When we think about radioactive waste, we usually think about nuclear reactors and the fuel they use to generate power. Probably, we also think about Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, depending on our age. Very few of us will ever need to be concerned about exposure to those. Much of our radioactive waste, however, is not high level, but still is dangerous. There are several different classifications of radioactive waste depending on the level of radioactivity it has. That determines how long the waste is expected to continue to be dangerous for and how its disposal needs to be handled. 

Despite governmental oversight, there are exposure issues with the way certain radioactive waste is handled. That includes some of the high level waste at government sites. In addition, there is soon going to be a crisis from the lack of ability to control radioactive fracking waste. 

Radioactive waste dumps supposedly closed years ago will present grave threats to people and the environment for thousands of years. The potential for accidents and uncontrollable events, especially due to sloppy handling of these deadly wastes, will haunt the surrounding communities unfortunate enough to be located nearby. One such disastrous event happened on October 18, 2015, at a closed radioactive waste dump outside Beatty, Nevada. The official story told by federal officials and contractors at the storage site say there was a huge explosion underground in one of the radioactive waste pits. The explosion created a crater 20’ x 30’ wide and sent 11 drums of waste flying through the air. Corroded 55 gallon drums were scattered around the crater, and two drums were actually found outside the fenceline. The town of Beatty had inspectors with radiation detectors checking levels in town. The radioactive waste dump had, according to federal records, 4.7 million cubic feet of waste buried in several trenches. Another source put the number at 7 million cubic feet. There was no mention of the estimated 47 pounds of highly radioactive plutonium and uranium disposed of at the site over up through the early 1990s. 

The investigators looking into the cause of the explosion found that cracks in the cap over the storage pit had allowed water to penetrate the areas with the wastes triggering a reaction resulting in the massive explosion. The cause of the explosion was something that was never supposed to happen and undercuts the government’s main argument that these radioactive waste storage and disposal sites are safe and will remain safe for thousands of years. In less than 50 years, not even a tiny fraction of the thousands, the storage site failed.

1. High Level Radioactive Wastes

High level waste is the absolute worst it can get. These are the spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors as well as leftover materials from military weapons systems and military installations where all types of nuclear and radioactive materials were used and disposed of. This waste will remain highly radioactive and deadly for thousands of years. Much of this waste remains onsite at the nuclear reactors that produced it because there never was any disposal site developed to take it. There have been many plans, and millions of dollars have been spent to find some place considered safe for disposal, but every attempt has fallen through. For now, the waste remains exactly where they have been for decades. 

If anything ever happens to the onsite storage area at one of these nuclear reactors, the resulting damage and radiation exposure could be many times higher than a simple small meltdown would be. 

The federal government also has enormous amounts of high level radioactive waste sitting around. There are places like Hanford in Washington where plutonium levels remain so high in places it is deadly to be exposed for long. Many other government installations across the country are also full of high level radioactive waste. Because they are the government-owned, though, they can create some of their own disposal sites where waste can be taken from one site and moved to another. This practice is an open secret. There are quite a few locations the government owns and operates where they dump their high level radioactive waste. 

Many of these government disposal sites and places that are still extremely contaminated with high level radioactive waste are in communities and near populated areas. Because these are the most dangerous types, military installations and government property present an enormous hazard to people. 

The new administration has been looking for ways to clean up some of the most deadly, dangerous, and highly radioactive sites created by the military and government over decades. With help from the Department of Defense, they have discovered a highly controversial process that will turn high level radioactive waste into much less harmful low level waste. The federal government will try this new method on high level nuclear waste that has sat for decades at three nuclear weapons facilities in Washington state, Idaho, and South Carolina.

The Department of Energy will attempt to change the current radioactive waste classification from high level deadly nuclear waste into much lower level radioactive waste using a simple change in language. There is absolutely nothing at all scientific about this. What the government is doing is impossible to do in reality, according to physicists and nuclear engineers familiar with nuclear waste. It takes tens of thousands of years for high level nuclear waste to degrade down to lower level waste. Once the waste has been reclassified, the government can dispose of this lower classification of waste at a low level disposal facility at a much lower cost even though the waste in reality has not become less hazardous. 

