The U.S. definition of high-level waste (HLW) has included all spent reactor fuel plus all wastes from the reprocessing of spent fuel. As indicated in Chapter I, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed a new U.S. definition of HLW according to concentration levels of certain radionuclides in reprocessed fuel wastes. The EPA definitions set broad limits for long-lived radionuclides (half-lives greater than 20 years).' Such standards can be based on health and safety considerations or on concerns to establish regulations governing the safe transport of nuclear materials and operations at waste treatment plants. For the United States, these definitions serve mainly to provide descriptive information about the different types of waste. Although categorizing nuclear waste appears useful for management purposes, arriving at an effective strategy for disposing of this waste has proved costly and difficult. High-level nuclear waste contains radionuclides whose half-lives require essentially permanent isolation. Table II-1 shows the principal radionuclides contained in nuclear waste. Unfortunately, past Federal attempts to manage this waste, even on a temporary basis, have generated problems that compound the threat. Large volumes of liquid waste evaporated and solidified by DOE may have been rendered impossible to move for permanent disposal, radioactive liquids have leaked from single-walked tanks, and, before 1970, wastes contaminated with transuranics were not distinguished from other LLW and were buried in shallow land sites.3 1291 (iodine) 135Cs (cesium) 137Cs (cesium) 235U (uranium) 238U (uranium) 237Np (neptunium). 238 Pu (plutonium) 239Pu (plutonium) 240 Pu (plutonium) 241 Pu (plutonium) 242Pu (plutonium) 241 Am (americium) 243 Am (americium) 243Cm (curium). 244Cm (curium) 3.0 x 106 30.00 7.1 x 108 4.51 x 109 2.14 x 106 86.40 24,400.00 6,580.00 13.20 2.79 x 10' 458.00 7,950.00 32.00 17.60 Beta, Gamma Beta, Gamma Beta Beta, Gamma Alpha, Beta, Gamma Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Beta, Gamma Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Beta, Gamma Alpha Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Beta, Gamma Alpha, Gamma Alpha, Gamma The radionuclides listed in this table represent those that would be normally found in the spent fuel extracted from a nuclear power reactor after storage of the fuel rods to allow the decay of short-lived radionuclides. 1 Tritium. Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 1981. Draft Environmental Impact Statement on 10 CFR Part 61 "Licensing Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste." Summary. Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Standards, Washington, D.C., p. 12. Before 1977, reprocessing HLW was expected to occur on a commercial scale as soon as the nuclear power industry had expanded enough to justify the large facilities needed for economic operation. It was thought that reprocessing would significantly reduce the total volume of material handled as HLW, because the fission products-such as cesium and strontium-would be separated from the remaining uranium and plutonium and then placed in a glass matrix for disposal.' Reclaimed uranium-235 and plutonium would be reused in the fission process." An attempt to commercially reprocess spent fuel was made by the Western New York Nuclear Fuel Services plant at West Valley, New York. While in operation, the plant only reprocessed about 630 metric tons of spent fuel, generating about 600,000 gallons of HLW. Two additional commercial reprocessing plants also were constructed but never operated: the Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant, built by General Electric at Morris, Illinois, and the Allied-General Nuclear Services Plant at Barnwell, South Carolina." Political issues, technical problems, regulatory uncertainties, and unanticipated high costs have hampered the successful establishment of commercial reprocessing in the United States. And, according to studies cited by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), "reprocessing...does not offer advantages that are sufficient to justify its use for waste management reasons alone." Reprocessing generates additional radioactive waste and involves its own operational risks. Commercial investments in large-scale reprocessing of spent fuel and recycling of its unused fissionable material hinge on the actual costs and regulatory uncertainties involved and on the current worldwide excess of uranium ore. It is uncertain when, if ever, reprocessing will become more economically attractive than is the current mining of uranium ore. On October 28, 1976, President Gerald S. Ford halted reprocessing until proof could be found that the "world. community could overcome effectively the associated risk of proliferation." In April 1977, President Jimmy Carter reaffirmed the Ford initiative when he deferred commercial reprocessing