Thursday editorial: Covered, not contained
About 1,800 U.S. military veterans die each day, 686,000 in 2007 alone. Most served during World War II. Others saw action at Cold War hot spots like Korea and Vietnam.
Long after the last of them has died — indeed, after their great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren have died — radioactive waste left behind from the production of their ultimate weapons will remain in a Bridgeton landfill, toxic and hazardous.
The waste — 250,000 cubic yards of dirt contaminated with barium sulfate and other radioactive material — was generated as a byproduct when Mallinckrodt Inc. enriched uranium to make some of the first American atomic weapons during the 1940s and 1950s. Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided that the waste should remain permanently inside the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, on the Missouri River flood plain. The EPA said it would cover the landfill with rocks and clay to keep the waste from being washed or blown away. But there is no lining beneath the landfill to keep the waste out of the ground water. So while it will be covered, it will not be contained.
That’s a serious concern. It will remain a concern for 700 million years, which is about how long that waste will be hazardous.
There are no really good alternatives for the disposal of radioactive waste, just a set of less-bad ones. Removing material from the landfill would be about three times more expensive than leaving it in place. Removal also would create its own problems, including potential exposure to radioactive dust.
On today’s Post-Dispatch Commentary Page, EPA Regional Administrator John B. Askew explains the EPA’s decision and its plans for the site. The EPA plans to dig monitoring wells around the landfill to ensure that the radioactive material isn’t migrating, caught up in underground water. But monitoring wells are useful only if they’re monitored and if money is made available to fix problems that are uncovered.
The EPA’s record of even routine follow-through at the West Lake landfill isn’t good. After initial tests found that some radioactive material had eroded onto a neighboring property, the owner bulldozed his land without the EPA’s knowledge or consent. If the EPA is that disengaged, it’s difficult to believe it would closely monitor wells at the landfill.
The EPA got involved only through a bureaucratic quirk. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has responsibility for cleaning up waste generated by early efforts to build atomic weapons. The corps has spent billions of dollars to remove about 750,000 cubic yards of nuclear waste from Mallinckrodt’s downtown facility, a former storage area near Lambert Airport and other sites around St. Louis.
That’s three times the amount of radioactive waste the EPA estimates is contained in the West Lake Landfill. Another 1.48 million cubic yards of Mallinckrodt waste is entombed at Weldon Spring.
In 1973, some Mallinckrodt waste was dumped illegally in the West Lake Landfill; it’s not clear by whom. In 1990, the landfill was named to the EPA’s list of toxic waste sites eligible for cleanup under the so-called “Superfund” program. But Superfund money has been in short supply for years. The EPA says its decision to leave West Lake material in place wasn’t dictated by cost alone, but, clearly, cost was a factor.
Even though the EPA made its final decision last week, Missouri’s state government and its congressional delegation must keep the heat on the EPA. It’s crucial to spell out responsibility for regular monitoring of the landfill and where money to do that job will come from. It’s also imperative that emergency crews receive training on how to deal with the material safely in the event of fire, explosion or earthquake.
Most of all, it’s important to have a plan for preventing radioactive waste from migrating through groundwater into the Missouri River. The river will outlive all of us, and as long as it does, the waste generated by making the first atomic bombs will remain a threat to St. Louis and everyone who lives in it.
It takes about 70 years for some people to realize the mess they have made, and West Lake Landfill was one of them, but it hasn’t actually done much harm. We can monitor it and live with it, and it won’t happen with modern membrane-lined landfills. Panic is our own worst enemy, and it is often politically motivated.
Ever give any thought to how common things like uranium, mercury, asbestos and lead are in nature? And those are inorganic. You want danger, talk about bacteria.
As an ordinary person with no special knowledge of engineering, nuclear physics etc etc, it seems to be that it is insane to keep on producing this stuff - nuclear wastes.
I would like some “expert” to explain to me why it would not be a sensible course of action to cease all nuclear power, uranium mining etc, and concentrate on solving the nuclear waste problem. Then begin the nuclear industry again ONLY if a true solution were found, (which is unlikely)
As an Australian, I fear that our aboriginal people will end up with international waste dumping on their sacred land,
The only condition on which nuclear waste might be ethically imported would be on condition that no more was to be produced.
