting stockpile of spent fuel at their reactors. The Bonn government, for instance, rapidly accelerated its nuclear electrification program after the 1973 Arab oil boycott, and now has 13 atomic power plants. But the whole program has fallen into a state of semiparalysis as a result of political opposition and a barrage of court injunctions from environmentalists.

Washington's belated recognition of the U.S.'s leadership responsibility in nuclear-waste management is a small but significant step. But it must be followed up with a continuing vigorous effort to resolve the menacing threat of nuclear waste to the safety and well-being of whole populations. Otherwise the full dawning of the atomic age could be postponed indefinitely, with grave consequences for a world already facing the threat of energy shortages.

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