If this works, it is possible the government will try this on all of the most deadly radioactive waste stored for years onsite at government nuclear weapons complexes across the country. Apparently, reclassifying something as less harmful makes it so. As an added bonus to the government, simply by changing the classification of the high level wastes to low level, the government anticipates saving upwards of $40 billion it would have had to spend to clean up the wastes before they changed the classification. 

2. Low Level Radioactive Wastes (LLRW)

The vast amount of businesses who work with radioactive substances do not create much high level radioactive waste in their regular use of these materials. Almost all of the waste this group creates is classified in the LLRW category. By volume, LLRW is the majority of all radioactive waste produced annually and needing disposal. Hospitals, medical schools, universities, and some industrial manufacturing facilities produce LLRW. The EPA previously estimated there were about 20,000 places that were commercial generators of LLRW, which includes hospitals and universities. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates 95% of radioactive wastes falls into the lowest level of this three tier category. 

Items that simply come in contact with some radioactivity do not become very contaminated. These types of waste are usually only hazardous for short periods of time. This waste may be slightly contaminated papers, clothing, and tools that have been used in medicine and industry. Some facilities are allowed to store and keep this waste onsite until the level of radioactivity decreases to the point that the waste can be disposed of in regular landfills. Much of the clothing, paper, medicine cases, and other items used briefly have levels of radiation that quickly decreases. This is the low end of the low level classification. 

The radioactivity level of items in this classification ranges from just over normal background levels found in nature up to much higher levels of radioactivity. This class could include, for example, parts taken from inside the reactor of a nuclear power plant. It also could include sludge removed from inside the reactor during routine cleaning. 

LLRW is not always low level, nor is it safe. Some of the radioactive elements stay harmful for over 100 years as they continue decaying. Part of the requirements for the storage of this waste is that it stays in storage until it is harmless and its radioactivity level is almost nothing. However, there are currently only four low level radioactive waste disposal sites operating in the country. 

Complicating the situation, this material stays hazardous for a longer period of time, possibly up to several hundred years. These LLRW dumps will be a storage facility where this radioactive waste will remain until it decays and becomes harmless. The structural integrity of any storage facility and ability to maintain this integrity presents the greatest danger. Leaks from these storage sites are possible, and radioactive tritium and other isotopes have turned up in groundwater of other facilities.  

Add all of those other sites the waste from the Department of Energy facilities, nuclear power stations, fuel fabrication, and conversion plants. All together, over five million cubic feet of LLRW was disposed of at four operating disposal sites in the U.S.–five million cubic feet of waste that has to be kept safe and contained for over 100 years. 

This wasn’t always the case. There were other private facilities that operated back through the ‘70s. However, one by one, they closed down for several reasons. It was kept quiet, but some of the reasons included leakage at the sites. In Illinois near the town of Sheffield, a LLRW dump was closed after accepting over three million cubic feet of radioactive waste. It appeared that radioactive tritium began to migrate away from the burial trenches. Also, there were two other dumps, one located in Kentucky and the other in New York State, that were shut down in the late ‘70s. These facilities were also having problems keeping the radioactive waste where it was supposed to stay. At one site, in Beatty, Nevada, there were two incidents that involved trucks transporting the radioactive waste into the storage facility. These places will remain radioactive and dangerous for decades to come. Hopefully, the waste does not escape containment and contaminate millions of gallons of water. 

In the meantime, there are quite a few companies who specialize in LLRW. Many of them consolidate this waste from many different generators and pack it for shipment to the licensed disposal sites. Some also may be permitted to hold the LLRW for a period of time, such as a year, until they are no longer a hazard and then dispose of them into a regular landfill. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows a practice known as waste blending. It is where a higher level of radioactive waste is combined with a lower one to reduce the level of the new blended waste. Then, the cost involved in disposing the higher level one is reduced. The NRC points out this is not the same as diluting wastes where the waste is blended with something non-radioactive to reduce the level. Even if this sounds the same, according to the NRC, it is not. 

