Published 12/8/98, in The News & Observer
Nuclear storage change proposed
To break the impasse over how to handle low-level radioactive waste, the state suggests an alternative to a controversial underground facility.
By JAMES ELI SHIFFER
Staff Writer
Stymied in their decade-long quest to build a final resting place in Wake County for nuclear garbage, the state authority in charge of the project introduced an alternative Monday: an above-ground warehouse designed to allow radioactive waste to age for a century.Meeting for the first time since a funding crisis stalled the project last year, the N.C. Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority considered storing drummed or boxed low-level waste from the Southeast's nuclear power plants, laboratories and other facilities in a steel-reinforced concrete building that would bypass many of the tough environmental requirements delaying the dump.
The proposal ran into immediate skepticism from some authority members and other officials. They said the plan was vague, untested and inconsistent with legal mandates to build a permanent disposal site for 20 years of low-level radioactive waste.
But supporters characterized it as a way to resurrect a project that, after $111 million and 10 years of work, seemed headed for lawsuits and little else.
"What we're doing now is standing still, spending money and doing nothing," said authority member Bob Heater. "Why not move forward with something that may have a chance to work?"
The authority referred the proposal to one of its committees, which will meet in January to decide whether to continue with the storage facility. Such a facility, derived from an idea developed by the federal government, would be the first of its kind in the country. It would hold harmful materials for a century or more until they lost their radioactivity, instead of burying them permanently.
Monday's meeting did little, however, to resolve the larger issues that have thrown nearly two decades of nuclear-waste policy into question. Across the nation, regional compacts, or consortiums of states, have failed to build a single new disposal site.
Funding for the North Carolina site is frozen because of a dispute between the Southeast Compact Commission and Gov. Jim Hunt. This fall, the General Assembly eliminated money for a squad of environmental regulators who worked on the idled project.
But political changes to the south could create pressure to resurrect it. South Carolina Gov.-Elect Jim Hodges made a campaign promise to close Chem-Nuclear Systems Inc.'s low-level radioactive waste dump in Barnwell, S.C.
If the South Carolina legislature agrees to do so, that would prompt utility companies and other producers of radioactive refuse to find an alternative disposal site. Since the election, however, Hodges has sounded less eager to shut down the Barnwell dump.
"I don't expect anything to be coming along soon on that issue," Nina Brook, Hodges' press secretary, said Monday. Chem-Nuclear is currently seeking long-term customers for the Barnwell dump in an effort to keep it open for another 25 years.
"If it should succeed, there may not be a need for an additional facility in the Southeast," Walter Sturgeon, the authority's executive director, told the agency's board members.
But the authority could get ahead of the game by proceeding with the new plan, said Sturgeon and representatives of Harding Lawson Associates, a company that offered to run the above-ground facility. Ron Gaynor, (Note: Ron Gaynor was formerly a VP with American Ecology)an executive with Harding Lawson, said the project could start up within three years and cost $25 million, compared with the five-year and $100 million schedule for the planned landfill.
Sturgeon acknowledged that the facility would not provide a long-term solution for the most dangerous waste -- the nuclear reactor parts that make up only 2 percent to 5 percent of the waste volume but contain the vast majority of its radioactivity.
His presentation was greeted by support from some authority members, but others questioned whether it would have such an easy ride as backers predicted. Authority member Mike Jones, an executive with Carolina Power & Light Co., suggested holding a hearing on the plan.
"I have yet to hear anything today that convinces me the public is willing to accept a storage facility in their back yard for 100 years any more than they will accept a disposal facility in their back yard," Jones said.
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