SPECIAL STAFF REPORT
Feds still ponder long-term policy solutions
Illinois babysits nuclear wastes

ILLINOIS has the nation's largest commercial radioactive waste storage facility. It is a fact no one is proud of. The stuff is dangerous and no one knows quite what to do with it — the curse of the nuclear industry. Over 400 metric tons of highly toxic, long-lived spent fuel are now temporarily being stored at the General Electric plant near Morris in Central Illinois. The plant itselt is a monument to the frightful difficulty of radioactive waste management. It was originally designed as a reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel, but after four years of construction and $67 million in expense, mechanical problems had rendered the plant inoperable — a white elelphant. General Electric, its stockholders and customers absorbed the loss, and Illinois began to absorb the high-level wastes from more than 50 nuclear power plants across the country. G.E. apparently felt it had a responsibility to begin storing the wastes it had hoped to reprocess into new fuel, so the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed it to do just that. The wastes come in by truck and rail and include both fission products and by-products, deadly isotopes like strontium 90 and plutonium 239 — and other nasty numbers. Besides the stored spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors, classed as "high-level" wastes, there are also scraps of atomic garbage such as rags, paper trash, protective clothing, used equipment, and so on, which must be dumped. In Illinois, these kinds of wastes are currently being buried at a commercially-run disposal site at Sheffield, 70 miles west of Morris on 1-80. While the Sheffield wastes are potentially hazardous, the Morris high-level wastes are potentially disastrous if released to the environment. At Morris they are stored just as they come from the reactors in 28 1/2 feet of water inside fragile zirconium alloy containers. The water is contained in 100-foot square pools of reinforced concrete, lined inside with stainless steel. What are in these wastes? Well, there are dozens of radioactive isotopes with halflives ranging from a few days to thousands of years. Two of the more dangerous ones, representing the two technical classes of reactor wastes, are strontium and plutonium.

Strontium is a fission product. That is, it is intentionally created when uranium atoms are split. It is an atomic fragment. Like most other fission products, strontium emits extremely intense beta rays, which cause great heat in storage, but must be stored about 1,000 years. Meanwhile the heat must be dissipated to prevent it from destroying the materials encasing the wastes.

Plutonium, on the other hand, is a fission by-product, a larger atom formed when other nonfissionable atoms capture neutrons. It is the most lethal substance known to humans, giving off the worst kind of radiation — gamma rays. An ounce and a half of it could conceivably cause 300 million cancer cases if equally distributed. It has a halflife of 24,400 years and must be isolated from the environment for 250,000 years.

Options for disposal
But for practical purposes at present there is no difference between the fission products and more dangerous by- products since they are not being separated. Although federal regulations require all spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed so as to remove the valuable radionuclides, uranium 235 and plutonium 239 (which can be used as new fuel in reactors), no facilities are now in operation to do that.

Perhaps it is just as well, since experts

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disagree anyway about whether or not spent fuel elements should be reprocessed and fuel extracts stored accessibly, or kept whole and simply stowed away as quickly and permanently as possible. Unfortunately those who urge the latter disagree as to where the wastes should be placed to best assure safety, or even whether safety is possible on a long-term basis.

The federal government, in its wisdom, regulates transportation and temporary storage of radioactive wastes, but has yet to adopt a long-term policy solution.

A number of options are available. First, there are three conceivable methods of waste management. These are: short-term storage, long-term storage, or disposal. Short-term implies only temporary shielding, maintenance and guarding from accidents or sabotage. It is a holding pattern until something final is decided. Long-term storage requires little or no maintenance. It entails such things as emplacement in underground caverns mined in salt or in basement rock beneath the sea, or sealing up within mausoleums — all 20th century design equivalents of the great Egyptian pyramids. The last option, disposal, means sending the wastes into space, an absolute ridding of the wastes from the earth — but highly dangerous if a shot fails and a ship laden with nasties comes crashing back.

In April of 1975 the federal Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) abandoned plans for early development of a retrievable mausoleum system, and instead began planning for deep geologic repositories. The switch came after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criticism of the proposed Retrievable Surface Storage Facility (RSSF). RSSF had been proposed by the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a stopgap measure to hold high-level wastes for up to 100 years. But EPA said a more permanent method was needed, so in 1972 ERDA began planning and selection of six deep burial sites, some in salt, some in shale and others in granite formations.

