WASHINGTON, DC - The majority of America’s current and former nuclear weapons sites will never be cleaned up enough to allow public use of the land, says a new report by the National Research Council. The study, released Monday, also warns that plans for guarding permanently contaminated sites are inadequate.

"At many sites, radiological and nonradiological hazardous wastes will remain, posing risks to humans and the environment for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years," the report says. "Complete elimination of unacceptable risks to humans and the environment will not be achieved, now or in the foreseeable future."

Almost 150 sites around the country are contaminated, a result of weapons production for the nuclear arms race. DOE has concluded that even after planned cleanup activities are completed - or found to be infeasible - at these so-called "legacy" waste sites, 109 of them will never be clean enough for unrestricted use.

The National Research Council report, commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE), says that the only option may be to declare some of America’s weapons sites as permanently off limits to public use. But the report also warns that the federal government lacks the money, technology and techniques to keep radioactive and chemical contaminants from spreading outside these areas, as they already have in some cases.

The DOE recently established the Office of Long-Term Stewardship to protect indefinitely the people and environment surrounding these sites - located in 27 states, Puerto Rico and territorial islands in the Pacific.

Details of the DOE’s stewardship plans have yet to be specified, adequate funding has not been assured, and there is no convincing evidence that institutional controls - such as surveillance of radioactive and other hazardous wastes left at sites, security fences and deeds restricting land use - will prove reliable over the long run, the report warns.

"Many weaknesses in institutional controls and other stewardship activities arise from institutional fallabilities," said Thomas Leschine, associate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and chair of the National Research Council committee that wrote the report. "Understanding this and developing a highly reliable organizational model that anticipates failure while taking advantage of new opportunities for further remediation and isolation of contaminants remains a significant challenge for DOE."

"Moreover," added committee vice chair Mary English, research leader at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, "DOE must undertake long term institutional management of residually contaminated sites with the expectation that plans developed today will need to be periodically revisited."

DOE should begin immediately to plan for a broader management framework that balances reduction of existing contaminants, physical isolation of wastes, and caretaking activities such as monitoring of waste migration offsite, changes in the landscape, and human activity around the site, the committee advises.

Currently, DOE defines stewardship as something that begins after "closure" of a site when cleanup is considered to be finished. The National Research Council committee said stewardship should ideally begin while remediation strategies are still being formulated.

The Office of Long-Term Stewardship has just begun its planning, and is required by law to report to Congress on DOE's responsibilities by October 1.

Because the long term behavior of contaminants in the environment is unpredictable and physical barriers may break down, the committee is urging DOE to develop its stewardship plans under the assumption that "contaminant isolation eventually will fail." A precautionary approach should be adopted in which contaminant cleanup is emphasized to address risks to human health and the environment, the report says.

No single formula exists for successful management of these sites, and decisions are likely to be made under conditions of considerable uncertainty, the reports notes. The best long term management strategy overall appears to be one which avoids eliminating future options, takes contingencies into account, and "considers seriously the prospects of failure."

Today's scientific knowledge and institutional capabilities do not provide much confidence that containment of permanently contaminated sites will function as expected indefinitely, the report says.

DOE officials view the long term stewardship efforts that they have proposed so far - which are likely to rely heavily on surveillance, maintenance and record keeping - as relatively inexpensive compared with the cost for initial cleanups. But real costs cannot be estimated with any confidence since failures are likely to occur, the committee reports. The goal of long term institutional management should be to anticipate such failures and minimize the costs and risks associated with them.

Ongoing surveillance and environmental monitoring need to go beyond the boundaries of a site, the committee's report emphasizes. For example, DOE has begun annual checking of building permit requests around the Oak Ridge Reservation site in Tennessee after a nearby golf course attempted to use water from a contaminated aquifer.

In addition, proposed land use changes inside a site, such as the reuse of the former facility for a new manufacturing purpose, need to be carefully considered, the report warns.

"DOE should frankly acknowledge gaps in its technical capabilities and organizational deficiencies when explaining long-term institutional management plans to the public," the National Research Council committee said. In addition, the scientific basis for decisions should be clear, and the public should be actively engaged in the development of stewardship plans.

