LOW LEVEL WASTES

Low level wastes (LLW) are in the news because South Carolina does not want them, but had to take them after the other seven states in the South East Compact ganged up on it. S.C. got stuck with the disposal site mainly because it already has one of the three US LLW sites at Barnwell; the palaver about geology and other irrelevant politicians' talk can safely be ignored. And S.C. could not refuse because the compact must decide on a "victim" from among its members or eventually accept LLW from outside its compact.

This fuss about nobody wanting to accept something as dreadful as LLW illustrates the depth of the brainwash to which the public has been subjected. High, repeat high, level wastes are a godsend in that they are so small in quantity and so limited in duration (compared with chemical wastes) that unlike any other waste, they can be completely and reliably removed from the biosphere, not to mention the fact that in electric power generation they replace waste disposal in human lungs. But low level wastes are not even a godsend: they are an inocuous next-to-nothing whose only mystery is their capacity to frighten the simple-minded.

I have previously reported that the Capitol in Washington, due to the uranium and thorium content of its granite, is so radioactive that the NRC could not license it as a reactor. Let me now supplement this by the observation that the illustrious Members of Congress who meet in it have enough carbon 14 and potassium 40 in their bodies to qualify as LLW, or as some of them like to call it, as radioactive garbage.

Almost all states of the US therefore produce LLW. (The ones that show zero shipments to disposal sites are Alaska, Montana and North Dakota, but since they cannot get round using modern hospitals, I frankly don't know what that means.) The actual waste consists of such items as workers' gloves and tools that came into contact with radioisotopes. A significant part of LLW from power reactors is due to the tiny radioactive particles that penetrate from the reactor core into the cooling water. To prevent their accumulation, they are removed by ion exchange (same process as in a water softener), filtered, and their volume reduced by distillation. The remaining solid residue is a typical component of LLW.

Much of the LLW, especially that from hospitals, is short-lived. Other isotopes, including strontium, last for decades. But in either case, their concentration and radioactivity are so low that they need only be buried in shallow depositories assuring that they will not get into drinking water. If the same care were taken with the transportation and disposal of chemical toxic wastes, the economy would probably come to a standstill. For example, LLW from power reactors are, before transportation, solidified and compacted; the NRC does not allow liquid LLW. If chemical regulations were equally strict, you would not be trusted to have detergent, nail polish, battery acid or other undrinkable liquids in your home, and you would be strictly regulated to prevent you eating rubber tires.

LLW once again prove that people are not afraid of what is dangerous, but of what they do not understand. And much of the educational establishment, far from understanding itself, sees to it that others won't understand either.