Q What is the extent of the nuclear waste problem?

A Well the nuclear waste problem in the world is pretty severe. It comes from two broad catagorize mainly, one is the nuclear waste problem arising from nuclear weapons production and the other is a nuclear waste problem arising from commercial nuclear power. There are other pieces of the nuclear waste puzzle but these two are the biggest and most important, most serious.

Q O.K. So how is the U.S. what is, how extent, I am trying to loosen to you and think of my questions at the same time. How serious is the U.S.'s nuclear waste problem, how does it compare to other nations in size, severity and harm to the environment?

A Well the U.S. has the largest store of commercial high level radioactive waste, which is called 'spent fuel' the fuel that is irradiated in nuclear reactors and then now stored in the reactors sites, it has 35 odd thousand tons of this, that's because the U.S. has more nuclear reactors than any other country, more than one hundred, and so the U.S. also has the largest volume of highly radioactive of liquid waste from military plutonium production. Russia actually produced a lot more plutonium but Russia injected a lot of it's high level waste directly into the underground, which is a very poor practice, so they don't have it to manage any more, they disposed it off in a poor way. They also did store some of it in tanks in the Southern Urals, a nuclear weapons plant in Chelyabin in 1965, in acidic form. In the United States the military high level waste was pretty seriously mismanaged mainly at Hanford, but also at the Serano River site, in that a poor decision was made as to how to treat it, they took the waste from plutonium separation, which are acidic, and they neutralized them with lye or sodium hydroxide, greatly increasing the volume of this waste so they could store it in cheaper tanks, and now the United States has about a hundred million gallons of liquid high level waste, that's very difficult to treat, most of it is very difficult to treat, most of it is at Hanford, and it is, many of those tanks have leaked, they have contaminated the soil, the waste is migrating toward the ground water, and threatening the most important surface water resource in the North-West, which is the Colombia River. So the military..........

Q Maybe back to where you were saying "contaminating the Colombia River..

A So the Hanford wastes which have leaked into the soil from these tanks also other wastes which have been directly dumped into the soil at Hanford, are now migrating rapidly down toward the ground water and threatening the Colombia River, which is the most important surface water resource in the North-West. There are other nuclear waste problems in the United States, some of the more serious have to do with the waste which are highly contaminated with plutonium, which in the 50's and 60's especially, were just dumped into pits, shallow land burial and now pose very severe management and contamination problems. The problems in Russia, it has to be said, are more sever than the United States because there waste management problems were worse, but the problems in the United States are very, very serious.

Q How does the United States compare to say the United Kingdom or France, or countries in the Europe area?

A In relation to military wastes, I think the management of these high level wastes especially, as I have been saying, has been poor in the United States, because these liquid wastes are now in a physical form which are much difficult, very difficult, much more difficult to treat, than to solidify and put it in a stable form, of course if you have liquids they are prone to leak, if the tanks loose their integrity and so on. In France and Britain they also generated liquid wastes from plutonium production, but they kept it in the acidic form, which minimizes the volume, and then it makes it simpler to take these liquid wastes and dry them out into a powder form and then what they do is mix it with molten glass, and store the molten glass, the process called 'vitrification'. I believe the most advanced in France, however, I believe the United States waste management policy, at least so far, has been better than in France and Britain, because in the United States, it was decided not to separate the plutonium from the commercial power plant, spent fuel, but to store the spent fuel at the power plant site, this is the least problematic way to deal with this, there is no really good safe way to deal with this extremely dangerous stuff, but of all the options this is the least difficult and the least problematic. In Britain and France they have decided to reprocess their spent fuel, which means to take it to dissolve it in acid, to take out the plutonium and uranium, and so on, similar to military plutonium separation, and what this does is it converts solid stable wastes into a liquid form, these liquids have to be stored in a tank, these tanks can explode if they loose cooling, the cool electricity that cools, keeps them cool and operates the refrigeration systems, and then you also have separated plutonium to manage, which is a proliferation problem, so I think that the United States, so far, has had a better policy on commercial high level waste management than Britain or France.