The full report can be ordered from: http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9943.html

In freshman chemistry class you learn that, before you mix two chemicals together, you need to plan where you're going to put the products of the reaction. If you're going to create a strong acid, for example, you'll need a container that can withstand attack by strong acids. In short, it is standard procedure--and common sense--to decide before you make something where you're going to put it for safekeeping. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry has been making radioactive waste for 50 years and today the industry still has no clear idea where to put its radioactive byproducts for safekeeping. Nevertheless, until we take pollution prevention seriously and stop making radioactive waste, something has to be done with it. So in 1980 and 1982 Congress passed two laws to deal with "low-level" wastes (the vast majority from nuclear power plants, plus small amounts from medical uses) and "high level" radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. Low-level waste is radioactive tools, coveralls, rags, instruments, and liquids; high-level waste is a power plant's uranium fuel after it has become "poisoned" with radioactive elements like strontium and plutonium by undergoing nuclear "fission" for months or years. Although some low-level wastes can contain high concentrations of exceedingly radioactive elements, and some low-level waste can be very long-lived, in general "high level" waste is vastly more radioactive and much longer-lived than low-level waste. Both classes of waste are dangerous, and the government's (and the industry's) plan for dealing with them both is to bury them in the ground. Low-level waste will be buried in landfills, and high-level waste will be buried up to 2600 feet below ground, if the government has its way. Now in 1991 it is clear that the programs established under both laws are in shambles. There are no low-level waste dumps under construction. Each proposed site is subject of intense scrutiny and fierce opposition. The only high-level waste site being considered is at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Two-thirds of all citizens in Nevada and most of their political representatives are strenuously opposing continued exploration of the Nevada site. The nuclear industry and its supporters in federal and state governments have now unveiled bold new plans for solving the radioactive waste dilemma. The focus of the new initiatives is not science or engineering but a public relations campaign to convince citizens that radioactive waste can be transported and buried in the ground safely. We see a trend developing.

Consider these facts:

** A leading public relations industry "insider's" publication called JACK O'DWYER'S NEWSLETTER on September 4, 1991, revealed that New York state's Low-level Radioactive Waste Siting Commission earmarked $900,000 for a public relations blitz in 1991 "to convince New York state residents that low-level nuclear waste facilities are not harmful." The Commission actually issued an RFP (request for proposals) and 22 public relations firms have submitted written responses, detailing how they would conduct a 3-to-5-year, multi-million-dollar PR campaign to sell a low-level waste dump to New York residents.

** The North Carolina Radioactive Waste Management Siting Authority paid a little over $21,000 to Chem Nuclear Systems, Inc. (CNSI)--the radioactive waste dump subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc.--to evaluate the political feasibility of siting a low-level radwaste dump in six different counties of North Carolina. CNSI in turn hired a PR firm called Epley Associates who produced a 500-page "profile" of the six counties, including detailed evaluations of local political and environmental leaders. An employee of Duke Power (largest producer of radioactive waste in North Carolina) allowed a draft copy of the Epley Report to fall into the hands of a news reporter, and then it spread like measles. Three newspaper publishers and the NC Press Association are now suing in Wake County to get the full Epley report released under North Carolina's public records act, but no date has yet been set for a hearing on the matter. Meanwhile, we have obtained 71 pages of the 500-page DRAFT Epley Report. It contains judgments such as, "Wake [County] may be the most 'do-able' county in the state, politically.... We should be able to put together an attractive economic package for the southern Wake County area, which remains rural and feels left out of the county's prosperity.... Opposition will be strong in [the towns of] Chatham and perhaps Lee, and they must be included in any socioeconomic package." The Epley report recommended that state authorities announce in August, 1991, that 12 or 13 sites were being evaluated and not just the "[5] to 7 real sites" because the 12 or 13 sites "are geographically spread around the state and therefore public opposition is likely to be more dispersed and not clustered in one area. It may be more difficult for environmental and citizens groups to gain strength if their activities have to be spread over a wider area of the state." From what is going on in New York and North Carolina, it is apparent that people everywhere should be investigating the public relations budgets of the "low-level radioactive waste siting commission" in their locale. Wherever you live, it seems likely that taxpayers' money is being used for a PR campaign to "sell" you a low-level dump.