In addition to the types of radioactive waste, any reasonable discussion of radioactive waste has to address a few more topics.

1. Radioactive Fracking Wastes

This category of wastes is a fairly new one and is currently presenting a significant problem for safe disposal. From around 2005 to 2015, the beginning of the fracking boom, the waste managed to stay under the radar in many places. The industry tried their best to ignore the fact that there were millions of gallons of radioactive waste that needed to be handled safely. There are now frequent stories in the news of truckers driving tanker trucks for fracking waste disposal companies without being told what they were handling was potentially dangerous to their health. Very little if any protection was used, and the results are serious issues with people having health problems and millions of gallons of water being contaminated. 

The industry knows the wastes are radioactive and have tried to hide the danger from regulators and the public. Regulators knew about this but turned their heads and ignored the problem for years. The issue is about to become explosive because of the potential for so many people to be harmed by this, especially the workers handling these wastes simply trying to make a living and support their families. 

Rolling Stone magazine ran an article written by a man writing a book about the radioactivity that is part of oil and gas production but almost never talked about. The article shared the story of a tank truck driver delivering a load of fracking wastes at the disposal facility and being told the level of radioactivity contained in the wastes in his truck was the most radioactive the facility had ever seen. The trucker had never been told by his supervisor about this nor been given any special precautions to follow or protective equipment to wear for protection. The driver said the liquids get all over their clothing and body, and at times nausea and headaches as well as numbness and joint pain rack his body. He said he knew of other drivers who got sores on their bodies like lesions that do not heal for months. When the trucker brought samples of the waste he had been transporting to a lab for testing, the levels of radium levels registered an average of an astounding 3,500 when 60 was considered safe. Thousands are exposed daily while little or no regulations are in place. 

The fracking industry is currently having a really hard time trying to control the problem they created. There are many legal battles over various aspects of the fracking industry going on in the courts and political arena over radioactive waste again. One major issue is what is going to be done with all the radioactive waste the fracking industry has created. The waste, known as TENORM (technologically enhanced, naturally occurring radioactive material), is a result of fracking. Fracking concentrates the natural level of radioactive materials in the Earth into a much higher level of radioactivity. This material is then too radioactive to be disposed of into regular landfills or disposed of into nearby waterways. 

Millions of gallons of this waste are being generated, and it needs to be disposed of somewhere safely. Incredible amounts of money are at stake for both the places where this waste can be disposed of and the industry that wants as low a cost as it can get away with paying for disposal. 

The oil and gas industry in addition to the waste disposal industry are heavily lobbying to raise the legally accepted level of radiation in the current restrictions and regulations just high enough so they can dump radioactive waste in landfills. 

Michigan was looking at regulations that would open up their landfills to accept this waste and even higher contamination levels of some radioactive waste with a special license. Fracking companies in Pennsylvania were already looking to Michigan to be their dumping grounds. 

There are also some companies unwilling to wait until it can be legally done. In Arlington, Oregon, Waste Management has been accepting illegal shipments of radioactive materials at their hazardous waste landfill totaling at least two million pounds. The materials have been shipped from several states as well as Canada. The radioactive waste has been coming from Oilfield Logistics, which handles fracking wastes. Waste Management claimed to have never checked or tested any of the waste over the three years, a time period during which any responsible landfill operator performs such tests as a regular safety procedure. Since the year 2000, Waste Management has been fined a total of  $500,719,123 for 208 recorded violations for everything from environmental problems to workplace safety and wage and hour violations. Considering they had a gross profit in 2018 or $5.9 billion, paying a half billion over 20 years to violate the law means very little. 

The hazardous waste landfill operated by Waste Management now has two million pounds of radioactive waste illegally disposed of. If this landfill gets approved to now legally continue accepting radioactive wastes, Waste Management will continue endangering the people of Arlington with millions of pounds more. Once the landfill leaks, as it eventually will, underground water supplies to the community will be in danger of contamination not just from the hazardous materials already at the landfill but now the radioactive waste in addition. 