Q Guess moving on to W.I.PP. Do you think that the safety issues surrounding Whip has been adequately answered by D.o.E. or the E.P.A.?

A Yes, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is supposed to be the repository where the D.o.E. will put it's the wastes that are highly contaminated with plutonium and other similar radioactive elements. I don't believe the waste, waste safety and disposal issues have been adequately addressed. First of all the waste is poorly characterized and a lot of it is mixed with hazardous toxic materials. Secondly this repository is an area where there are known deposits of oil and gas and there are known deposits of potash, so there are mineral resources and anytime you are disposing of material of a very long half life like plutonium, which has a half life of 24 thousand years, you have to worry about human intrusion, so the normal principle of repository siting is that they should not be sided with in an area where human intrusion is likely because of resource considerations. This is clearly in an inappropriate site from a resource point of view. Further it has pressurized brine reservoir so you can have high pressure salty water entering the repository, especially if brine reservoirs are disturbed and so on. So I don't believe the safety issues have been resolved because it is a poor site, it cannot be resolved. WIPP was a political choice because the (inaudible) finds it hard to site these things because of local opposition, and (inaudible) is not alone there is opposition throughout the world. So the tendency is to find a politically convenient site, rather than a site at which the technical integrity of the wastes will be best assured. And this is a very severe problem with waste management throughout the world.

Q It is my understanding that( Inaudible) even, I guess once they have put how much existing waste they want to put in there, there is only going to be like 2% of what is out there, so what happens with the remaining 98% of the waste, what is the danger of leaving that on-site?

A (Inaudible) in repository that supposed to take (inaudible) that "solution" for transuranic waste generated from nuclear weapons production. This is actually not the case, most of the transuranic waste is in the form of contaminated soil and in barrels and cardboard boxes that were dumped in pits in the 50's and 60's and some even after that. This waste needs to be un-buried and treated and stabilized and put into safe storage. This is the most urgent problem of transuranic waste management in the United states, because it is threatening or actually has contaminated, critical water resources. For instance in Idaho, the Snake River (inaudible) has been contaminated already by transuranic elements from dumping in the nuclear weapons plant there and in Serano River the shallow ground water has been contaminated already, so in Hanford the water supplies are threatened, so in the West especially where the water is a very, very big, perhaps the single biggest resource issue, the most important problem of waste management is to address those wastes that are threatening critical water resources. Instead of attending to those with the most urgency and resources, the department plans to take wastes that are stored relatively safely and retrievably, in buildings in relatively safe containers, transport them to New Mexico and bury them in this inappropriate repository and say that it is a solution. But really it is a solution to a political problem, not a technical problem. The political problem is that they told the governor of Idaho that they were going to move this waste, so want to move the waste. Waste problems aught not to be viewed in a two year and four year and ten year timetable of politics, because these materials last for thousands of years, and we aught to have more consideration for future generations. So most of the problems is in these pits, that's for transuranic waste, there is also of course, a problem of the waste, the high level waste tanks, and there is other buried waste which is called low level waste, but some of which is quite highly radioactive which is present at many
sites also like Hanford and Serano River (inaudible) and so on.

Q O.K. so did that allow you to say everything you wanted about the transuranic waste, or