** By far the biggest public relations campaign has been launched by the nuclear industry to convince Nevada residents that a huge dump for high-level spent-fuel waste at Yucca Mountain will be safe. The plan came to light when a utility executive leaked documents to the Safe Energy Communication Council, a public-interest group in Washington, DC. The nameless executive released a letter from the President of Florida Power Corporation (Allen J. Keesler, Jr.) to members of the Edison Electric Institute's (EEI) Executive Committee; EEI is a nuclear industry trade association. Mr. Keesler's letter to EEI outlines a three-year, $8.7 million PR campaign that is actually underway now in Nevada. Mr. Keesler described "The Nevada Initiative" as "an effort to change public sentiment in Nevada from that of opposition to at least neutrality, positive at best." Mr. Keesler wrote, "And please note this document is 'Confidential.' You can understand the sensitivity with it becoming public," he wrote. You bet we can. Attached to Mr. Keesler's memo was a 22-page "proposal" from a PR firm to "The American Nuclear Energy Council" (another industry trade group), seeking $8.7 million. The proposal is stamped "confidential" and is dated September, 1991. The proposal says, "The industry message has been focused, influential Nevadans have been recruited to help advance the industry's objectives and a working political alliance has been established with the Department of Energy, natural allies, and key decision makers. Aggressive coalition building is under way, an in-house scientific response team has been recruited, an industry boiler room operation is functioning in Nevada and a dialogue has been developed with the media. A paid advertising campaign will begin this month." The proposal uses military language throughout, to describe what the nuclear industry is planning to do to the citizens of Nevada. "A political beachhead has been established in Nevada," the proposal says. And: "The ongoing advertising campaign will reduce the number of negative-leaning Nevadans and drive them into the undecided camp, where they will be more receptive to factual information. By softening public opposition, the campaign will provide 'air cover' for elected officials who wish to discuss benefits." A "scientific truth squad and an attack/response team of scientists" have been "trained" already to convince Nevadans that Yucca Mountain is safe, the proposal says. The media campaign began on schedule in September and is still running, according to Grace Bukowski, director of military programs at Citizen Alert, a Nevada citizens' group that just celebrated its 16th birthday. "Our phones have been ringing off the hook since these ads began," Ms. Bukowski told us. "The people who planned this advertising campaign forgot that this is the above-ground testing state. People here learned about the nuclear industry the hard way." We asked, might such an advertising campaign succeed at all? Ms. Bukowski grew pleasantly scornful. "People are simply not going to fall for that bullshit. They're wasting their money. People are just not that stupid," she said. We are forced to conclude that the nuclear industry is beyond desperation in its search for a credible solution to the problem of radioactive waste. They have given up on science. They have abandoned the democratic process and rational decision-making. They are now resorting to secret campaigns of bribery, persuasion and deception to convince Americans that black is white, evil is good, and danger is safety. Happily, the industry's desperation is exceeded only by its ineptitude.

WASHINGTON, DC - Does the state of New  Mexico have the right to force the Department of Energy to open sealed containers of radioactive waste shipped into the state by the  federal government? The courts will have to decide. The U.S. Department of Energy is suing the state of New Mexico over the state's restrictions on hazardous waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says the state permit requirements could cost taxpayers an additional $33 million and put workers at risk, but New Mexico officials say the federal government is breaking its promise to let the state oversee operations at the waste storage site.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a federal waste disposal site built into salt beds a half mile beneath the earth's surface.  The site was built to store radioactively contaminated materials like tools, protective clothing and sludge, collectively known as transuranic waste. Barrels of transuranic waste have been shipped to WIPP since March.