2. Radioactive Waste Treatment Facilities

With the thousands of sites the government needs to have cleaned up all over the country, there are companies who package and treat some of the radioactive wastes at their facility. 

Perma-Fix has such a facility in Richland, Washington in addition to others they operate across the country.  Currently, they take high level radioactive wastes from the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation, prepare and package it for eventual disposal, and send it back to Hanford for storage at the government operated high level nuclear waste disposal site. The company is located in an industrial park in a rapidly developing area. While they have been operating there for about 20 years, their original permit expired back in 2009. A new one was submitted back in 2009, but it was rejected by the state environmental agency for deficiencies in both 2011 and 2015. It is still currently being worked on with the state Department of Ecology in 2019. 

The interesting part is the company continued to handle deadly radioactive waste for the government even though their original permit to do so was no longer valid and many changes had taken place in areas the company was originally permitted for. The radioactivity of some waste the company now handles, such as plutonium has increased to the most dangerous levels. In addition, the company is handling waste from at least two other countries and seeking to import from additional ones. 

Moreover, the area Perma-Fix is located in has developed significantly over the last decade. Transporting wastes in and out on local roadways and on site storage is rapidly becoming a tremendous potential danger to the surrounding area and community as a whole.  

3. Nuclear Fuel Facilities

There still are places in the country working to keep a supply of nuclear fuel available. One such plant is run by Westinghouse outside Columbia, South Carolina. Over the past 20 years, the plant has had a variety of issues with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. Now, the plant is leaking potential contamination through a protective liner meant to contain any leaks or spills. Inspectors found 13 small holes in the liner and are hoping pollution has not yet dripped into the soil and groundwater beneath the plant. There were also leaks in 2008 and 2011 that were not reported to the NRC as required. If the radioactive contamination gets into the underground water, it may cause kidney and liver damage as well as cancer in people who ingest the water.

The NRC in 2019 began to consider extending the existing permit for the plant to operate for another 40 years, and a Westinghouse spokesperson said the company had no plans to clean up any of the contamination under the building until their permit expires. Additionally, Westinghouse acknowledged the plant had problems over the years and said it would do a better job. The NRC is looking favorably at the plant, hoping many of the past problems are being addressed. 

While there is evidence of many past issues and failings on the part of Westinghouse and the NRC report did conclude, “there could be noticeable impacts to the soil, surface water and groundwater” there is a larger reason the NRC is leaning towards approval of the plants continued operation. Simply put, the Westinghouse plant is one of only three nuclear fuel factories in the country and is important to the nuclear power industry as a source of fuel rods to power the nation’s nuclear power plants. 

While all of this was still ongoing, in May 2020, it was reported leaks in waste storage lagoons may have penetrated into the groundwater. A spokesperson from Westinghouse said,“It is expected that some contamination will exist in the soil underlying the east lagoon liner, given the long operating history of the lagoon and the potential for a liner system leak.” 

The admission of the high probability for the failure of the liner and contamination of the groundwater is little consolation for the people in the nearby town of Hopkins who depend on the groundwater for their water supplies. In addition the contamination may move into the tributaries of the Congaree River and further spread radioactivity. Exposure to the radiative contamination may cause kidney damage, One of the specific elements leaked is Technetium 99, which collects in the thyroid and in the gastrointestinal tract, possibly causing cancer.  It certainly sounds like the industry already knows these dumps all leak through the liners even though they never admit it in the beginning. 

In Newhallville, Connecticut, an old nuclear fuel manufacturing facility is finally getting cleaned up after decades of sitting in the neighborhood. While environmental officials are downplaying the amount of radioactive waste and contaminated building parts, apparently there was more than enough to require special transportation routes and extra precautions. The radioactive waste being removed is going to be shipped to a LLRW dump in Utah. For 50 years, neighbors lived next to the contaminated site that also contained large amounts of asbestos and lead. While there are no documented illnesses directly tied to the radioactivity which sat there for decades, neighbors, aware of the threat to their health it poses, are more than happy to see it gone. 

