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Disposal of Radioactive Nuclear Waste
by Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Disposal of radioactive nuclear waste is a major problem of
industrialized countries today. With hundreds of nuclear power plants,
nuclear reactors and nuclear laboratories in America, Europe, and Japan,
thousands of tons of radioactive waste needs to be safely disposed almost
everyday. The United States of America has 113 nuclear power reactors.
President George Bush in his new Energy Plan has proposed construction of
several more nuclear power plants, to meet the electric power shortage.
Besides the 113 nuclear power plants, there are hundreds of nuclear
research reactors with defence establishments, universities, and missile
and nuclear weapon industry. The environmentalists and the Democrats are
up in arms against the construction of more nuclear reactors for producing
electricity. The Democrats have taken control of the US Senate, and are
determined to scuttle nuclear power production plans, unless arrangements
for safe disposal of radioactive nuclear waste are made. Senator Tom
Daschle who is the new majority leader in the US Senate recently said that
it would be impossible to expand nuclear power now because of the lack of
national repository for storing nuclear waste. So far nuclear waste has
been dumped into the sea, or into third world countries or is being kept
in bulk storage for disposal. This has threatened marine life as well as
humans and neighbouring communities.
From the Bay area on
the West Coast barges carrying radioactive waste pass under the Golden
Gate Bridge for nuclear waste dumping into the Gulf of Farallones. There
the bottom of the barges opened to release containers of radioactive waste
into the sea. Naval Radiological Defence Laboratories at Hunters Point
near San-Francisco is the leading laboratory of the United States military
for applied nuclear research. radioactive carcasses of dead animals used
in nuclear experiments at this laboratory constituted much of the cargo on
some barges. Applied nuclear research is also carried out at the
University of California’s Lawrence laboratories. Nuclear waste from here
is sent out in 55 gallon drums, that are loaded on to the barges for
dumping into the sea. University of California is an acknowledged leader
in nuclear research. Radioactive waste from McClellan Air Force Base near
Sacramento is also dumped in the Farallones. The routine is that
radioactive material in containers and barrels is collected on the barges.
The barges and tugs leave for the sea after they are full. Atomic energy
officials inspecting the barges and tugs some time do report high
radiation levels and order cleaning of the ships. Barrels that do not sink
immediately, are holed by rifle shooting for immediate sinking. Many of
the US Navy’s radioactive waste containers were breached, and waste
barrels were holed to facilitate sinking, spreading radioactivity in the
sea inside the Farallon Islands Nuclear Waste Site. The Farallon waste
site is a triangle shaped piece of sea space at a distance of 30 miles
west of San Francisco. It encompasses most of the Gulf of Farallones
National Marine Sanctuary, a refuge of gorgeous marine and other wildlife.
The site includes some of the most fertile commercial fishing waters in
the Pacific. These waters are rich with fish and other sea life. The
islands themselves are home to the nations largest population of breeding
sea birds, and sea lions. But astonishingly this was America’s largest sea
dump of nuclear waste till some years back. Why was nuclear trash dumped
so close to the densely populated Californian coast, and sea traffic,
could only be explained by the Federal and State authorities.
US officials have
long acknowledged that this nuclear dump site contains some 47,500 barrels
of low level radiation waste produced by nuclear power reactors, and US
Navy and University of California’s nuclear laboratories. Farallon Islands
Nuclear Waste Site is officially termed as a “low level”, nuclear waste
repository. This claim has been challenged by environmentalists and
journalists, who stress that high level and long lived radioactive, and
far more dangerous materials are parked and are sitting at the bottom of
the sea out there. According to SF Weekly US Navy’s unclassified documents
reveal “significant amounts of nuclear bomb component plutonium which has
a half life of 24000 years, and similarly long lived ‘mixed fission’
products were used at the US Navy’s laboratory at Hunters point.” The US
Navy has asserted that all nuclear materials used at the NRLD were disposd
of at the Farallon Nuclear Waste Site. An entire radioactive ship the
10,000 ton, aircraft carrier Independence used as target in the Bikini
Atoll’s largest US atomic bomb tests is believed to have been sunk near
this waste site.
US Navy has
acknowledged that thousands of barrels containing ‘special’ wastes i.e
high level long lived radioactive materials were dumped in the Farallon
trash site. Scientific studies have shown that radioactive materials
dumped into the sea can enter marine food chain through bottom dwelling
organisms, such as clams and mussels. That radiation can accumulate in
fish and other marine animals that feed on sea bottom dwellers. Fish
feeding on radioactive organisms can be dangerous to humans who eat such
contaminated fish. Increasing incidence of cancer and other radiation
linked diseases are reported to afflict seamen working on nuclear wastage
carrying barges and tugs, and eating radioactive fish and sea food. There
is growing realization now that the Farallon dump area needs to be
monitored for radioactivity. Officials and contractors of the US
Environmental Protection Agency have said that radioactive material from
this dumping site could be entering the food chain, and even on to beaches
and into San Francisco Bay. It is astonishing that despite environmental
outcry, since fifty years radio-active waste was dumped at the heart of a
major fishery just of the beautiful city of San Francisco.