WIPP can also store transuranic waste mixed with nonradioactive hazardous chemicals, but the Department of Energy has been delaying those shipments pending a state permit which would detail handling requirements for mixed waste. Last week, officials at the New Mexico Environment Department issued a Hazardous Waste Facility Permit for WIPP, which will allow the  plant to begin receiving shipments of mixed waste. The waste will be shipped from Department of Energy (DOE) sites including the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL).

The permit calls for the opening of 11 percent of the 12,000 barrels  in the first series of shipments from Rocky Flats, fora visual  examination to verify that they are correctly labeled and not under pressure. Prior to December 1989, Rocky Flats made parts for nuclear weapons using various radioactive and hazardous materials. The  production of nuclear weapons left behind a legacy of contaminated  facilities, soils and ground water that must now be safely cleaned  up before the Site can be closed down. But reopening those barrels and sifting through their ingredients  would expose workers to radiation and be prohibitively expensive, the DOE contends.

"We will continue to operate WIPP safely and in compliance with all regulatory requirements," said Dr. Carolyn Huntoon, DOE's assistant secretary for environmental management. "But our goal is to have a permit that does not unnecessarily increase costs or risks to our workers."

The DOE estimates that reexamining the barrels could cost Rocky Flats an additional $10 million. At INEEL, the permit requires the recharacterization of wastes that are already packed for shipment, a process the DOE estimates would cost $7 million. The permit also requires the federal government to monitor groundwater near the WIPP site for alpha and beta radiation, which the DOE lawsuit asserts would duplicate monitoring efforts already in place. Due to the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials, groundwater monitoring would also be unreliable and misleading, the suit contends.

Finally, the permit obligates DOE's private contractor, Westinghouse, to post a $100 million bond to demonstrate its
financial ability to close the site once it is filled, which the DOE says is unnecessary. "Under federal law, the United States is
required to pay for the closure and monitoring of WIPP, and therefore the assurances provided by Westinghouse would only become effective in the very unlikely event that the United States failed to meet its obligation," the lawsuit states.
The DOE lawsuit calls the permit "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, not supported by substantial evidence in the record, and otherwise not in accordance to the law."

"The hazardous waste permit places onerous requirements on the Department of Energy (DOE) that could lead to workers being unnecessarily exposed to radiation, additional delays and expenditures for DOE sites cleaning up the legacy of the Cold War and a further strain on existing resources. My hope is that Governor Johnson intervenes to fix these problems with the permit," said Richardson. "We plan to challenge provisions in the permit requiring additional waste characterization at DOE sites and financial assurances for eventual closure of the WIPP facility."

The DOE plans to continue shipping waste to WIPP until the permit takes effect on November 26, in order to meet its commitments to the state of Colorado concerning the closure of Rocky Flats. On Monday, a former plutonium research building at Rocky Flats was torn down, the first of six buildings that must be decontaminated and dismantled.

"The Energy Department will move swiftly to ship and dispose of waste in order to comply with agreements and commitments made with several states," said Richardson. "We will aggressively ship from Rocky Flats to WIPP until the end of November and we will do what it takes to bring that site, and Hanford (Washington), into compliance with the permit to resume shipments early next year," said Richardson. Shipments from INEEL are projected to resume next spring, while shipments from Los Alamos in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina are not slated to start until later next year.

A New Mexico Environment Department spokesman said the lawsuit indicates the DOE is breaking promises it made to the state in exchange for building the $2 billion plant.

"The state of New Mexico is agreeing to take the nation's transuranic waste," said spokesman Nathan Wade. "In exchange for
that agreement, the DOE agreed to allow the state to oversee WIPP, and to provide some highway money. WIPP is here now, and the promises are vanishing."

Richardson said Monday the DOE may withhold highway funds from New Mexico if the permit is not changed.

"We want to open WIPP in a safe, secure manner and honor our commitment to Rocky Flats," Richardson said. "But if we keep getting roadblocks from New Mexico we're going to have to reciprocate."

The WIPP facility is scheduled to receive 37,000 waste shipments over about 30 years. Though so far only a small area has been excavated, eventually its underground storage area will include 56 large rooms, each 300 feet long by 33 feet wide by 13 feet high.

