EIS-0113_Section_9 - Hanford Site

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RECEIVED DOE-RL
JUL 291986 6141
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1. RKHARD NOSES 14650 S.W. 103M AW. TIGARD, OREGON 97224
citizens forum report
From S. Richard Makes
Member NN Citizens Forum on Defense Nuclear Haste DrsPOSAI
To! Rev. Bernard Coughlin
Chairman, Northwest Citizens Forum
O.S. Department of Energy
Subject: Personal critique, DOE DEIS Defense Nuclear Waste
Disposal
Because the Northwest Citizens Forum was invited to critique
the DOE draft environmental impact statement on disposal of
Hanford defense high- level, transuranic and tank wastes, and
because DOE will issue ..bsaquent draft EIS on disposal of wastes
from commercial reactors and on selection of a. site for permanent
disposal of nuclear wastes, I confine my remarks to the draft
environmental impact statement concerning methods of disposal of
defense nuclear wastes.
General Statement
Defense nuclear waste has been ac cumulating at Hanford for
more than 40 years, and while it has caused minimum hazard to
the environment. Congress and the people generally agree a
process should be started looking toward permanent safedisposal.
Other nations, notably France, are ahead of the United States in
selecting permanent disposal techniques. Even China, with ten
reactors and two more being constructed, has begun• process
to select a system of permanent disposition and has been in
consultation with French engineers in Beijing on this subject.
The challenge to the Northwest Citizens Forum has been to
advance this process by analyzing and criticizing the draft
environmental impact statement issued by DOE last April 1, and to
insure that northwest residents generally have Dpportunt ty to do
the Same.
A major complication has been the timing of the announcement
of the selection of three finalist locations for the first
permanent site for a nuclear waste repository, one of the three
being Hanford, Washington. This announcement came close on the
heels of the first meetings of the Citizens Forum and has caused
such an adverse Political and public reaction in Washington and
Oregon that the DOE's statement an military nuclear waste has
been almost completely obscured. Public hearings on the subject
have on occasion developed into virtual public hangings of the
DoE, focusing little on the specifics of the DEIS on military
nuclear waste. This has been most unfortunate.
In my view, any plan for disposition of the accumulated and
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future defense nuclear and chemical waste should focus entirely
on public safety for generations to come. Financial cost should
be secondary to environmental and health costs. Ten billion
dollars in expenditure if it provides maximum long-term safety is
preferable to a two billion dollar expenditure that might provide
lesser assurance of long-term safety. When we are talking of
10,000 years or more, ten billion dollars would be a small price.
Specific Considerations
Withxceptions, I agree with the Oregon position released
by Gov. Vic Atiyeh and presented by David Stewart-Smith to the
recent meeting of the Citizens Forum in Hanford, and with the
draft consensus position of the alternatives sub-committee of the
Forum at the same meeting. The two are compatible..
A. I agree that option 1 (vitrification and geologic
dial, ... 1) in the DOE DEIS should be the preferred method of
disposition. All high level waste(HLW) should be retrieved,
glassified, packaged in stainless steel cases surrounded by
concrete and permanently deposited in a deep repository wherever
that may be. DOE estimates this would be 98 percent (by
activity( of the waste.
B. Transuranic waste should go to the waste isolation pilot
plant in New Mexico. This includes pre- and post -1990 THU waste..
C. I am not convinced after reading the report, listening to
testimony and observing on-site testing of engineered barriers
that shallow burial will ever be feasible. All single shell tank
waste, even though it is in cake or sludge form, should be
retrieved and disposed of in deep geologic repositories. The DOB
draft EIS indicate. is retrieval technology does ..t exist, so
additional research should go forward as Oregon recommends. It
Should be noted that Washington's draft statement (page 2-7,
July, 1986( suggests a passible solution. Mike Lawrence in his
statement to the forum via Father Coughlin duly 3 also suggests a
possible method and mentions the final SIB will address the
various possibilities of complete clearing of single-shell tanks.
Lawrence. suggests that adding a sealant around and under the
single-shell. .tanks is not feasible at present.
In general, the barrier development program has not yet
providedsurance that shallow burial would over the long
term be a safe technique. Intrusion byma animal species,.
plant noting and decay, and natural disasters such as
earthquake and climatologic change over the thousands of years
are dangers that come to mind. Markers on the site over such a
long period could be obscured, removed or become incomprehensible
to man in millenia to come.
D. Strontium and cesium wastes double encapsulated in
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