In Piketon, Ohio, a tremendous uranium enrichment facility built by the Department of Energy in the 1950s still sits with much of its contamination. In addition to enriching uranium, the plant was also used for development of the country’s nuclear weapons. The DOE has big plans now for the 1,200 acre site. They want to create one of the largest nuclear waste dumps east of the Mississippi. The plans call for building a LLRW landfill able to hold two million tons of waste. They claim there will be a liner, a cover, and safety systems for any leaks of radioactive waste that could occur. The proposed site is not too far from the Scioto River, so any leaks would contaminate the drinking water of Piketon and the surrounding areas. 

In Washington state, close to the tri-city area of Pasco, Richland, and Kennewick, the toxic winds are blowing. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, one of the most contaminated places on Earth, is nearby. The massive multi-billion dollar clean up of high level radioactive waste has been ongoing for years and will continue for decades. Many mishaps have occurred at this site, but only a few ever made it out to the public. During one incident, for more than a year, dust flecks containing radioactive plutonium have been allowed to blow away in uncountable quantities. Workers have carried radioactive dust into their homes in levels detectable by equipment. After decades of residents who live nearby the reservation getting sick, the courts and the government are acknowledging and settling some of the lawsuits and claims of dozens of cases of thyroid cancers linked to the radiation at Hanford. 

4. Known and Clandestine LLRW Disposal 

To reiterate, there are only four licensed waste disposal facilities in the country. It is to these facilities that, supposedly, all the commercially generated LLRW is being shipped to and disposed of. Permission to dump at these sites is granted in one of two ways. Some states belong to a compact allowing only generators in those states able to use the disposal site as a group. If the site is not limited to only compact states, the facility is open to accepting any state’s waste. If a company that generates some of this waste feels that they can hold onto it until the level decreases enough to be disposed of in a regular solid waste landfill, they certainly will do that. Disposal of any waste, especially this type, is very expensive and, therefore, avoided at all costs. 

The LLRW dump in Richland, Washington actually sits in the middle of the federally owned Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Operated by U.S. Ecology, the site also had been a hazardous waste disposal site in past years. The groundwater is already contaminated by the chemicals from waste pits long ago and also from the Hanford nuclear waste. Because the dump is located on federal lands, there is no way to really determine the true extent of the contamination. The landfill for radioactive wastes is expected to continue being used until around 2050. Disposal of LLRW is limited to states in the Northwest Regional Compact, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Wyoming and states in the Rocky Mountain Compact , Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.  

At the radioactive waste site in Barnwell, South Carolina, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the waste dump has been clearly violating state rules in handling radioactive waste allowing contamination of the groundwater. Radioactive tritium in the groundwater comes from leaks in the trenches holding the waste, which are left uncovered until full, allowing rain to soak in and carry away the radioactive liquids. 

In Clive, Utah, the LLRW dump was fined by state environmental authorities for failing to follow a procedure designed to keep radioactive and hazardous dust from blowing away from burial cells for waste. The repeated violation resulted in the more than $50,000 fine, but opponents of the waste dump question why it took authorities almost three years to take action. In 2018 as well, a tractor trailer on the way to the facility with a load of contaminated soil from a hazardous waste site caught on fire along the highway near the facility. People opposed to the dump have always raised concerns for accidents along the highways and transportation routes used. 

Another currently operating LLRW dump operates near Andres, Texas. At the review and permit hearings, a group of scientists and engineers confirmed the location of the waste site was located too close to an underground aquifer and could result in contamination. In spite of the technical data showing the site was not appropriate and presented risks, the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved the application for the company. One week later the director was hired as a lobbyist for the company. In the following several years, the dump received approvals to take waste from 36 other states and was allowed to triple its capacity. Between 2015 and 2020, the waste dump has been expanding again, this time looking to become a high level nuclear waste disposal site and home to the only mercury dump in the country. All this is located near the aquifer scientists and engineers said would be an issue. 