It is estimated that
thousands of tons of radioactive trash needs safe dumping every year. The
exact amount of nuclear waste that requires dumping nationwise has not
been made public. The US government avoids disclosing such facts,
especially the extent of uranium, plutonium, thorium, cesium, strontium or
tritium contents in the nuclear waste. The radioactive trash from nuclear
installations including nuclear electricity plants in the United States,
however, far exceeds the nuclear radioactive waste from rest of the world.
Taking advantage of the serious problem of nuclear waste disposal, Russia
is forging ahead with a plan to import 22000 tons of spent nuclear fuel
and radioactive waste from abroad for reprocessing and storage. Russia
sees huge profit in spent nuclear fuel reprocessing business. On May 25,
2001, Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle reported from Muslyumovo
that Russia may soon become world’s nuclear dump. The lower house of
Russian parliament the State Duma has tentatively approved a bill that
will allow Russia to accept highly radioactive toxic spent nuclear fuel
from fourteen countries in Europe and Asia including Japan, South Korea,
Germany and Switzerland. The final vote in The Duma in June- 2001, is
expected to approve government plan to process highly toxic nuclear waste
from Europe and Asia. The deal, Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry claims
will bring in a profit of US dollars twenty (20) billion. The Russian
scheme will help cleaning up the sites of nuclear waste dumping and
nuclear power accidents. Thousands of tons of nuclear waste, held in
temporary storage at power plants and nuclear installations worldwide
would be shipped to a plant under construction in Krasnoyarsk-26, a closed
nuclear city in Siberia. This will be the second big nuclear waste
reprocessing plant; the first plant at Mayak in the Urals is of 1950
vintage. Large quantities of nuclear waste will be stored there, and later
plutonium would be extracted from the used fuel rods, to turn into new
nuclear fuel, which will be sold worldwide.
The economically
beneficially plan for cash strapped Russian government, faces resistance
from the United States. The Bush Administration is opposed to the Russian
scheme, because of fears that Russia would create new stockpiles of weapon
grade plutonium and uranium, and may sell it to India, Iran, North Korea,
Brazil, Argentina and Iraq. Some of these states are labelled as rogue
states by Washington. Washington claims that the government of the United
States holds licensing agreements that gives it control over the movement
of spent nuclear movement and nuclear radioactive waste worldwide. But the
Russian government says that it will import nuclear waste from plants that
are outside the US agreements. The legislation by the Putin government
faces some resistance from US environmentalists who say that Russia’s
record of handling nuclear waste is deplorable. The Chernobyl disaster had
proved Russian failure of proper maintenance and management of nuclear
power reactors and nuclear facilities. Russian scientists have not been
able to ensure minimum radioactive safety measures at Mayak, the only one
Russian nuclear reprocessing in the Urals. Located in the Chelyabinsk
region in the Urals with its fields, lakes and rivers contaminated by
radioactivity , Russian ability to reprocess nuclear waste commercially is
seriously doubted. According to a recent report compiled by Russian and
Norwegian scientists, the radioactive material released by the Mayak plant
since it was opened in 1948, is five times greater than the sum of all
other nuclear accidents including the Chernobyl catastrope in 1986, and
all the nuclear tests ever conducted. Russians in the Chelyabinsk region
are 40 percent more likely to get Leukemia than residents elsewhere. This
was confirmed by Professor Dr Alexander Akleyev, head of the Chelyabinsk
based Ural Research Centre for Radiation Medicine. Since long the rulers
in Moscow have treated the Russian people as disposable waste. The new
nuclear trash scheme says nothing about environmental degradation from the
reprocessing of thousands of tons of radioactive trash in Russia. The
4,500 people of Muslimovo village near the Mayak plant have protested
since long, but their petitions and protests were ignored. Nurzhigan
Galipova, mother of three dead children is angry. She said that Techa
river which runs past the Mayak plant is dangerously polluted by
radioactivity. Three of her children died, two from Leukemia and one from
heart failure. She says that the radiation from Techa river killed them.
The river and the grass the village cows feed on, and everything in the
town, emits up to 250 microrem radiation per hour, more than four times
the radiation scientists consider acceptable. An official Russian study in
1998 showed that children in the area were three times less healthy than
children in other parts of Russia. Only 18% of the village children are
healthy according to Russian statistics, 82% of the children of this
village suffer from acute memory loss and exhaustion.