of spent fuel to minimize the risk of diversion of the separated plutonium for illicit purposes. Although operations never started at the Barnwell, South Carolina, reprocessing plant, owned by Allied-General Nuclear Services, the Carter Administration did provide funds for research and development (R&D) activities." Since that time, President Ronald Reagan has supported the concept of reprocessing by private industry if economic conditions warrant." However, when Congress suspended R&D funds for Barnwell in July 1983, Allied-General Nuclear Services decided to mothball the last facility available for commercial reprocessing in the United States in December 1983.13 15 To alleviate the buildup of U.S. spent fuel, both the Ford and Carter Administrations had planned to construct off-site, temporary away-from-reactor (AFR) storage facilities for cooling the fuel prior to its disposal. These facilities, not an integral part of the reactor plant, were to retain fuel until such time for reprocessing or disposal. However, these facilities have never been built; spent fuel rods remain temporarily stored at reactor sites originally designed for only one year's accumulation. Although restricted storage space has been alleviated through such means as building special storage racks that allow for on-site storage of all the spent fuel a reactor generates during its life-time, the problem remains of how to perma nently dispose of the spent fuel when they run out of storage space and at time of decommissioning.17 Such alterations and dilemmas in America's highlevel nuclear waste management have been typical of the nearly four-decade history of this issue. During the initial stage of U.S. nuclear waste management in the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) constructed a system of tanks to store liquid HLW at the Hanford and Savannah River waste sites. After discovering leaks in 1958, the AEC started constructing double-walled tanks and transferred the waste to the new tanks. The AEC and its successors chose to solidify the waste in the form of salt cake and sludge, and then retain it in tanks at Federal sites until a permanent disposal option could be selected. 18 In the 1960s, the AEC examined the feasibility of emplacing soldified HLW in deep underground salt formations. In 1963, the AEC initiated Project Salt Vault and investigated salt deposit sites in Kansas, Michigan, and New York. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) conducted experiments in an abandoned salt mine near Lyons, Kansas, but an attempt to develop this mine into a national HLW repository was thwarted for political and technical reasons. Kansas political leaders used scientific objections, e.g., insufficient information had been gathered about the behavior of hot radioactive canisters in salt and about the Lyons site in particular, to generate public opposition. The efforts of the Kansas politicians led to an amendment in the AEC Authorization Act (P.L. 92-84) for fiscal year 1972, which prohibited disposal of HLW at the Lyons site except for limited research and development. Moreover, hydraulic fracturing operations conducted at a salt mine near the Lyons test site resulted in an unexplained loss of water-questions then arose as to the site's geological integrity. After Lyons, the AEC opted for monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facilities where HLW could be stored indefinitely while the Federal Government studied geologic formations for an acceptable repository site.19 Development of these temporary MRS facilities has been initiated on several occasions to allow more time to develop permanent repositories and to allow more sites to be used for waste storage. Work on these plans has been stopped several times to save money and to expedite development of permanent repositories. The Department of Energy (DOE), successor to the AEC and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), is currently developing plans to construct MRS facilities if deemed necessary.20 After 1975, ERDA expanded its search for a U.S. HLW repository, using broad surveys in 36 States prior to specific site examinations. ERDA's efforts, however, were thwarted by political barriers in Michigan and Louisiana. By June 1980, about 25 States had placed bans or restrictions on storage, disposal, or transport of radioactive waste within their borders.21 A 1982 report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) highlights major policy issues dealing with HLW disposal and argues the need for a comprehensive U.S. waste management strategy although that report assumes waste disposal in a land-based geological repository." The Department of Energy has examined nine disposal options: 1) mined geologic sites; (2) the subseabed; 3) very deep holes (around 10,000 feet); 4) islands; 5) space; 6) rock melt; 7) ice sheets; 8) well injection; and 9) transmutation. Of all