But, these are the only known LLRW disposal facilities. There are radioactive waste disposal sites operated by the federal government at locations that nearby residents may not even know about. The government usually does not share information about many of their practices concerning hazardous and radioactive waste. There are millions of pounds of waste at contaminated facilities. In fact, using one or more sites to bring waste from other areas to dump is not out of the question. The storage and transportation of LLRW is putting oblivious citizens at risk of a variety of illnesses, especially cancers.

Near North Las Vegas, Nevada, the governor of the state accused the U.S. Department of Energy of disposing illegal shipments of LLRW at the Nevada National Security Site. The government acknowledged some waste may have been sent by mistake. The governor claimed that waste has been shipped there regularly for over 12 years and called it a secret plutonium smuggling operation. In court filings, the government admitted the Department of Energy had been quietly sending highly radioactive waste from a storage site in South Carolina to a federal storage site north of Las Vegas. The court declined to issue an order to the Federal government to cease shipments as they claimed all the material needing to be shipped was already completed. The court also declined the state’s request to have any material already in the state be removed. 

As the federal government continues to crawl towards finding a permanent home for high level nuclear waste, there are two towns hoping to be able to host a temporary site and collect the money that comes with it. One is about 35 miles outside Carlsbad, New Mexico, which would put close to 30,000 citizens at risk in addition to the 460,000 plus annual visitors to the national park located there as well. The other is Andrews, Texas, which would put its 13,000 residents in danger. Andrews is already the host of the only disposal facility of all the mercury waste across the United States. 

As I write this today, May 7, 2020, the federal government just announced the location in west Texas may move ahead with plans to become a temporary facility for high level nuclear waste. The initial permit sought is for a 40-year period in the hope a permanent location will be completed before then. There are many more hurdles for the west Texas facility to jump over before they start construction; however, it appears the project will be fast tracked to get it done before something happens to derail it. 

The government isn’t the only group disposing of LLRW without informing the local population. There are not enough disposal facilities for all of the LLRW needing a place, creating a high stakes scenario that sometimes leads to dishonest practices, such as the two million gallons of radioactive waste illegally disposed of in Oregon. 

How many other instances of illegal disposal activists will be uncovered? Mixed in with thousands of tons of solid waste at landfills, how much of what is coming off trucks and quickly being covered over with dirt and trash is really radioactive waste? Unfortunately, once it is buried, that question may not be answered until the radioactive waste has long since polluted the groundwater and made people nearby sick. 

While we all wait for something to be done about the radioactive wastes sitting at places across the country, the Department of Energy has managed to open one facility they are using for their own high level radioactive nuclear wastes. 

Located 26 miles outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, sits the federally operated Waste Isolation Pilot Plant known as WIPP. The only permanent long-term storage facility in the country where highly radioactive waste is brought to remain for thousands of years, safely decaying until they are no longer a threat. On February 14, 2014, one of the 55 gallon waste drums containing radioactive waste burst open, leaking radioactive isotopes that traveled through the plant tunnels and exhaust shaft, finally being detected almost 3,000 feet away from the source of the radiation. About 22 workers in the facility at the time received low level doses of radiation. 

The accident, which shut the supposedly safe high level nuclear storage facility for almost two years at a price tag of $2 billion in clean up costs, was caused by simple human error. The investigation determined the nuclear waste had been packaged in the wrong kitty litter. It turns out kitty litter works in nuclear waste as an absorbent, but the brand workers used at Los Alamos National Laboratory was the wrong brand of kitty litter, which triggered a reaction. Unfortunately, there are close to 500 drums of high level radioactive wastes already stored underground at WIPP. The facility meant to safely store radioactive waste for thousands of years failed after only 15.

Tony and I believe safe distances to put between you and any type of radioactive disposal site would be at minimum, 10 miles, with 20 or more being best. Like a nuclear reactor, in the event of a major accident, there are going to be zones of impact. Within 10 miles will most likely be where the radiation levels will be the highest and may remain that way for quite some time after an accident. 

Places that treat and reship radioactive waste such as Perma-Fix apparently also have the potential for accidents including spills, releases, and explosions. I could not see being closer than two miles from any facility where these quantities of radioactive wastes are regularly being handled.