This $2 billion plan is expected to insure that at least one site will prove usable. All of the commercial high-level wastes produced by the year 2000 could be accommodated in two of the repository sites. The wastes would be retrievable should trouble develop in the first
few years of storage.

At present the most promising burial site is near Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico in geologically stable salt beds. According to an article in Scientific American last June, "Assuming that everything goes according to plan, the site is expected to be ready to receive its first shipments of high-level nuclear wastes by 1985."

Debate on burial
Ironically, it is not now certain that all will go according to plan. The President's energy advisor, James R. Schlesinger, hopes to cut back the pace and scope of the waste burial program in favor of renewed development of RSSF. Schlesinger has consistently backed the concept of RSSF since the early 1970's, when he was head of the AEC. He reportedly hopes to see the United States build an RSSF as a backup in case political or technical difficulties preclude quick implementation of deep waste burial. At the same time, Schlesinger apparently feels that the scale and pace of the search for geologic repositories can be cut back. Some experts disagree with that assessment.

William P. Bishop, who heads the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) waste management program, says a greater reliance upon RSSF would indicate a "clear lack of confidence in the viability of the geologic disposal concept." Such a move would put NRC "in the logically awkward position of being asked to license reactors that will produce wastes without assurance that the wastes can and will be disposed of safely," Bishop says.

The major spokesman among the scientific community for deep burial of wastes is Bernard L. Cohen of the University of Pittsburg. Cohen says "a substantial body of evidence" exists, pointing toward the safety and feasability of isolating high-level wastes in salt deposits 600 meters beneath the earth's surface.

Despite over 20 years of detailed study "the development of suitable burial sites has not gone smoothly," Cohen admits. An intensive demonstration project at a salt mine near Lyons, Kans., in 1971 proved a disturbingly dismal failure. Exploratory oil and gas drilling in the area had left many drill holes near the site, and when some 175,000 gallons of water mysteriously
disappeared at a nearby salt mine, AEC abandoned the site. The missing water raised the possibility that cracks in the salt formation might allow water to reach the buried wastes — a tremendous hazard, since chemical reactions in the salt might mean that hydrochloric acid would be present in the water, thus corroding waste casings. (Besides which, water itself is close to being a universal solvent.)

The frightening aspect of the Lyons incident is that the final federal environmental statement called the project safe. Had not state officials and organizations protested, the prototype national repository there might have gone forward, with potentially disastrous results.

Despite Lyons, critics of the nuclear industry like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), admit that deep geological disposal is a promising solution. But NRDC, an environmental law group, is calling for a slowdown on implementing such programs, as well as on the expansion of the nuclear industry as a whole, until such time as a safe disposal system is in operation. "It's important to be very deliberative," says Terry Lash, a staff scientist with NRDC, "yet they [ERDA] are running around like chickens with their heads chopped off."

Risk of accidents
Meanwhile, whatever the final disposition of the controversy may be, Illinois is storing a large part of the commercial waste problem at the G.E. plant about seven miles east of downtown Morris. Just how are the wastes being safeguarded during transportation and storage, and what are the risks in case of an accident?

Although the G.E. plant manager has acknowledged that plutonium gases could be released by sabotage, the company has complex electronic and human security systems to prevent it. These include fences, alarms and armed guards authorized to use deadly force if necessary. With terrorism becoming a grisly constant of modern life there is also the fear of highjacking during transportation. "Theft of a fuel rod isn't credible," according to James Blackburn of the Illinois Public Health Department's division of radiological health, which has the prime state responsibility for regulating nuclear

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As for accidents, Richard Fine of G.E. Morris emphasizes that there has never been an accident in the transfer of spent fuel at or to Morris. "We've had over 300 fuel bundles shipped by truck," adds Fine. But he also admits that an accident is possible, if "very unlikely." D. E. Patterson, in a 1967 AEC study of shipping risks concluded "it is virtually impossible to design a package to survive any possible accident." Patterson's study, which is still current, projects 30 accidents per year involving shipments of radioactive materials. But the study predicts that in only three of the accidents will radioactive material "get beyond the confines of the vehicle to the adjacent land surfaces and be available to spread."

Regulations for safety
The basic safety measure adopted by the NRC to prevent shipping accidents is strict package licensing. While regulations vary according to the hazardous quality and quantity of materials, for high-level wastes they are rigorous. "Type B" packages must survive a 30-foot drop or a half-hour fire at 1475 degrees Fahrenheit without leaking. Costing in the neighborhood of $1.5 million apiece, such casks were recently tested by ERDA at Los Alamos. They were not breeched by being driven into a 790-ton concrete embankment at 60 miles per hour, or again at 84 mph. Finally and most incredibly, one of the casks was placed on a stationary trailer and rammed by a locomotive at 80 mph. Though somewhat dented, it did not leak. Clearly, serious accidents at nuclear plants and storage facilities are more likely than during transportation.

