Melissa Bumstead
OCT 20, 2020 —
The NRC’s “Proposed Interpretative Rule on Transfer of Very Low Level Waste to Exempt Persons for Disposal,” would allow dangerous low-level radioactive waste to be dumped into local landfills. “Low-level” radioactive waste includes the same long-lasting, deadly radioactive elements as high-level radioactive waste, and some low-level radioactive waste will remain hazardous for millions of years.
So-called “low-level” radioactive waste includes:
- Entire nuclear reactors
- Tons of concrete permeated by radioactive gasses
- Soil contaminated with radioactive waste
- Activated metal components and pipes from reactor cores
- Massive steam generators through which radioactive water flows and in which radioactive rust accumulates
- Construction debris from buildings housing radioactive reactors and materials
- Radioactive booties and gloves might sound innocuous, but they can be contaminated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and dozens of other biologically dangerous radioactive elements.
[…]
1 in 500 people exposed for their lifetimes to the proposed VLLW release levels will get cancer according to Environmental Protection Agency risk calculations. Females and youth will be at even higher risk and combined exposure to other stressors will increase the hazard to humans.
The goal should be isolating this dangerous radioactive waste from the environment and the public. Instead, the NRC proposal would allow low-level radioactive waste to be taken to local landfills without monitoring for radioactive leaks, without consideration of people living nearby, if water sources or aquifers would be affected, or if the waste at these sites would be incinerated or recycled.
Read more at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: don’t allow radioactive waste into our local landfills!
