RE: THORIUM AND URYNAL NITRATE

[Myung Chul Jo <mjo@scs.unr.edu>]

My institution, for a number of years, had not been able to dispose U,
and Th nitrate compounds because LLRW broker and chemical waste broker
refuse to take this type of waste. The chemical waste broker would not
take any material with higher than background radiation level nor any
material which meets DOT definition of radioactive material including 
biodegradable LS waste.

The State of Washington where our LLRW are managed changed it's position
regarding U, Th nitrate in 1995. They decided to accept U, Th nitrate only
if the charateristic of ignitability is deactivated. I understood that the
State of Washington considers the nitrates as "dangerous waste" which
refers to "as hazardous under RCRA" and/or "dangerous" under the state
regulation. 

We chose to export our U, Th nitrate as fast as we could while we had a 
chance. Therefore we did all we could to have our waste acceptable by
the disposal facility and our waste broker. 

There might have been a way to dispose them with less work than we did.
Our goal was to dispose of them and we did it. The only problem is when we
thought we were finished with U, Th nitrate, they keep showing up
continually from different parts of campus.        

This is only my opinion...
Myung Chul Jo <mjo@scs.unr.edu>
(702) 784-4540(voice)
(702) 7840-4553(fax)