During the Soviet era
40% of world’s weapon grade plutonium was processed at Mayak. Later when
the Mayak nuclear facility was converted into a reprocessing plant, the
Soviets considered everything related to its activities a state secret. It
is now revealed that from 1949 to 51, the Mayak plant dumped 228 million
cubic feet of highly toxic nuclear waste into the Techa river, irradiating
31,000 Russian men, women and children. This has been confirmed by Dr
Akleyev. Plant officials were hoping that deadly strontiom-90 and
Cesium-137 which have half life of about 30 years would dissolve in the
river. In 1957 radioactive containers at the plant exploded. Twenty
million curies of deadly strontium and cesium was released into the air —
this was about 40 percent released by the Chernobyl disaster. A deadly
toxic cloud crept across hundreds of miles of farmland. Two hundred towns
and villages with a Muslim population of 270,000 were exposed to lethal
doses of deadly radiation. 10,700 people from 23 highly polluted villages
were uprooted and relocated. Their farmhouses were destroyed and burnt.
Soviet authorities did not reveal the avoidable accident till 1989. People
, mostly Muslims ordered to plow land have suffered radiation illness
including stomach cancer and heart diseases. The Soviets were ruthless and
reprocessing plants like Mayak were a disaster for the Russian people.
Regardless of the dangers Mayak today continues to reprocess and
reactivate fuel for nuclear plants, nuclear submarines and nuclear
icebreakers. Now its mediuam active waste is being discharged into lake
Karachai, which is located on the plants property. According to Yevgeni
Ryzhkov Mayak plant spokesman the lake now contains 120 million curies of
radioactive nuclides.
Inspite of these
serious hazards the Putin government is determined to accept for
reprocessing, using and selling radioactive trash, nuclear waste and spent
nuclear fuel. The Mayak plant and the new Krasnoyarsk-26 plant could
reprocess much more spent nuclear fuel than Russia can provide. There is
wisdom in using the massive capacity at these plants to reprocess and make
usable the 22000 tons nuclear waste that Russia plans to acquire from
abroad. Russia could derive immense economic benefits by importing low
cost nuclear trash and spent nuclear waste, and using and selling usable
nuclear fuel.
The United States is
the biggest repository of nuclear waste in the world. But US is unlikely
to sell nuclear waste to Russia without close inspection and guaranteed
safety at the Mayak and other reprocessing plants in Russia. Besides the
United States will not allow Russia to sell or export enriched uranium or
plutonium to India or other countries under UN-US sanctions or to
countries that Washington labels as rogue states. The Putin government
plans to trade in nuclear waste on a large scale, to make big money. But
Washington is unlikely to accept any such Russian law or plan, without
iron clad safety measures against radiation, pollution and nuclear
proliferation. US will insist on joint inspection of facilities and plants
and full guarantees of no sales to suspect states. Washington will also
insist that Moscow keeps it informed about the end users of what is
produced at the Mayak and Krasnoyarsk-26 nuclear reprocessing plants.
On Tuesday June 05,
2001 the Bush Administration unveiled a plan for the construction of a
massive nuclear waste dumping facility in the Nevada desert. The aim is to
upgrade nationwide health and safety standards by ensuring proper dumping
of radioactive waste. This has become essential to rejuvenate the nuclear
power industry, especially to meet opposition demands for a national waste
repository before the construction of thirteen more nuclear power plants.
The underground nuclear waste storage facility will be sited at Yucca
mountain, 90 miles north -west of Las Vegas. Tough standards are planned
for eliminating all potential sources of radiation ie nuclear waste,
radiation exposure from ground water, soil and air at the proposed
underground site. This storage site was first proposed in 1999 by the
Clinton Administration, but the standards drew sharp criticism from
Scientific groups, and GOP politicians, who camplained that they were too
stringent. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham insists that the new safety
standards would be met. He is determined to launch the big nuclear waste
dumping project by the end of this year.
Christie Whitman,
administrator of the powerful Environmental Protection Agency has assured
the Americans that, “As a nation we must address our nuclear waste
disposal problem, but we must do so in a way that we protect public health
and the environment.” Construction of the storage site for 78,000 tons of
radioactive waste would be vital to President Bush’s plan to address the
nation energy needs by expanding the existing 113 nuclear power plants,
and by constructing on a priority basis several more nuclear power
reactors. Nevada state officials argue that the nuclear waste repository
at the Yucca mountain site would pose serious threats to the region in the
event of accident or earthquake. Besides the waste would have to be hauled
by truck or rail through more than forty states, and that would create
risk of spills, and nuclear pollution. The big hurdle is Senator Tom
Daschle, the new majority leader in the US Senate. He is out to kill the
Bush nuclear waste repository plan. During a fund raising in Las Vegas he
said that, “the Yucca Mountain Project was dead as long as the Democrats
retain control of the Senate”. Political observers say that it would be
difficult to block the project indefinitely, though the Democrats could
slow its construction by holding down its budget.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Globe & Ayaz Ahmed Khan
by the same
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