Over the years we have heard the phrase "low-level radioactive waste" (LLRW) used in connection with the idea of establishing a "disposal site" (i.e. dump) somewhere in West Texas take the wastes. Although originally the idea was to have a state agency operate such a facility, the Legislature last year made it possible instead for a private company to license a LLRW dump. And, this dump will be allowed to accept waste from nuclear weapons facilities all over the country. In other words, bringing radioactive waste into Texas can now be a profit-making (and potentially very lucrative) business; the more waste, the more money to be made.

So, what exactly is it that we are contemplating burying in unlined trenches in Andrews County? Does "low-level" mean not dangerous? Or not very radioactive? Or not long-lived? Will there be limits to how much waste will be "disposed of" at the Texas dump? Who will be responsible for accidents and clean-up?

Q: Low-level radioactive waste means stuff used in medical facilities, right?

A: Radioactive medical waste is indeed classified as LLRW, but so is, for example, cesium-137, a material which, under the regulations written for the Texas dump, could give a lethal dose of radiation to an unprotected person three feet away in eighteen minutes.

Q: So what is the definition of low-level radioactive waste?

A: The simple definition, in the United States, is: All nuclear waste that is not legally high-level waste, some transuranics waste, or uranium mill tailings. Not terribly useful, is it? A little simpler (though somewhat less complete) would be to say that LLRW is everything radioactive in a nuclear power plant, except the reactor fuel core. This includes pipes in contact with highly radioactive water for decades, control rods from the core, filters and sludge from cleaning the water in the reactor and fuel pool, and, finally, the entire power plant if and when it is dismantled - thousands of tons of contaminated concrete and reinforcing steel. None of the radioactive elements (radionuclides) in high-level waste is prohibited from inclusion in low-level waste. In fact, not a single radionuclide is barred from being dumped at the proposed site in West Texas.
Those highly radioactive and long-lived wastes are in the same category as radioactive waste from medical diagnosis and treatment equipment. And, the amount of medical waste produced, compared to waste from a power plant, is tiny - over 96% of all LLRW produced in Texas comes from the two nuclear plants in the state.

Q: What do you mean when you say LLRW is "highly radioactive?"

A: Radioactivity is measured in CURIES, which indicates how much radioactive energy is being emitted. One curie is a lot - 37 billion emissions a second, and any of those hitting your body can harm a cell and turn it cancerous. Typically, all of the medical waste generated in a year in all of Texas would give off a fraction of one curie. In contrast, a nuclear reactor generates concentrated wastes that emit thousands of curies every year.
One source of confusion is that the nuclear industry usually talks about LLRW in terms of volume, not concentration of radioactivity. There can be a high concentration of radioactivity in a small package and a small concentration in a large package. The new law has no limit whatsoever on concentrations of most of the radioactive materials allowed at a LLRW dump, and the few limits defined are extraordinarily high. For example, the "limit" on plutonium-239, one of the most toxic materials on earth, would allow many hundreds of pounds of plutonium to be buried in shallow trenches - the equivalent of the plutonium in about 100 nuclear warheads. How toxic is plutonium? If a millionth of an ounce is inhaled, it will cause fatal lung cancer.

Q: Doesn't radioactive material become less dangerous over time as the radioactive elements decay?

A: Yes, this is true, but the real question is, how much time? For radionuclides, time is measured in "half-lives," which is the amount of time it takes for the element to give off half of its radioactivity. One reason that medical radioactive waste is not considered to be as much of a problem (besides its small amount) is that the half-lives of the vast majority of the elements used are counted in hours and days. The half-life of most elements found in nuclear reactor waste is measured in years, from dozens to thousands of years. Even worse, some of the waste expected to go to commercial LLRW sites from federal weapons facilities has half-lives of hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

Another time measurement for radioactive material is its hazardous life, the amount of time it should be monitored and controlled. The hazardous life is considered to be 10 - 20 half-lives. So, the cesium-137 mentioned at the beginning of these questions as being so deadly, has a half-life of only 30 years (though that is twice as long as the license for the dump), but is dangerous for 300 - 600 years. That's a pretty long lifespan for a business!

Q: So what happens to the radioactive waste at a commercial dump in Texas? And what happens if the company operating it goes bankrupt or disappears?

A: Here is how the new law answers these questions:
· First of all, when the waste arrives at the privately owned dump, the state of Texas (that's all of us) takes ownership (though not possession) of the waste. In other words, the company makes money off of bringing millions of cubic feet of dangerous waste into Texas and making us the owners of it.

· The company would be licensed to operate the dump for 15 years, and they can renew the license for 10-year increments after that. But they do not have to renew the license or continue to operate the dump - the company can decide that it has profited enough, close the dump, and walk away. At that point, the entire facility becomes the property of the state. This is also true if the company declares bankruptcy, or even just folds up and vanishes into the night (as has happened at other hazardous dumps). Eventually the whole mess becomes our property.

· Finally, the new regulations have the state assessing the "performance" of the dump site (whether it is exposing the public to dangerous radioactivity) for at least 1,000 years. A thousand years! Is this really an obligation we want Texas to take on? Is this something we want threatening Texans and innumerable future generations of Texans?

For information about helping fight against the establishment of a so-called "disposal" site for low-level radioactive waste in Texas, contact Margot Clarke, Outreach Coordinator for the Lone Star Chapter, at the Sierra Club State Conservation Office in Austin at 512-477-1729 or email her at margot.clarke@sierraclub.org.

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Lone Star Chapter, Sierra Club