RACHEL's Hazardous Waste News #317

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #317
—December 23, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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THE YEAR IN REVIEW: NUCLEAR

The year 1992 was momentous for the nuclear industries (bombs,
and electric power plants). Here are some of the highlights:

Weapons Phase-Out

The U.S. government announced in July it will stop making
plutonium and highly-enriched uranium for weapons. Production of
plutonium had, in fact, been halted since 1988 because of
mechanical and environmental problems. However, President Bush
declared a ban on these materials as official U.S. policy in
July. (N.Y. TIMES 4/30/92, pg. A14 and 7/14/92, pg. A18.) In
September the U.S. announced it had canceled a $6-billion tritium
plant planned for Savannah River, near Aiken, Ga.; tritium is
needed for weapons triggers. (N.Y. TIMES 9/12/92, pg. 5.)

* * *

The House of Representatives voted a year-long ban on nuclear
weapons tests June 4–the first ever in the U.S.. The U.S.
conducted 7 underground tests in 1991 and had scheduled 6 for
1992. (N.Y. TIMES 6/5/92, pg. A8.) The Senate in August voted a
nine-month moratorium on testing and voted to end all nuclear
testing in 1996. (N.Y. TIMES 8/4/92, pg. A7.)

Weapons Proliferation

Concern about the spread, or proliferation, of nuclear weapons
increased dramatically when it was revealed in June that Iraq was
using a 50-year-old low-tech method called a calutron to produce
highly-enriched uranium. An atomic bomb can be made from 45
pounds of enriched uranium or from 7 pounds of plutonium. The
international community of “safeguard” specialists (people who
worry about how to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the
wrong people) was thrown into disarray by the revelations in
Iraq. The basis of international controls had been to restrict
high-tech methods of enriching uranium. No one had expected
anyone to use the low-tech method. “It’s cataclysmic,” said
Leonard S. Spector, an expert on the spread of nuclear weapons at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“All this was being done in Iraq without anybody knowing it. So
who else is doing it? Everybody in the [safeguard] community knew
this kind of thing was a possibility. But to be confronted by an
example is devastating.” (N.Y. TIMES 7/15/92, pg. A1.)

* * *

The U.S. and the former Soviet Union agreed to retire 40,000
nuclear warheads over the next decade or so. These nuclear
devices must be kept safe from black marketeers and terrorists
for the duration of the hazard, which is forever. In both east
and west, the ultimate fate of hundreds of tons of plutonium and
enriched uranium remains undecided. The former Soviet Union alone
is reported to have over 1200 tons of enriched uranium that it
would now like to sell to the west for reactor fuel. (N.Y. TIMES
7/6/92, pg. A1, and 9/11/92, pg. A8.)

* * *

A brisk international trade in black-market enriched uranium
developed this year in Europe. Evidently the breakup and
impoverishment of the Soviet bloc has created opportunities to
steal radioactivity from nuclear reactors, or from weapons
complexes. In October, German authorities arrested seven people
who were reportedly trying to sell the makings for nuclear
weapons. German authorities said they had investigated 100 cases
of international smuggling of radioactive material during the
first 10 months of 1992, whereas they had investigated 29 cases
during 1991. (NY TIMES 10/20/92, pg. A8.)

Legacy of Waste

The soviets revealed that they have been dumping radioactivity
into the Kara Sea, which connects to the Arctic Ocean, for three
decades. Besides 4 nuclear-powered submarines lost at sea, the
soviets said they dumped four decommissioned naval nuclear
reactors in 1965 and 1966, three reactors from the icebreaker
LENIN in 1967, a barge carrying a submarine reactor sunk in 1972,
and a nuclear-powered submarine jettisoned in 1982. Dr. Charles
Hollister of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calculates
that the soviets dumped about 600 million Curies of radioactivity
into the ocean, or roughly seven times as much radioactivity as
was in the Chernobyl reactor that melted down April 26, 1986.
(N.Y. TIMES 5/4/92, pg. A1, and 11/24/92, pg. C9.)

* * *

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report in
April indicating there may be as many as 45,000 sites in the U.S.
contaminated with radioactivity. Twenty thousand of the sites
belonged to the Department of Defense and the Department of
Energy. The report included sketchy information on 29 accidents
involving nuclear warheads that occurred between 1950 and 1980.
No agency of the federal government has yet set standards
defining what is an acceptable level of cleanup for
radioactively-contaminated sites. (N.Y. TIMES 4/9/92, pg. A14.)

* * *

Nuclear Power Hits the Skids

In 1992, economics seemed to be killing the nuclear power
industry. In February, owners of the 32-year-old Yankee Rowe
nuclear power plant decided to shut it down rather than seek a
license to extend its useful lifetime. The metal reactor vessel
had become brittle from years of atomic bombardment, and it would
have required a major investment to fix. Southern California
Edison made a similar judgment about the 24-year-old San Onofre I
reactor near San Clemente. During 1991 the Sacramento Municipal
Utility District decided to shut the Rancho Seco plant as
uneconomic at age 15. The U.S. currently has 108 operating
nuclear power plants, producing 20 percent of the nation’s
electricity. As many as 10 of these could be shut by the end of
this decade, mostly for economic reasons.

