Energy Dept. Seeks Power to Redefine Nuclear Waste

[Snellius]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — The Energy Department has asked Congress to allow it to redefine some nuclear waste so it can be left in place or sent to sites intended for low-level radioactive material, rather than being buried deep underground.

Department officials say they thought they had flexibility in classifying what constituted high-level nuclear waste, but in July, a federal district judge in Idaho ruled that the department's plan for treating waste there violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a 1982 law requiring the deep burial of high-level waste.

The argument concerns tens of millions of gallons of salts and sludges left over from weapons production that are now in tanks in Idaho, South Carolina and eastern Washington. High-level waste is supposed to be encapsulated in glass for burial. The department has chosen Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the repository site, but the site has not yet opened and when it does, it will not be big enough for all the solidified wastes and spent reactor fuel.
...

Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, said in August in a letter to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert that the Idaho case could mean decades of delay in removing the waste from the tanks, and cleanup costs could be 10 to 100 times higher than the $39 billion now estimated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/politics/01NUKE.html

[Emboldened Chimp]

1. Is there no end to this insanity?

These people really just don't give a shit, do they? Unreal!

[jrthin]

2. I saw this article buried in

the NYTimes today and wondered why it wasn't on the front page.

[tlcandie]

3. Bury it under the WHorehouse or pack it off to THE RANCH in

Austin! I don't care what you call or label it IF you do that!

[havocmom]

4. Let them wallow in their own swill

The west is not some empty space to be used as a depository for the wastes of power producing entities selling "cheap electiricy" to the masses!

"Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, said in August in a letter to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert that the Idaho case could mean decades of delay in removing the waste from the tanks, and cleanup costs could be 10 to 100 times higher than the $39 billion now estimated." Good! Keep your debris in your own neighbohoods and try to keep telling your customers that it is all very safe. Maybe people will finally start to question this source for power! It is neither cheap nor safe.

edit: typo queen stuff

[punpirate]

5. This attempt at redefining the rules has been underway...

... for more than two years. The "department officials" thought they had the right to do what they wanted to with the waste because Spencer Abraham told them to do so.

The issue is that, most lately, a judge interceded and questioned the revised, and arbitrary, rules.

The Bush administration simply hoped to relieve government and private facilities of meeting environmental regulations and the cost required to do so. Part of the problem is related to slowdowns in clean-ups underway and the failure to adequately fund those clean-ups.

Too much money? Get rid of the rules requiring the clean-ups on reasonable terms. Quite humorously, in a sardonic way, this was originally billed as a means of expediting the clean-up.

Cheers.

[AndyTiedye]

7. I Thought They Already Redefined Nuclear Waste...

...as munitions to be dropped on countries we invade :-(

That's what "depleted" uranium is, isn't it?

[lostnfound]

6. Crawford Texas is where it ought to be disposed of...

at the Bush ranch, or Cheney's backyard. Especially since they are so anxious to create more of it by building mininukes and more nuclear powerplants.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. OMIGOD!

How much money you want to bet that they're going to try to recycle some of the products that may have come into contact with radiation, once they've "cleaned" it.

[sandnsea]

9. Paducah, Kentucky

"The mutual goal of the AU Program and the Accelerated Cleanup Plan is to transition the site to be a self-sustaining industrial complex no longer reliant on Federal funding within this decade. In managing the National Centers for Scrap Metals, Lead, Precious Metals and Electronics, the AU Program also provides valuable services to more than 30 DOE sites in the recycle/reuse of excess and surplus equipment and materials derived from decontamination and decommissioning work and other activities."

http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/programs.html

"In the past, both the DOE and NRC have recycled such materials on a case-by-case basis. At K-25, for example, approximately 6.6 million pounds of slightly radioactive material left Oak Ridge's gates before sales were halted in 2000. The material was treated no differently than any other scrap, and nobody made any effort to keep track of where it ended up."

http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/JA02/radioactive_recycling.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. OMIGOD I won my bet!

"In the past, both the DOE and NRC have recycled such materials on a case-by-case basis. At K-25, for example, approximately 6.6 million pounds of slightly radioactive material left Oak Ridge's gates before sales were halted in 2000. The material was treated no differently than any other scrap, and nobody made any effort to keep track of where it ended up."

Now, here's my best guess on where it will turn up:

batteries.

[loudnclear]

10. "War is Peace" "Evil is Good" "Wrong is Right" .... why not?

Doublespeak 2004...this administration is the pits!