Senator Domenici on Radwaste and Cleanup Standards

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

The following is excerpted from a presentation by United States Senator
Peter M Domenici at a Gordon Research Conference on Nuclear Waste and
Energy on August 6, 1998:


Waste
A third risk involves management of defense wastes generated during the
Cold War.  There are real risks associated with these wastes, in both our
countries.  In some sense, these wastes represent the "battlefield" from
our Cold War.  Now they must be cleaned up.  We are really struggling with
this in the United States, and we are not doing a good job so far.   We are
continuing to pump large amounts of funding into this effort, but I worry
whether we are really getting the type of progress we need.   There are
many local agreements for specific milestones plus interests for employment
security at each site that make it very difficult to use risk-based
prioritization in our cleanup efforts.  Our progress in low or high level
civilian waste programs is equally abysmal.
A major hurdle in these programs involves the radiation dose standards for
cleanup of defense or former reactor sites that are far below variations in
natural background rates.  As you know, these standards are driven by the
linear no-threshold model for radiation risk.   There are many indications
that this model seriously over-estimates risks.  These same risk
uncertainties also play directly into discussions of nuclear energy
whenever transportation or long term spent fuel management strategies are
discussed.  Computations based on the LNT model are routinely used to
frighten the public.

I feel very strongly that we need the best possible standards for radiation
risks, based on the best science we can produce.  We put $20M into next
year's Senate budget to study the effects of low-levels of radiation on
health.  Through this research we need to determine, based on knowledge
instead of extrapolation, our low-dose radiation standards.


Andy Hull
EHSS Bldg 51
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, NY  11973

Ph.  516-344-4210
Fax  516-344-3105
e=mail: hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov

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