This is a simple concept - but one which apparently cannot be entertained by the “experts”
Christina Macpherson http://www.antinuclear.net
I’m afraid funding for monitoring radioactive waste is going to be a hard sell in congress. Such spending will buy very few votes to reelect incumbents compared to entitlements, direct payments, free college, and cradle to grave health care. The EPA will need to force some evil, capitalist corporation to pick up the tab on this one.
Christina, the two nuclear engineers in my family would tell you that we desperately need MORE nuclear power, not less. Most submarines and larger ships in the U.S. Navy are nuclear powered, and are fueled ONE TIME for the life of the ship. They’re run by nuclear-trained officers, many from Annapolis. Many of these later return to civilian life and run commercial electric power plants.
Depleted uranium, with just 60% of the radioactivity of naturally occurring uranium 235, is used in armor plating and medical applications. Naturally occurring uranium 235 is not all that uncommon. Seawater is estimated to contain over 5 billion tons of it (4.6 billion metric tonnes), in addition to vast land-based resources. It’s all radioactive, just the way God made it, and plants for drinking water don’t remove it. We don’t glow in the dark.
Twenty percent of Ameren-UE’s power has been nuclear for decades with no problems, and a vast amount of European power is nuclear. Natural gas is OK for standby plants, but coal is our only viable option at this time for steadily producing plants. Isn’t nuclear power a better idea?
To anyone with real knowledge: Have the effects of “low-grade” radiation exposure, say in the water table, over a period years been studied?
The effects of lead in the water table were not known scientifically until too late for many. Also, all of the persons in the 1930’s and later who were painting “glow-in-the-dark” watch faces with radium impregnated paint later developed cancers.
The West Lake Landfill contains what is officially classified as high-level radioactive waste. The definition isn’t based on how radioactive material is, but rather on how it was generated.
High level waste includes spent nuclear fuel; uranium milling residues (which is what’s in West Lake); and waste that has more than a certain amount of elements that are heavier than uranium. Low level waste is everything else. You can find a good definition here: http://ohioline.osu.edu/~rer/rerhtml/rer_10.html
The health effects of drinking water containing radioactive waste depend on the amount and type of radiation it contains. Some waste at West Lake Landfill, for example, is a heavy emitter of alpha particles. Those particles don’t penetrate very well — they won’t even penetrate your skin. But they have enormous energy. Polonium-210, used to poison the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, is an example of a radioactive substance that emits only alpha particles. That’s not to say that people living near the landfill will be poisoned like he was, just an explanation of what happens in extreme cases. Most of the research on humans is the result of accidents, since it wouldn’t be ethical to subject anyone to a radioactive poison.
You can find more information at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission web site, http://www.nrc.gov, and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site, http://www.cdc.gov.
You can find more information about specific health effects of radiation doses here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning
It should go without saying that the likelihood of anyone receive anywhere near these maximum doses from exposure to contaminated groundwater from West Lake is vanishingly small. The original question was about long-term effects of low doses, which I think is valid. However, it’s hard to detect alpha particles in water. It’s much easier to track other types of radiation — Beta and Gamma radiation.
Mr Carlton -
Thank you for the information. I just remember in my youth the discovery of certain radioactive elements ( I believe it was Strontium 90) in milk were being talked about. Also, at that time we were still doing above ground testing of A & H bombs, with the people and cattle living downwind from the blasts receiving some of these “classified” benefits.
If it was for John Hershey and the Hiroshima Maidens, some of this might still be classified.
The Superfund law was simple, cost causer, cost payer. A tax was levied upon the producers of wastes and the resulting revenues were used to clean up toxic waste sites all over the country.
BUT, the corporate world and its GOP slaves didn’t like taking responsibility for their toxic messes and prevented the re-authorization of the Superfund taxes, and dumped the cost of cleaning up toxic wastes on the public at large. Now we don’t clean up toxic, hazardous wastes sites. Corporate profits of toxic waste producers (read chemical, gas, electric, and oil companies)are at all time highs.
What we need is to re-authorize the Superfund law and taxes on polluters so the people that cause the waste problems pay to clean up the waste problems. The first step is to throw out the GOP/Republican corporate welfarists and elect Democrats, people that care about people.