alternatives, transmutation, or the transforming of long-lived radioactive waste nuclides into shorter-lived materials by neutron bombardment, would initially appear to be the most attractive. Strontium-90, with a 30-year halflife, could in theory be converted by this technique to its 9.7 hour half-life isotope strontium-91. Other possibilities, such as changing cesium-137 to cesium138, exist. However, this alternative has not yet proved practical, because the necessary high neutron flux for transmutation requires the introducduction of additional concentrated high-level radioactive material into the reactor system, and thus creates another radioactive waste problem.23 As a result of its prior investigations, DOE favors land-based repositories for disposal of commercially generated high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. In this process, a shaft will be cut into a stable geologic formation, and wastes will be emplaced in caverns excavated laterally off the main shaft deep below the Earth's surface. After the repository has been filled to capacity, all access to the underground repository (i.e., shafts and boreholes) will be filled and permanently sealed.24 DOE has considered the basalt underlying the Hanford Reservation in Washington, tuff at the Nevada Test Site, and several salt sites as a possible first repository.25 As a second possible repository, DOE is studying crystalline rock in 17 States across the Nation; DOE plans to identify a possible second repository in early 1985.26 Figure II-1 shows the four types of rock DOE is considering for geologic repositories. Underground disposal of high-level waste, however, presents various geologic problems, which depend on the medium considered. The corrosive nature of rock salt poses complications, because it contains brine that tends to migrate toward a heat source, and waste canisters could thus become immersed in a "hot, highly corrosive bath."27 Furthermore, as a recent report by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences indicated, the heat generated by disposed waste could crack surrounding rock formations, such as granite or tuff.28 Every activity specified in the Mission Plan of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program is geared to: "accept commercial high-level radioactive waste for safe management, storage, and permanent disposal on a firm schedule, beginning not later than January 31, 1998." For the first repository, DOE has identified nine potential sites and has notified the governors and legislators of each of the six States involved. The sites identified are: • Vacherie Salt Dome, Gulf Coast Salt Dome Basin, Webster and Bienville Parishes, Louisiana. • Cypress Creek Salt Dome, Gulf Coast Salt Dome Basin, Perry County, Mississippi. • Richton Salt Dome, Gulf Coast Salt Dome Basin, Perry County, Mississippi. • Yucca Mountain Site (tuff) on the Nevada Test Site, Southern Great Basin, Nye County, Nevada. • Palo Duro Site A (bedded salt), Permian Basin, Deaf Smith County, Texas. • Palo Duro Site B (bedded salt), Permian Basin, Swisher County, Texas. • Davis Canyon Site (bedded salt), Paradox Basin, San Juan County, Utah. • Lavender Canyon Site (bedded salt), Paradox Basin, San Juan County, Utah. • A-11 Site (basalt) on the Hanford Reservavation, Pasco Basin, Benton County, Washington. From these nine sites, DOE will nominate five sites for "characterization." Following characterization of these five, DOE must recommend three sites to the President for "detailed site characterization" by January 1985. Detailed site characterization comprises specific activities to "establish the geologic conditions and the ranges of the parameters of a candidate site relevant to the location of the repository." This also includes an examination of the many environmental and socioeconomic factors involved. Public Law 97-425 calls for the President to recommend one site for the first repository to Congress by 1987.29 In this step-by-step process established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the President, the Congress, the States, affected Indian tribes, DOE, and other Federal agencies must collaborate on all phases of the siting, construction, and operation of these geologic repositories. Difficult political questions face decisionmakers: In which State(s) will the repository be located? Nearly 156 States and local governments have enacted legislation banning various waste activities within their borders, and several have sought to prevent DOE from conducting initial site investigations." Although Congress has the right to override a State's refusal to accept a repository, the procedures outlined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act were designed to instill confidence that the Federal Government is open to public concerns and attentive to health and safety issues.32 These location problems are familiar in other countries that are concentrating