A There is one other question in regard to waste I would like to comment on, where the United States had actually got the most bizarre waste classification system, most countries classify their waste according to these specific activity of the waste, how radioactive or unit volume, or unit weight of the waste is? The United States has what I call a caste system of waste, not a classification system. Because wastes are classified primarily by origin of the waste, so we have spent fuel from nuclear reactors which is highly radioactive. We have what is called high level waste from plutonium separation at Hanford, but some of the high level waste at Hanford, which is called high level, is less radioactive, it is very (inaudible), but it is less radioactive than some of the wastes say from some of the reactors and when reactors are de-commissioned, which is now called low level waste. So there is something called low level waste, which is dumped in shallow land burials today in the United States, which is more radioactive than what is called high level radioactive waste in Hanford, so we have a waste classification system that is not scientifically rational, and until we have a better waste classification system, we are not going to be able to manage it properly. Of course we have also got a politically motivated repository program both in Nevada and in New Mexico with WIPP, it is the fastest repository program of anybody, and no one else is trying to open repositories in a rush, and I believe the WIPP program is largely political from another aspect in that the nuclear establishment wants to say 'look we actually opened one of these things somewhere' and despite public opposition, and I think again this is a highly inappropriate way in which to manage very dangerous wastes, it shouldn't be political, or it shouldn't be politicize I should say.

Q You already kinda touched on this question, but I want to ask it again, as D.o. E. is cleaning up it's waste, how thorough of a job are they doing, exactly how clean is clean?

A Well unfortunately the D.o.E. has refused to set national clean-up standards. A lot of us have advocated that there should be stringent uniformed clean-up standards, so far as radiation (inaudible) to future generations is concerned, how this translates into contamination depends on the local geology and local soil conditions and climate and so on, but there should be health protection standards that are uniform and followed throughout the country, unfortunately the D.o.E. has refused to set these standards and refused to collaborate with the E.P.A. in setting up clean-up standards, there was a process in place, but the D.O.E. at a certain point said we don't want this any more, we are not going to. Now they are proceeding on an ad hoc site by site basis, and to give you an example, their proposed soil residual radioactivity for plutonium and soil at Rocky Flats, which is just a few miles from Denver, where 40 times higher than what was allowed in remediation at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific. This is not an appropriate way to proceed, so the biggest mess with the clean-up program is actually how the D.o.E. is
institutionally approaching this issue and has wasted billions and billions of dollars and is proceeding in an ad hoc manner without the technical and scientific standards and integrity that such an important program should have.

Q O.K. Do you think that WIPP is going to allow the United States to continue to produce nuclear weapons?

A Well I think, I don't think the United States are dependant on WIPP to continue producing nuclear weapons, I think to some extent it might relieve the local pressure they think by saying we have somewhere to take the waste, but in actual fact WIPP can not accommodate even all the existing transuranic waste. But the D.o.E. doesn't talk about it, they have reserved some space for future wastes in WIPP, without talking about all the existing waste that we already cannot accommodate. So they may be able to play this P.R. game, but I do not believe they can sustain it because we know that there is an enormous amount of wastes that already exists that cannot be accommodated in WIPP, so if there is any rationality to the process, WIPP does not have the room to accommodate waste from new weapons production, because it does not have the room to accommodate wastes that have been created by past weapons production. But the D.o.E. may reorder its priorities so that WIPP can accommodate wastes from new production before accommodating wastes from old production.

Q So what should we do now, what is your suggestions?

A We need to thoroughly revamp waste management and clean-up, there is no doubt in my mind that the institutional impediments are extremely serious and that the Department of Energy has been unable to approach these problems with integrity, it's contracting and privatization program is quite a mess, so there is a whole set of institutional issues, we believe that the long term waste management, especially the repository programs, like WIPP, and high level waste repository proposed for Nevada and Yucaman, both of these are bad programs, they should be canceled. We need to go back to square one, it isn't going back to square one, we have started from square one and gone in the wrong direction, we need to come back to square one in order to go be able to go into the right direction, which is to establish a waste classification system that makes sense, to establish clean-up standards that are protective of public health, and then to apply the resources to the urgent problems like these buried wastes, like liquid wastes and tanks, so as to stabilize them and prevent them from threatening vital resources. That way we can buy some time to try to figure out what we are going to do with this stuff for the thousands of years, but right now we don't have the right priorities and we don't have the right institutions that are committed to solving this problem. These are institutions that have made weapons and are interested in nuclear power and apparently this appears to be incompatible with being able to generate a program that will be able to manage the clean-up and waste that result from it.

