Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

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glass, before transportation to seaports. The resource requirements of these activities
have been discussed elsewhere in this document for other disposal alternatives, and would
be the same for ice sheet disposal, except for differences in transportation routings.
Little quantitatives information exists on the energy, resource, and land requirements
unique to ice sheet disposal. Ice sheet disposal would require construction of ships, airplanes,
and over-the-ice vehicles that would not be required for other disposal alternatives.
A greater number of shipping casks would also be required, because of the long cask turn-
around time.
Transporting the waste material to its final destination across the ice fields would also
require expenditure of energy. Either surface or air transport would use large quantities of
fuel because of the great distances involved.
Some land impacts would probably be experienced in connection with the embarkation port
facility. An area of about 1km 2 (0.4 mi 2 ) would be required for the shielded cell and
the loading dock facilities. The port facility would be equipped with its own separate
water, power, and sewer systems to assure maximum safety. The over-ice transport routes
would include an area at the edge of the ice sheet, ice shelf-edge, and ice-free areas on
land for unloading the shipping casks. Approximately six support and fueling stations would
be required along the transport route to the disposal area. Land requirements at the dis-
posal site are estimated at 11,000 km 2 (4,2000 mi 2 ) for waste from a plant producing 5
MTHM/day based on a waste canister spacing of one/Km.
International and Domestic Legal and Institutional Considerations
The ice sheet disposal option, like the island and subseabed options, would require
transporting waste material over the ocean, and the general international implications of
such transportation are important.
Numerous legal and institutional considerations would emerge if the ice sheet disposal
concept were seriously pursued in either Greenland or Antartica. In the case of Greenland,
treaty arrangements would have to be made with Denmark because Greenland is a Danish
Territory.
In the case of Antarctica, a number of treaties and agreements exist that could affect
the use of the ice sheets for storage and disposal of radioactive material. Disposal of
waste in Antarctica is specifically prohibited by the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, of which the
United States is a signatory (Battelle 1974). The treaty may be renewed after it has been in
effect for 30 years, or amended at any time.
Outcomes of two meetings reflect the current range of international attitudes toward ice
sheet waste disposal. One attitude was expressed in a resolution passed by the National
Academy of Sciences, Committee on Polar Research, Panel on Glaciology, at a meeting in
Seattle, Washington, May, 1973. The resolution neither favored nor opposed ice sheet waste
disposal as such. However, a statement from a second meeting, on September 25, 1974, in
Cambridge, England, attended by scientists from Argentina, Australia, Japan, Norway, the
United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR, recommended that the Antarctic ice sheet
not be used for waste disposal.