There Is No Commercial Low-Level Waste Disposal Crisis in the United States ― Yet!

摘要

Right now, in spring 2004, in the United States, commercial (as opposed to government) low-level waste generators can safely dispose of all levels of LLW: A, B, and C (see box on p. 15). There may be some problems getting the waste to disposal sites (problems so severe that the San Onofre-1 reactor pressure vessel is staying on the San Onofre site for now, not being shipped on an 11 000-mile journey around Cape Horn to the Barnwell, S.C., disposal site, and D. C. Cook will not be sending its steam generators to Barnwell after all because of railroad problems). But disposal capacity exists and is open to all generators. The Barnwell disposal site is open to all generators for all classes of waste; however, its costs are prohibitive for all but B/C waste, and its available capacity will gradually decrease over the next four years. The Envirocare of Utah site accepts Class A waste at what are considered reasonable disposal fees and so receives the bulk of the nation's Class A waste. The US Ecology site in Richland, Wash., serves as a Class A/B/C disposal site for the 11 member states of the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compacts. Texas has a new law in force that, if everything goes right, will provide Class A/B/C disposal capacity for members of the Texas Compact (Texas and Vermont) by the end of 2007 or so. So, there is no LLW disposal crisis in the U.S. at this moment. And there won't be for, oh, another four years of moments.