on land geologic formations as HLW repositories. In recent years, however, our Nation and others have initiated programs to investigate the subseabed as a possible HLW disposal site. Chapter V discusses these efforts in further detail, and Appendix B summarizes various global approaches toward HLW management. Meanwhile, the U.S. stockpile of HLW continues to grow. Transuranic Waste Transuranic wastes (TRU) contain alpha-emitting radionuclides with atomic numbers higher than 92 and half-lives greater than 20 years in concentrations of more than 100 nanocuries per gram. For the most part, handling transuranic waste requires little or no shielding when dealing with just alpha particle emitting radionuclides; however, energetic gamma and neutron emitting radionuclides and fission-product contaminants may cause the wastes to require shielding or remote handling." Before 1970, transuranics in low concentrations were disposed of as low-level waste, but since then new definintions and a new management plan have come into place. Under DOE's current plan, newly generated and readily retrievable TRU wastes are destined for geologic disposal in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan (WIPP) in New Mexico. At that site, a shaft and lateral caverns have been excavated into a 200 million year old salt deposit. Currently, TRU waste is stored at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, the Hanford Reservation in Washington, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Nevada Test Site. Other generators of TRU waste currently send wastes to these six sites, but when WIPP begins to operate, TRU wastes will be processed as required and sent directly to WIPP for disposal. When WIPP opens, a five-year period of testing will begin. If operations proceed well, after five years a decision will be made to designate WIPP as a permanent repository for TRU wastes.34 TRU wastes that are not readily retrievable will be left in current disposal sites. The National Academy of Sciences and others have found that retrieval of the TRU wastes disposed of in shallow land burial sites before 1970 can be more hazardous than leaving them in place. The plan for managing this TRU waste is to monitor it, take remedial actions as may be necessary, and reevaluate its safety periodically." Low-Level Waste 36 Managing our Nation's low-level radioactive waste (LLW) has proved no less controversial than has managing our HLW. LLW results from almost every phase of nuclear technology, and each of our 50 States generates LLW in large quantities from myriad sources. Although the exact quantity of LLW generated in the United States is not known, some scientists estimate the United States generated about 80,000 m3 in 1980.37 Of the LLW shipped to commercial disposal sites, DOE averages for 1978 to 1980 show that nuclear power reactors accounted for 54 percent, medical and research institutions accounted for 33 percent, industrial activities accounted for 10 percent, and Federal and military sources comprised 2 percent.38 LLW in gaseous form is usually treated through a series of filters and then either released into the environment or disposed of at a LLW dump site; LLW in liquid form is usually treated, solidified, and then disposed of at a LLW dumpsite.39 Solid LLW is primarily buried in shallow trenches with unsealed bottoms and mounded earthern caps; this method relies on such techniques as soil geochemistry to minimize the dispersal of radionuclides in the soil,40 as well as on waste packaging, minimizing water infiltration, reducing water/waste contact time, and siting in areas of low moisture flux. Between 1962 and 1971, the AEC (and subsequently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) or the "situs State" under the States Agreement Program licensed six shallow land burial sites to receive commercially generated LLW and some unclassified Federal LLW.41 In March 1975, however, the West Valley, New York, site was closed for radioactive water seepage problems; the Maxey Flats site closed in December 1977 when usage was discouraged after the Kentucky legislature imposed a 10-cent per pound excise tax on wastes received for disposal as a safeguard measure against unforeseen problems; and a third site in Sheffield, Illinois closed after licensed capacity had been reached and the operating company withdrew its application for renewal of its NRC license.42 At the three remaining sites- Beatty, Nevada; Barnwell, South Carolina; and Richland, Washington-various restrictions have been continued.43 Projections for the 1980s suggest the United States could generate more LLW than existing disposal sites could accommodate." This has raised the possibility that hospitals and institutions with constrained capacity for on-site storage would have to curtail their use of radioactive materials. In 1981, however, a new Federal rule governing medical radioactive wastes