The decision to shut Yankee Rowe raised new questions about the
cost of decommissioning a power reactor. In June the owners of
Yankee Rowe estimated it would cost $247 million to close the
plant permanently–twice as much as had been predicted earlier,
and three times as much as the company has so far set aside to
cover shutdown costs. (N.Y. TIMES 6/3/92, pg. D4.)

* * *

Ever optimistic, Westinghouse and General Electric both rolled
out designs for a new generation of nuclear power plants. These
plants are termed “inherently safe” because they cannot melt
down. However, they produce the same amount of radioactive waste
and plutonium as the older, inherently dangerous, plants. (N.Y.
TIMES 6/28/92, pg. 21, and 7/12/92, pg. F-12)

Justice & Injustice

1992 saw the first criminal prosecution of a federal contractor
found guilty of violating environmental laws at an atomic weapons
manufacturing plant. Rockwell International pleaded guilty to 5
felonies and 5 misdemeanors June 1 and was fined $18.5 million
for illegally dumping hazardous wastes at the Rocky Flats plant
near Denver, Colo. Rockwell operated the plant from 1975 to 1989,
creating enormous waste and contamination that will cost
taxpayers billions of dollars to clean up.

In another first, Rockwell was required to pay the $18.5 million
fine out of its own pocket. In 20 previous instances when
government contractors were fined for illegalities, the
Department of Energy paid the fines on behalf of its contractors.
(N.Y. TIMES 6/2/92, pg. A12.)

* * *

The Inspector General of the Department of Energy (DOE) revealed
in June that DOE routinely gathers and disseminates “intelligence
information” on U.S. citizens, in violation of a Presidential
order issued in 1982. (N.Y. TIMES 6/14/92, pg. 37)

Radiation Effects

Thyroid cancer rates were reported to be “soaring” among children
exposed to radiation released by the Chernobyl reactor disaster
in 1986. According to Dr. Vasily S. Kazakov, writing in the
British journal NATURE, thyroid cancer rates began rising in
1990. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the reports.
WHO scientists expressed surprise that the cancers were showing
up so soon; normally there is a delay of 10 years or more between
the time of exposure and the time a thyroid cancer appears. The
WHO group wrote, “We believe that the experience in Belarus
suggests that the consequence to the human thyroid, especially in
fetuses and young children, of the carcinogenic effects of
radioactive fallout is much greater than previously thought.”
(N.Y. TIMES 9/3/92, pg. A9).

* * *

Two research groups, in England and the U.S., reported
discovering a new form of delayed injury from radiation. In one
study, researchers exposed mouse cells to alpha particles (a type
of radiation produced by plutonium and by radon gas) and found
that abnormalities of the chromosomes appeared in some descendant
cells several generations of cell-division later. The research
was carried out by Dr. Eric G. Wright at the British Medical
Research Council Radiobiology Unit in Didcot, Oxfordshire,
England.

Dr. John D. Little and colleagues at the Harvard University
School of Public Health in Boston found a similar “delayed
mutation” effect using X-rays to irradiate hamster cells.

The delayed effect is different from the immediate genetic damage
scientists have observed previously. Usually radiation alters the
genetic makeup of a cell, causing its immediate descendants to
take on new characteristics. In the new findings, some of the
cells that survive radioactive assault appear normal through
several divisions. Damage eventually appears in a descendant cell
several generations later.

Both research groups said that if the effect is confirmed by
further research, it will mean radiation is more dangerous than
previously believed. (N.Y. TIMES 2/20/92, pg. A-12.)

A Reason for Hope

The chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
credited citizen activists with shutting down two nuclear
facilities in 1992. Ivan Selin said Native Americans for a Clean
Environment (NACE) and the Cherokee Nation helped shut the
Sequoyah Fuels Plant in Gore, Oklahoma; and, he said, the New
England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, and the Union of
Concerned Scientists, helped shut the Yankee Rowe nuclear power
plant. In both instances, the NRC shut the facilities temporarily
after citizens had raised safety and environmental concerns, and
the owners then shut them permanently. (N.Y. TIMES 6/23/92, pg.
A13.)

In sum, not a bad year.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: nuclear power; us; plutonium; nuclear weapons;
enriched uranium; savannah river; ga; aiken; tritium; radioactive
waste; remedial action; superfund; landfilling; llw; hlw;
westinghouse; ge; doe; rockwell international; thyroid cancer;
carcinogens; children; health; radiation; nace; nrc; sequoyah
fuels; native people; native americans;

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