Radioactive Waste and Regular Landfills

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

- from Gus Knapp <gknapp@chej.org>

Contact EPA Today to STOP Radioactive Waste From Going to Regular Landfills

Send in Your Comments by May 17, 2004.

EPA Proposed New Rule: Nuclear Power and Weapons Waste to go to Regular
Landfills & other ?Non-Regulated Management?

Email to: a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov    Attn: Docket OAR-2003-0095
or upload them onto EPA?s website www.epa.gov/radiation

The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule (68 FR
22:65120-65151, Nov 18, 2003) that would allow nuclear and mixed waste
to go to places that are not licensed for radioactive materials.  The
goal appears to be to "redefine" radioactive materials, no matter what
their source (nuclear power, nuclear weapons, naturally occurring or
other), based on EPA-calculated and projected risks. The new category of
nuclear materials (once called BRC or Below Regulatory Concern) would
supposedly not need radioactive regulatory controls.  EPA does not
consider all the potential health effects of radiation and hazardous
materials in estimating the risks. They have never demonstrated the
accuracy of their predictions. (See "Summary of EPA Proposal" below for
more details.) EPA?s rule threatens to preempt and supercede existing
state laws that prohibit nuclear waste in solid waste landfills or other
sites. VT, ME, OH, WI, IL, MN, CO, OR, PA, CT, WV, NM, IA, are among
states that have passed such laws and regulations. OK, GA and VA passed
resolutions in one or both houses and counties and towns in many other
states have resolutions against this action.

TAKE ACTION!

 1) Send a letter to the new EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt and
encourage him to withdraw EPA's proposed action. leavitt.michael@epa.gov
Administrator Mike Leavitt, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1101A,
Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20460

2) Send comments to EPA and get organizations and landfill boards to do
so at:
a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov  Docket No. OAR-2003-0095.

The proposal is on the EPA website www.epa.gov/radiation.

3) Let your elected officials know how you feel about these dangers by
sending them a copy of your letter to Secretary Leavitt and telling them
about your opposition to the federal rules that would deregulate and
exempt nuclear materials from regulation.

For more information contact:

Diane D'Arrigo, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), 1424
16th Street NW Suite 404, Washington, DC 20036, dianed@nirs.org, 202
328-0002 ext 16. See NIRS website under Campaigns at www.nirs.org for
more info and actions.  The proposal was published Nov 18, 2003 at 68 FR 22-65120-65151.

Summary of EPA Proposal

1) First, EPA would allow mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes to go
to facilities permitted for hazardous waste only (RCRA C hazardous waste
dumps & processors).

2) Second, radioactive waste (not mixed with hazardous) could be
permitted to go to places that do not have radioactive licenses or
regulations, such as regular garbage dumps or incinerators or hazardous
sites. Since the nuclear waste would no longer be regulated for
radioactivity, it could go to regular recyclers. EPA justifies this by
claiming they will provide an acceptable level of protection from
radiation risk. It seems obvious this would be a problem for communities
around the waste sites, many of which already leak.

3) Third, EPA suggests that a ?non-regulatory approach? to management of
radioactive waste is an option and requests creative ideas for
?partnering? with waste generators or other schemes to relieve the
regulatory burden. Nothing would prevent radioactive materials from
going to recycling facilities and being mixed with the normal recycling
streams which are made into everyday household items like toys,
cookware, personal use items, cars, furniture and civil engineering
projects like roads and buildings.

4) This dangerous proposal dovetails neatly into the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's rulemaking to deregulate and release radioactive
material from control, ironically called "Control of Solids." The NRC is
considering several options for nuclear waste deregulation including
continuing the current case-by-case release procedures, starting new
release procedures that are based on projected risks, sending the waste
to sites that are not licensed for nuclear materials. NRC is claiming
they could approve "restricted" release of nuclear waste meaning certain
conditions would apply but that NRC would not enforce them--someone
else, as yet un-named would.

The upshot is that NRC and EPA are joining forces to allow nuclear power
and weapons waste which is now generally required to be regulated and
controlled, to be released to waste sites and processors never designed
to take radioactive materials and to the marketplace where it will come
into routine daily contact with us, our kids and environment.

5) To make matters even worse, the US NRC and US Department of
Transportation on 1-26-04 finalized new transport regulations (TSR-1)
that would exempt various levels of hundreds of radionuclides from
regulatory control in transit. This will make it easier for NRC and EPA
to deregulate nuclear wastes since they will no longer require
regulation, labeling or control as radioactive material during
transportation. (This is especially distressing in light of increased
security concerns about transportation of nuclear materials that could
be used for dirty bombs. More unregulated nuclear materials will be on
the roads, rails, barges and aircraft.) NIRS is challenging DOT & NRC on this.

6) Finally, the Department of Energy is in the process of a Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement on releasing radioactive materials from
its sites. In 2000, DOE halted the commercial recycling of potentially
radioactive metals from certain contaminated area on its sites, but
could resume it. DOE continues to allow radioactively contaminated
metals out for unregulated disposal and to allow other radioactively
contaminated materials out for recycling or unregulated disposal--soils,
concrete, asphalt, plastic, wood, equipment, buildings, sites and more.
EPA?s Nov. 18, 2003 notice would help legalize DOE?s release of nuclear
weapons wastes from regulatory control.

7) EPA?s rule threatens to preempt and supercede existing state laws
that prohibit nuclear waste in solid waste landfills or other sites. VT,
ME, OH, WI, IL, MN, CO, OR, PA, CT, WV, NM, IA, are among states that
have passed such laws and regulations. OK, GA and VA passed resolutions
in one or both houses and counties and towns in many other states have
resolutions against this action. Notify your state and local officials
to comment and uphold your protections against nuclear power and weapons wastes!

--


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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