became effective and allowed for a large volume of medical wastes containing minute amounts of tritium and carbon-14 to be disposed of as nonradioactive wastes."" Although this ruling may temporarily postpone the time when disposal of LLW becomes critical, the basic problem of storage capacity remains. Because States already hosting sites are reluctant to shoulder our Nation's entire LLW burden, additional disposal facilities and improved management practices are mandatory. DOE operates 13 LLW disposal sites on U.S. Government land; eight of these are small and used solely for local plant operations. And, although almost any Federal site is physically capable of storing commercial LLW, national security considerations could rule out several sites. The approach by the States has been to join in compacts, which are discussed in further detail in Chapter III of this report." Low-Level Waste Ocean Before 1970, ocean dumping was the preferred U.S. method for LLW disposal. At that time, it was widely believed that if waste containers leaked, the large volume of ocean waters would dilute and disperse the waste dumped at sea. Because most LLW radionuclides have short half-lives, it was calculated that dilution. plus decay would result in innocuous levels and pose minimal hazards to man. Furthermore, the sea was readily available and economical to use."7 For a quarter of a century (1946 to 1970), the United States disposed of about 90,000 containers having an initial radioactivity of 95,000 curies in four major dumping areas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.48 The United States held the position in the 1950s and 1960s that disposal of LLW in the ocean did not pose a significant environmental problem, and careful records were not kept of what was disposed of and where." This lack of recordkeeping has haunted the Federal Government ever since, as public pressure continues to force the government to reconstruct previous disposal scenarios to prove its original opinions were correct. More than 90 percent of our country's ocean dumping was generated by AEC contractors and defense facilities.50 The U.S. Navy assisted in transporting LLW to sea until 1959, when AEC licensed private companies to do the job." At about that time, heightened public concern and increased disposal costs caused the AEC to place a moratorium on new licenses for sea disposal of LLW." AEC facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Idaho Falls, Idaho, were designated as interim burial sites for AEC licensees." Then, in 1962, the first landbased disposal site for commercial LLW was established at Beatty, Nevada." In addition to deliberate dumping of wastes, the United States has allowed radioactive material from defense reactors at Hanford, Washington to enter the ocean via the Columbia River as shown in Table II-2 and Appendix E." Low-Level Waste Ocean Second only to weapons testing, the greatest source of anthropogenic radioactivity in the ocean results from LLW discharged following the reprocessing of spent fuel and the dumping of solid LLW by various European countries." The most significant of the five nuclear fuel reprocessing plants in the "European Community" are Sellafield (formerly Windscale), located on the northwest coast of England in Cumbria, and La Hague on the northern coast of France in Manche." Ocean dumping of LLW and discharges into the ocean from shore have been common practices in Europe. Between 1950 and 1967, the United Kingdom disposed of about 3,300 curies of alpha-emitting and 44,000 curies of beta-emitting wastes in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean near the Bay of Biscay. From 1950 to 1963, the United Kingdom and Belgium disposed of 390 curies of alpha-emitting and 1,176 curies of beta-emitting LLW in the "Hurd Deep," located about 20 miles north of Guernsey Island in the Channel Islands. Most of this waste was packaged in 55-gallon drums weighted with concrete. 58 From 1957 to 1980, the Sellafield plant discharged about 2.3 million curies of assorted radionuclides into the adjacent Irish Sea." The French reprocessing plant at La Hague discharged LLW into the English Channel for 15 years until the French discontinued ocean dumping of LLW in 1969.60 In 1967, OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency agreed to supervise ocean disposal of LLW by NEA member nations. (See Chapter I for a listing of these nations.) Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom participated in this first ocean disposal of LLW directed under international supervision. The second internationally supervised operation occurred in 1969 with the added participation of Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland and the abstension of the Federal Republic of Germany."1 Since 1971, only Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have chosen the ocean disposal option.62 NEA records reveal the approximate |