=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #147
—September 19, 1989—
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
==========
The Back issues and Index
are available
here.
The official RACHEL archive is here.
It’s updated constantly.
To subscribe, send E-mail to rachel-
weekly-
request@world.std.com
with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message. It’s free.
===Previous Issue==========================================Next Issue===
MR. REILLY’S EPA DEVELOPS STRATEGY FOR SOLVING
NATION’S WASTE PROBLEMS: FULL-SCALE LINGUISTIC DETOXIFICATION.
It is now clear that American industry and its acolytes in
government have hit upon a major strategy for solving the
nation’s problems of chemical contamination. Increasingly,
industry and government are learning to define old problems in
new ways, and in the redefinition the problems disappear. Barry
Commoner has called this “linguistic detoxification” and it has
now been elevated to the level of major policy in William
Reilly’s EPA.
Take, for example, the problem of regulating benzene. The EPA has
recently announced that it is acceptable to kill one in every
10,000 Americans exposed to benzene. (See RHWN #95; referring
back to #95, EPA has adopted method “C.”) Thus the problem of
having to exercise tight control over benzene has been defined
away by simply declaring that it’s not a problem to kill large
numbers of people. (If all Americans were exposed to the
allowable limit of benzene, 24,300 would die a slow, painful
death each year, victims of benzene-induced cancers, according to
EPA’s calculations.)
As we saw a few weeks ago, NEWSWEEK magazine, which often echoes
the sentiments of those who make industrial decisions for
America, declared it should be national policy to “forget Love
Canal” because Superfund sites are “boring.” (See RHWN #139.) We
will see later this fall how Mr. Reilly’s EPA comes out on this
issue when it publishes a “comprehensive” Superfund cleanup plan,
including a definition of “how clean is clean.” This will be a
big opportunity for linguistic detoxification (you simply define
something that’s dirty as “clean” and declare that “clean” sites
needn’t be cleaned up). We are betting Mr. Reilly will jump at
this chance. It would be nice if we were wrong.
However, evidence seems to indicate otherwise: EPA is currently
working aggressively to define away the nation’s radioactive
waste problem.
EPA, in concert with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and
the nuclear power industry, are about to declare one-third of the
nation’s low-level nuclear wastes as “below regulatory concern,”
(BRC) which will allow them to be dumped into ordinary municipal
landfills and incinerators. IT MAY HAPPEN AS SOON AS THIS MONTH.
With a swipe of the pen, Mr. Reilly and his overlords at the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission are going to convert vast
quantities of “radioactive” wastes into “nonradioactive” wastes
without changing the physical or chemical characteristics of
those wastes at all.
As a result, the two largest producers of radioactive
wastes–nuclear power plant operators, and the military-will be
able to stop worrying where to put huge inventories of
radioactive pipes, instruments, tools, sludges, filters, resins,
soils, clothing, and other objects contaminated with
radioactivity. They will be able to set them out at the curb in
garbage cans where they will be picked up by unsuspecting garbage
haulers, taken to dumpsters, and eventually buried in the ground,
incinerated in municipal incinerators or RECYCLED INTO NEW
CONSUMER PRODUCTS. If there’s a garbage spill in your
neighborhood, too bad for you. You won’t even know you’re being
exposed to radiation unless you happen to own a geiger counter or
other sophisticated measuring instrument. If you are a
conscientious operator of a dump or incinerator, too bad for you:
there will be no way for you to know when radioactive materials
are being brought through the gate because there’s no way you
could monitor each truckload with a geiger counter, and
radioactive wastes will bear no special markings or labels.
(Conveniently, the federal Department of Transportation [DOT] is
cooperating in the EPA-NRC BRC proposal; DOT has agreed to remove
its current requirements for placards and labels during
transportation.) If you are a citizen who purchases a kitchen
sink, child’s toy, cooking utensil or other consumer item made
with radioactive recycled metal, NRC and EPA want you to be happy
and don’t worry: the risks are small, the benefits large, they
say. What benefits, you ask?
The expensive requirements of handling radioactive
wastes–labeling them, monitoring them, transporting them in
special containers, making maps of where they’re buried,
maintaining careful records for future generations–all these
requirements will be unnecessary for BRC wastes if Mr. Reilly and
the NRC have their way. The nuclear industry and the military
will thus gain from EPA-NRC largesse in two ways: The nuclear
industry’s 100-or-so reactors are getting old, and the federal
weapons program has some 280 installations that have nearly
outlived their usefulness. All of these facilities will soon have
to be dismantled pipe by pipe, tank by tank, and thrown away.
Under the new BRC rules, much of this stuff will go to the city
dump instead of being shipped to a radioactive waste burial tomb
under constant guard; the nuclear power industry will save
dollars and the atomic warriors will save face and dollars. For
example, the military has recently admitted that cleanup of its
past slovenly practices (see RHWN #124) will cost $45 to $70
billion, and some estimates exceed $100 billion. The EPA-NRC
alchemy to define away much of this problem is a fabulous boon
for the sloppiest industry the world has ever known.
Consider the impact at just one facility, the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory. There the EPA’s and NRC’s BRC rules would
allow the government to change the definition of 50% of its 2.3
million cubic foot inventory of radioactive garbage. Clearly,
it’s a way of passing today’s costly problems onto tomorrow’s
children: the radioactive wastes won’t have become less
dangerous–we simply won’t have to pay for their management
today. And the harm done to our children? That’s our children’s
problem don’t you know. It’s a very Reagan-Bush solution to a
very expensive problem.
The name of the EPA-NRC proposal to linguistically detoxify
radioactive wastes is BRC (below regulatory concern). The BRC
proposal is rushing forward, and the only hope of stopping it is
for local communities, counties, even utility authorities who own
dumps or incinerators, to adopt resolutions in opposition, and
for citizens to write strong letters to William Reilly, to the
NRC, and to their Senators and Representatives. But you’ve got to
act quickly.
Write: William Reilly, EPA, 401 M St., SW, Washington, DC 20460;
and write U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Attention:
Docketing & Service Branch; Re: Below Regulatory Concern
Petition, Washington, DC 20555; for questions or NRC documents,
phone William Lahs at NRC: (301) 492-3774.
The best article on this problem, and what it means for local
communities, INCLUDING SPECIFIC STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO DERAIL
THESE EPA-NRC EFFORTS, appeared in the April-June issue of The
Workbook.
Get: Diane D’Arrigo, Judith Johnsrud, and Lynda Taylor, “NIMBY:
Nukewaste in My Backyard?” THE WORKBOOK Vol. 14 (April/June,
1989), pgs. 46-55. Reprints of this excellent expos‚ are
available for $2.00 from: Southwest Research and Information
Center, P.O. Box 4524, Albuquerque, NM 87106; phone (505)
2621862. THE WORKBOOK is a quarterly journal of
environmental-social change that costs $12.00 per year; a true
bargain. You should also stay in touch with the Nuclear
Information Resource Service (NIRS), Suite 601, 1424 16th St.,
NW, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 328-0002.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: radioactive waste; llw; epa; dot;
transportation; msw; landfilling; incineration; regulations; brc;
below regulatory concern; military; nuclear power;