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Nuclear waste disposal

Illinoisans concerned with the proliferating problems of nuclear waste disposal should keep an eye on four key statements issued by the federal government last month. The first is President Carter's annual budget message to Congress, which he sent up to Capitol Hill on January 22. It contains Carter's recommendations on how much money should be spent for nuclear waste disposal and management.

Following Carter's message, the Congress will begin its annual budget cycle of deciding how much to allot for each spending category. Illinois will I have some clout here in determining how much will be spent to get rid of the wastes from the state's seven nuclear reactors, since Rep. Paul Simon (D., Carbondale) will be an influential member of the House Budget Committee. The panel helps set the initial spending priorities. More important to Illinois, however, will be three environmental impact statements dealing with nuclear wastes, The statements, open for public comment, come from the Energy Department. They were issued in the second week in January.

Alternative methods

The key environmental impact statement, according to Energy Department official Alex Perge, will offer alternative methods of getting rid of nuclear wastes. "There are two categories of waste addressed in the draft report," Perge said. The more dangerous category — for which the alternatives are being suggested — is unprocessed irradiated nuclear fuel. The plan is to provide a repository in some geologic formation at relatively great depth for this more dangerous type of waste, according to Perge. Though this is the key solution to be presented to the President and to the public, Perge said there are other alternative plans, which include "a re-evaluation of present policy which prohibits reprocessing of spent fuel." Preventing reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel into reusable nuclear material is evidently a key element in President Carter's drive to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Other alternatives for nuclear fuel disposal, Perge said, would include ejecting it into outer space or burying in more inaccessible portions of the deep sea floor. The environmental impact statement will also suggest that spent nuclear material with a longer radioactive "life" could be "separated out into small packages and disposed of separately."

The environmental impact statement, however, does not recommend any changes in how spent nuclear material is transported, according to Perge. That particular problem alarmed Chicago officials and Mayor Michael A. Bilandic stopped all uranium shipments through O'Hare Airport on December 5, 1977. The related problem of whether all spent fuel should be stored in one place will receive more sympathetic treatment in the environmental impact statement. Perge explained: "There will be a recommendation that a number of regional disposal sites for high-level waste be established. The high-level waste, with most of the radioactivity, will be spread around. This will shorten the transportation lines, and it will also get away from the problems of having just one regional disposal site." That possible solution may please both Mayor Bilandic and the local residents near the Morris disposal site downstate now run by General Electric.

"That regional site plan is also designed to get around interstate jealousy," Perge noted. "If you want to take the goodies — the electricity which nuclear power plants produce — you have to pay the price in terms of allowing storage sites."

However, this environmental impact statement, as well as two accompanying ones on interim storage of irradiated fuel and on the fees to be charged for such storage, do not touch another nuclear power controversy. Indeed, few people in official Washington want to answer the charges raised by an anti-nuclear power group.

Untouched controversy

The group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, forced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reveal a 1975 report on safety ratings of operating nuclear plants. Of the 51 plants surveyed — and the group says that the surveys were desultory and did not check all possible safety problems — 10 plants received a barely passing"C" grade. Five of the ten are in Illinois.

A spokesman for the NRC said that the "C" grade for "below average" safety performance was not as bad as it sounds. "All the plants meet NRC safety regulations or they would be shut down. The grading is for grading normal safety operations, not extreme situations. It's a compliance check of day-to-day safety measures, but the 'C plants will get more inspections in the future."

But while the NRC inspects plants, the waste burial question is still open. Anybody who wants to obtain a copy of the environmental impact statements or comment upon them, or both, should contact Herbert Pennington in the Office of NEPA Affairs, Energy Department, Washington, D.C. 20545. Deadline for comments is usually 30 days after a document is issued — in this case, mid-February.

February 1979/Illinois Issues/35