Four southern states and a regional waste commission are suing the state of North Carolina for its opposition to a planned low level radioactive waste dump within North Carolina's borders. The suit accuses North Carolina of failing to meet its obligations as a member of the Southeast Compact Commission, a group charged with building the regional radioactive waste repository.

The states of Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia, and the Southeast Compact Commission (SCC) for Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management, filed suit Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce $90 million in sanctions against the State of North Carolina.

"North Carolina did not live up to its promise to Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and the other two states in the Compact," said James Setser, chair of the SCC. "The member states and the Compact Commission have a moral and a legal responsibility to ensure that North Carolina fulfills its obligations to all of the members of the Southeast Compact and the citizens of our region."

The lawsuit is the latest action taken by the Compact members to enforce sanctions imposed against North Carolina by the SCC in December 1999.

"North Carolina must be held accountable for its failure to provide a site for disposal of low level radioactive waste for the southeast," said Alabama attorney general Bill Pryor. "Alabama is committed to live up to its obligations and we expect nothing less from North Carolina."

The Southeast Compact is an agreement among seven states - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia - to jointly manage the region's low level radioactive wastes. South Carolina, originally a member of the Southeast Compact, withdrew in June 1995.

These wastes include byproducts of research and industrial processes that have been exposed to radioactivity, including discarded containers, tools and uniforms from nuclear power plants, hospitals and universities.

Congress passed a law in 1980 making each state responsible for disposing of low level radioactive wastes generated within its borders. The Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act authorized the creation of regional compacts under which states can combine their wastes at a single site to save resources.

Three existing waste sites in Nevada, South Carolina and Washington were told they could stop accepting radioactive wastes from outside their compact regions after other regions had time to build their own disposal facilities.

The SCC chose North Carolina as the host state for the southeastern region's low level radioactive waste disposal site in 1986, and planning was begun to build the dump along the border of Wake and Chatham counties.

In July 1999, North Carolina lawmakers decided to withdraw the state from the Southeast Compact, and end construction at the proposed radioactive disposal site south of Raleigh. The SCC had cut off funding for the project in 1997, and North Carolina officials said they had concluded that the region no longer needed its own radioactive waste dump.

By 1999, about $130 million had already been spent on the North Carolina project, including $80 provided by other SCC member states, but little concrete progress had been made at the site. The SCC now wants its $80 million back, along with another $10 million in penalties for North Carolina's abandonment of the Compact.

The SCC first asked North Carolina to pay $90 million to the Southern Compact in December 1999, but North Carolina refused. In July 2000, the SCC asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, but the nation's highest court denied the Compact's motion, saying the Compact's member states would have to file suit themselves.

On Monday, four of the member states did just that.

"The decision to file a lawsuit against another state is not one to be made lightly," said Virginia attorney general Jerry Kilgore. "But, the circumstances here have left us no choice. The size of the sum involved, the refusal of North Carolina to make payment and the need for an environmentally safe, long term answer to the problem of low level radioactive waste, make this dispute appropriate for a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Southeast Compact members say the North Carolina dump site is needed to handle the wastes common to the region's nuclear power plants, medical needs and other industries. But that argument has failed to sway other proposed hosts of compact disposal sites across the nation.

In California, for example, plans to build a low level radioactive waste dump at Ward Valley were turned back in 1999 by a combination of activist encampment at the site and court action.

Just three licensed disposal sites for low level radioactive wastes now exist in the U.S. Barnwell, located in Barnwell, South Carolina, accepts waste from all U.S. sites except those in Rocky Mountain and Northwest compacts.

Hanford, located in Hanford, Washington, accepts waste from the Northwest and Rocky Mountain compacts. Envirocare, located in Clive, Utah, accepts waste from all regions of the United States.

"There is a growing national crisis in LLRW management. North Carolina, Nebraska and California have all failed to build a waste site," said the SCC's Setser. "People want the benefits of radioactive materials, such as medical procedures and smoke detectors, but politicians lack the will to put the needed facilities in their states."