In the past most accidents have occurred during storage. For example, in 1973 a serious accident occurred at a military radioactive waste storage tank at Hanford, Wash. The leak went undiscovered for 55 days. It allowed 115,000 gallons of waste solution to seep into the soil, including 40,000 curies of cesium 137, 14,000 curies of strontium 90 and four curies of plutonium — all uncommonly dangerous isotopes. The soil at Hanford is permanently contaminated. The radioactivity there will have to be monitored and avoided for as long as man inhabits the area.

In Illinois a number of less drastic accidents have occurred. Commonwealth Edison was twice fined $25,000 for mishaps in 1974 and 1975. In one case, 700 gallons of radioactive waste water was accidentally discharged, and 19,500 gallons in another. Fortunately both involved relatively low-level wastes.

According to David Stahr of Citizens for a Better Environment, Edison is the second most fined utility in the country. Stahr says, "Edison flaunts its nuclear safety record when health dangers are raised. However, the truth is that Edison's nuclear safety record is the worst among the nuclear utilities." Stahr made the accusations during rate hearings before the Illinois Commerce Commission last year. Robert L. Bolger, assistant vice president with Commonwealth Edison, defended his company at those hearings. "As far as releases to the public," said Bolger, "we are in compliance [with NRC regulations]. We are in compliance today, and to the best of my knowledge and the best of any records I've seen, we always have been."

In June of this year, however, NRC discovered that Commonwealth Edison's Zion power station had been releasing radioactive waste water into Lake Michigan since 1973 without reporting it. NRC said it was considering fines against Edison for failing to report the discharges as required by federal statutes. Again, the releases were of a very low level of radiation, well below NRC limits.

Federal responsibility
With regard to possible accidents at G.E. Morris, Richard Fine says, "The worst thing that could happen would be a loss of water out of the storage basin, causing the fuel to be exposed." Such an accident would be dangerous for plant employees, exposing them to extremely high radiation levels. But Fine calls the occurrence of such a thing "very unlikely," since the storage basins are built to rigid NRC standards, designed to withstand tornadoes and earthquakes.

Whatever the likelihood of mishaps or sabotage, the federal government, not the state, has the primary responsibility of prevention. NRC, ERDA and the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) share that federal regulatory onus. But Illinois does have some input into the control of radioactive wastes, mainly through environmental monitoring under the Department of Public Health. If an accident occurs, the Department of Law Enforcement, State Police and Office of Civil Defense would become involved, protecting the public in the emergency situation.

But the state has no clear-cut emergency response plan. In 1975 a division of nuclear safety was proposed by then energy coordinator for Illinois, Dennis Hayes. Hayes said he was "skeptical of the federal government's regulatory efforts" and said state regulators "can reasonably be described as eunuchs in a ball-bearing world." Hayes says he "argued in a series of memoranda that bounced all over the administration, that the functions should be centralized and placed under the direction of a firm, knowledgeable nuclear authority which would watch over the industry with a skeptical eye .... The issue degenerated into a bureaucratic battle over turf, and in the end — as usual — the status quo won."

State legislation
The state may get some new power to regulate transportation of nuclear wastes under a bill passed by the legislature this year. Under the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act created by S.B. 245 (not signed by governor as of August 4), the state DOT could help federal DOT personnel enforce federal laws, mainly through inspection of truck shipments. At present the U.S. DOT has only nine motor carrier safety inspectors in this region. Radioactive wastes are only a small area of their responsibilities.

Meanwhile the high-level wastes continue to accumulate at Morris. Fine says, "The present facility will be filled in a year or two [Morris has a capacity of 750 metric tons of spent fuel], then we'll babysit the wastes until a decision is made."

At the same time, other radioactive wastes are being shipped in and disposed of at the state-owned Sheffield landfill, managed by the Nuclear Engineering Company. The Sheffield site disposes of "low-level wastes," which basically means anything radioactive that is not from the reactor core. These materials are sometimes just as lethal as high-level wastes. They too are regulated by the federal government and inspected by the state division of radiological health. 

18 / September 1977 / Illinois Issues