RE: Ward Valley "fill-the-blanks"

["David Scherer" <scherer@mirlink.wustl.edu>]

>Jim Muckerheide asks:

>Anybody want to do the "fill-the-blanks" that we did in the late '70s that
>shows that opening and handling waste from Hanford tanks and digging a hole to

>bury it will release more radioactivity to the environment than leaving it all

>where it is forever, with minimal short-term management? (which can be debated

>as to whether that's <100 or ~300 years.) 

This assumes that active maintenance will be effective, which assumes that the
social/political climate is stable over this timeframe.  And it seems to me
that the active maintenance period could be an order of magnitude longer.

>JIm also asks:

>Can somebody "fill-the-blanks" for poor Gov. Hunt? Does anybody think the
>releases will be greater than drilling a water well? (How 'bout a municipal
>well?) 

Without knowing anything about the geology and land use practices near the NC
LLW site, I for one am not sure that the releases from Class C ion exchange
resins would only double the dose received from the present groundwater. 
Experience at Sheffield, West Valley, and Maxey Flats sugest that releases are
possible.  Those releases were at low levels, but concentrations in the primary
waste streams have increased, and who knows what the future will bring?

>All kidding aside, the need to do some real work to prepare a base of
>objective data and take that to the administration, the Congress, and the
>courts (instead of paying millions for PR about how we can spend billions to
>protect the public from this most heinous risk!) 

Of course we must provide complete and objective information to the decision
makers.  But this "fill-in-the-blank" approach is not the way.  In Illinois a
former HPS president prepared such an analysis for the LLW Siting Commission. 
(In his defense, Terry Lash insisited on this simplistic approach.)  His
conclusion was that the leach rates from the solidified waste forms are so low
that that the public and environment are protected.  In cross examination, the
opponents' counsel got him to say that the outfield of Wrigley Field would be
an acceptable LLW site.  When his "expert testimony" was challanged, the
Commission chairman (a retired Supreme Court Justice) allowed it "for whatever
it's worth."  Another commission member (who voted the site down) was a former
Civil Engineering Dept. Head at UIUC.  So much for convincing decision makers
by simple back of the envelope calculations.

We use geological isolation for a reason.  It provides protection from the
direct exposure and atmospheric dispersal.  The principal risk remaining is
from groundwater transport, and this is difficult to analyze.  The hole
drilling at Yucca Mountain is not an employment program for geologists, but a
reflection of the difficulty hydrologists face.  We don't even have a very good
handle on the source term.  The estimates on waste leach rates is an
order-of-magnitude guestimate at best.  So the transport has to provide an
ample margin of safety.

>And this doesn't even count the issue of the fallacy of the linear
>dose-response model!!? 

Is there a concensus that it is a fallacy?  Recent threads on this list suggest
not.  Again, a margin of safety is in order.  I, for one, do not think that the
efforts of HPs are only placating needless fears.

David Scherer
scherer@mirlink.wustl.edu