SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

* Friday, January 24, 1992



SHOULD A

NUCLEAR DUMP
BE BUILT IN THE
MOJAVE?



PHILIP M. KLASKY
Industry's secret strategy
THE DEMOCRATIC process itself may very well be one casualty of the nuclear industry's fight to open a proposed nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley. A confidential memo obtained by Assemblyman Tom Hayden's office reveals that the industry has created a sophisticated lobbying campaign designed to bypass the legislative process and public review and persuade Gov. Wilson to approve the dump by executive action.

The industry's "strategic communications plan," which was prepared by Winner/Wagner & Assocates, a high-powered Los Angeles-based public relations firm under contract to the California Radioactive Materials Forum, recommends that the nuclear industry lobby the governor to override a key state review board, the state lands commission. Two of the three members of that commission, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and State Controller Gray Davis, have blocked the dump plan out of serious concerns about issues of safety and taxpayer liability.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the industry plan involves employing Craig Fuller, former chief of staff for President Bush, to bring direct personal pressure to bear upon Gov. Wilson to approve the dump by executive action. California could then become host to much of the rest of the nation's radioactive waste, because federal legislation gives the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the power to direct waste from any region to an open dump under "emergency access provisions."

Currently no other states are as close to opening a dump as California is, and opponents believe that if approved, Ward Valley would become the main nuclear dumping ground for the entire nation.

The plan calls for burial of so-called "low-level" radioactive waste (including uranium and plutonium) in shallow unlined trenches at Ward Valley. The site would also become the final resting
place for the dismantled, decommissioned Rancho Seco, San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants when those reactors become too "hot" to operate. The dump site is located 13 miles from the Colorado River and right above an aquifer the size of Lake Tahoe. Dump opponents fear widespread contamination of the Colorado River by migrating radioactive materials such as tritium and plutonium.

The nuclear industry regularly attempts to mislead the public by suggesting that the dump is needed for waste generated for medical treatment But the facts reveal that most hospitals store their own relatively short-lived wastes on-site and do not use low-level waste dumps at all.

Meanwhile the California Department of Health Services is pushing for the, approval of the dump contractor, US Ecology, which has left a trail of leaking dumps and litigation across the nation. Federal law gives the states (read taxpayers) liability for the waste including dump closure costs, clean-up costs and accidents. Nuclear dumps have been stopped in 12 other states due to public outcry. The proposed Ward Valley dump is a bad solution to a bad problem. Safer and more expensive methods of radioactive waste containment include above-ground, monitored, retrievable storage facilities. Radioactive waste containment costs should be the responsibility of the waste producers, not the taxpayer.

An informed public must begin to debate the problems associated with the production of radioactive wastes from the generation of nuclear power. There is an immediate need to put tremendous resources toward finding adequate technologies for the safe storage and containment of the nation's existing mountain of radioactive waste. If the governor decides to site the dump through executive order he will leave Californians with a legacy of astronomical cleanup costs, contaminated water and increased risk of environmentally induced cancer.

Phillip M. Klasky is a free-lance writer and evironmental activist
 
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