Q If we are still building nuclear can we really put enough effort into cleaning up while we are still working on actually producing more waste?

A Well the nuclear weapons program of course while down, some weapons are still being produced or modified, military plutonium separation for military purposes has stopped, highly (inaudible) uranium stopped long ago for military purposes, some plutonium separation is still going on, however it is now called environmental management, it is one of the examples of a bad program. However most nuclear weapons sites are closed, Hanford is essentially closed, (inaudible) is closed, there are some sites which are open but most sites are closed, at these closed sites there is no other mission than looking after the wastes and cleaning up, and at these sites it should be possible to do a thorough job with the right institutions and right technologies. At the places where weapons production is still going on, clearly there is a clash of cultures there, I think, and there is a vested interest in generating more wastes from the weapons sites, but I think that with the right institutional set-up and a priority with waste management and clean-up, it should be possible, of course I think at the end of the Cold War it is already time to stop weapons production and to stop the .... the Cold War is over but the weapons people haven't got the message yet from the leadership and from Congress, so I think in order to be responsible both on the military side and on the environmental side, we should stop weapons production and whatever lab testing is going on, in order to focus on the legacy, which is a very big problem, and I think many people are afraid for their jobs, lets sort of confront the jobs issue, many people feel, and rightly, that (inaudible) weapons production is closed down, not rightly, but many people feel that if weapons production closed down they would lose their jobs. There is going to be more dividend for the general economy from nuclear weapons production closure. Because unlike say if you are making chemicals or bullets or something like that the problems of materials management, of clean-up, of materials accounting, of security of plutonium, all of these issues surrounding weapons are going to be with us for a very long time and the amount of money, material, personnel that are going to be needed, are going to be at least as big, I think, as we are now devoting to the nuclear weapons complex.. So I don't think people need to be afraid for their jobs, I think the mission needs to be changed, and I think if the job is properly done, of clean-up, materials, management, plutonium management, that the employment in these facilities can continue to be pretty big.

Q I think that's all the questions I had did you have anything else you wanted to say?

A No, do we need to say anything about how dangerous plutonium is or to talk about the characteristics of plutonium?

Q No I think we are going to have someone else, that was something Margaret Carr had suggested I ask you then Chris was wondering if you would really feel it that was really right up your line, you want to take

A We have done a lot of work on plutonium and I could say a little bit about it . Plutonium is a very unique element, it is highly radioactive, it is not the most radioactive, so it is not the most dangerous from the radioactivity point alone. Radium for instance is more radioactive than plutonium. But you can't make nuclear weapons with radium. If you combine the ability to make nuclear weapons and the radio toxicity of plutonium, it really is in that sense possibly the most dangerous material that is known. By it's individual properties are not the most dangerous, but the combination of things you can do with plutonium make it an extremely dangerous material. It is not a material you want to mess with, it has to be safe guarded for military purposes as well as environmental purposes. For instance it is a thousand times more radioactive than highly enriched uranium, from which you can also make weapons. So plutonium hurts you mainly when it is inside the body, it is an alpha - (inaudible) primarily, but if you breathe it, (inaudible) a very small quantity of plutonium can greatly increase the chances of getting lung cancer. It also effects soft tissues and bone. There are people who there is a lot, some propaganda sometimes from the nuclear establishment, the plutonium not so dangerous, there was a Japanese cartoon that was made once showing people were drinking plutonium laced water. Plutonium is not easily absorbed from the gut, so actually if you drink plutonium laced water most of the plutonium will be excreted and not be absorbed into your system. However, this is a highly misleading thing because some will be absorbed and it will increase your risk, at the same time, plutonium gets into the system through cuts and wounds and is breathed in the form of fine particles, is highly dangerous and I think these kinds of industry propaganda are irresponsible and misleading about the true nature of plutonium, it has very serious radio toxicity dangers and it is also a weapons usable material and this combination makes plutonium extremely dangerous, so I know you will get propaganda.. [End of interview.]