The controversial Ward Valley low level radioactive waste dump proposal, declared dead and buried by all but its most fervent supporters, is still breathing. US Ecology, Inc., the company that proposed to construct the disposal site in California’s Mojave desert, filed suit today against the state of California for damages stemming from the abandonment of the site.

Jack Lemley, chairman, chief executive officer and president of American Ecology Corporation announced today that its subsidiary US Ecology, Inc. is suing the State of California, Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, and the director of the state Department of Health Services for more than $162 million in monetary damages the company says it suffered due to the state's abandonment of the Ward Valley disposal site.

The land on which the nuclear disposal site would have been located is owned by the federal government, which has declined to transfer ownership of the land to the state of California.

US Ecology is also seeking a legal order requiring California to resume and complete steps to purchase the disposal site, located about 20 miles west of Needles.

"It is clear that California has abandoned its duty to develop this safe, environmentally sound disposal facility as required by state and federal laws and the state's contractual relationship with US Ecology," Lemley said. "The real tragedy is that radioactive waste continues to pile up in California communities while state officials bury their heads in the sand and ignore the law.

The suit was filed in Superior Court for the County of San Diego.

California is required by law to build a disposal site for low level radioactive waste from commercial and research reactors, medical facilities and laboratories, produced in California, Arizona, North Dakota and South Dakota. These states are members of a cooperative agreement called the Southwestern Low-Level Waste Disposal Compact. In 1985, a private developer - US Ecology - was selected to locate and license the site using its own funds on a reimbursable basis.

US Ecology says it has also paid annual $250,000 license fees and covered the cost of various contractors hired by the state to assist it in scrutinizing the project.

In 1993, US Ecology obtained a license for the disposal site from the California Department of Health Services, which it continues to hold. The state successfully defended the license against challenges in court and, until last year, worked actively to obtain the site from the federal government.

"Since Governor Davis took office, the state has moved systematically to dismantle years of careful progress to solve a serious public health problem," said Lemley. "This abrupt policy reversal and the state's refusal to proceed with acquisition of the Ward Valley site leaves us no choice but to seek economic recovery and a court order that California meet its present obligations."

Governor Davis expressed his position in a recent interview published in the "Save Ward Valley News." "Ward Valley as a site is a dead issue because the federal government won't sell us the land," the governor said. "I think we have a responsibility to find a place for the waste generated by biotechnology, and our universities, and our hospitals. That waste has a very short shelf life and represents maybe 8-to-10 percent, at most, of the total low-level nuclear waste. But, because we have a high-tech economy, and because we are leaders in biotechnology, I don't think it's right that we get the benefits of all that and just ship our nuclear garbage someplace else."

Governor Davis has established a taskforce to see if there is some other site besides Ward Valley anywhere in California to dump the nuclear waste.

The company's claim includes recovery of costs incurred since 1985, plus interest and future lost profits for the intended 30 years of waste burial.

"We believe our case is strong and intend to pursue this legal action with vigor," Lemley said.

Last week, US Ecology filed the opening brief in its appeal of a federal District Court ruling on the delayed Ward Valley land sale.

In March, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed one of the two remaining legal arguments supporting the creation of a radioactive waste dump in Ward Valley. Judge Robert Hodges said an eleventh hour land transfer by the George Bush administration in January 1993 violated a prior restraining order, rendering the transfer void.

The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) owns the 1,000 acre parcel on which the planned dump would be built. In 1996, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt overturned his predecessor’s decision to transfer the land to California for use as a nuclear waste dump.

California’s governor at the time, Republican Pete Wilson, and US Ecology sued the Department of Interior in 1997, saying Babbitt’s action violated the Administrative Procedures Act. In 1999, S. District Court Emmet Sullivan ruled against the dump proponents and in favor of the Interior Department and environmentalists who had joined the case.

"We believe the Interior Department has an ongoing obligation to convey the property to California, and that California has a present duty to demand that they do so," Lemley said. "US Ecology is ready and able to build and operate the Ward Valley site consistent with our existing license and the law."

Oral arguments in US Ecology’s appeal are scheduled in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit this September.

The project would bury low level radioactive wastes in shallow, unlined trenches. Native American tribes, environmental groups and nuclear activists have fought against the project for years, saying the wastes could contaminate surface and groundwater, including the Colorado River, which provides drinking water for much of southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

The project could also threaten habitat for the California desert tortoise and other at risk species.

Other US Ecology nuclear waste sites in Washington, Kentucky, Illinois and Nevada have been plagued with leaks and other problems. The company’s Maxey Flats, Kentucky facility was put on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list of most polluted sites after plutonium and other radioactive wastes were discovered leaking from the facility.

Radioactive waste producers, including California universities, hospitals and industries, support the planned Ward Valley dump, and many representatives from these groups sat on a panel appointed last year by Governor Davis to explore alternatives to Ward Valley. The panel was widely criticized for containing too many radioactive waste generators and too few environmentalists.

American Ecology Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides low level radioactive, hazardous and non-hazardous waste services to commercial and government customers throughout the U.S. Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, the company is the oldest radioactive and hazardous waste services company in the nation.

Washington -- New Jersey's search for a place to dump low-level radioactive waste cost more than $9 million but was fruitless.

The state at least has good company: All told, states spent $600 million over 18 years but failed to designate even one waste-disposal site, according to the General Accounting Office.

A recent GAO report found that controversy over nuclear waste disposal was one common reason for the widespread failure by states.

That is what happened time and again to the New Jersey Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Siting Board.

Over nine years, the board heard inklings of interest from a dozen towns curious about the financial incentives and jobs that would come with the disposal site. But when worried residents found out, municipal leaders backtracked and sent the siting board back to its search.

A year ago, the board voted to shut down. That process is taking a while -- "the tent hasn't quite folded," said Amy Collings, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection -- but the board's active days are evidently behind it.

The GAO study found that efforts in other states have stalled or stopped, too.

The situation is not a crisis -- yet. On the bright side, the GAO found that industry is now producing less low-level waste than in the past. For now, the few existing facilities are able to handle it.

Low-level radioactive waste produced in New Jersey is sent to the Chem Nuclear facility at Barnwell, S.C. In 1998, New Jersey's shipments amounted to 8,553 cubic feet, the GAO said.

Two other sites now accept low-level waste -- one in Utah and one in Washington State.

But they will not always be around. The Barnwell site is scheduled to close in 2010, but could curtail access as early as next year. Utah's facility, Envirocare, accepts only slightly contaminated waste.

And potential decommissioning of nuclear plants around 2010 will spike the amount of waste -- both high-level and low-level -- that will need a permanent resting place.

(Disposal of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors is the subject of a separate dispute; a plan to bury the waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has spurred opposition by that state.)

Low-level radioactive wastes include metal components, resins, paper, liquid, glass, and protective clothing exposed to radioactivity at pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, universities, and nuclear plants.

Congress in 1980 enacted legislation encouraging states to form compacts and provide regional disposal facilities by the end of 1992.

Forty-four states entered into a total of 10 compacts; New Jersey and Connecticut paired up in what became known as the Northeast Compact.
According to the GAO, New Jersey's siting commission spent $9.7 million trying to find a town willing to host the disposal site. It raised the money from industries that produce low-level radioactive waste.

Connecticut's siting commission spent more than $15 million before giving up on a permanent solution. It is now exploring the feasibility of a facility to store wastes for 100 years or more.

The GAO compiled the report at the request of Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He said the time has come to declare defeat and move on to other solutions.

"A law was passed, millions of dollars have been spent, 18 years have gone by, yet the problem remains," Murkowski said.

With states having failed, the GAO said responsibility for creating waste disposal sites could be given to commercial industry, or to the federal Department of Energy.

A spokeswoman said Murkowski does not have a solution in mind and is awaiting further GAO studies. His committee may hold hearings on the topic.

"The unfortunate part of this story," Murkowski said in a statement, "is that the materials that are not from nuclear power plants are stored in your neighborhoods and communities. If you have a hospital or a university in your city, you have low-level waste being stored nearby."