Almost everyone agrees that recycling is a good idea. Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has jumped on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, what the NRC wants to recycle glows in the dark.
According to NRC documents, the federal agency is in the process of conducting a "literature search" (not a scientific study) on the pros and cons
of recycling and reselling contaminated soil from decommissioned nuclear-weapons and -power plants. The surreal document, called "Human Interaction with Reused Soil" details how more than 2 million articles were culled down to 56, which were then
reviewed for clues as to whether recycling radioactive soil is a bright idea. One article that made the cut is titled "Methodology to Estimate the Amount and Particle Size of Soil Ingested by Children: Implications for Exposure at Waste Sites." Nowhere in the NRC document, however, does the reader discover why the idea of recycling
contaminated soil is being entertained in the first place.
"It's a semantic shell game," says Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "For economic and liability reasons, the NRC is trying to reclassify contaminated soil so they can disperse it."
Instead of being buried or in some other way permanently separated from "human interaction," the soil from these plants could conceivably end up being sold to homeowners, brick makers, and landscapers, among other unsuspecting consumers. As far-fetched as the idea sounds, the NRC has already managed to reclassify and sell contaminated metals from decommissioned plants--a move that was strongly resisted by organizations like the Steel Manufacturers Association, which uses recycled metals in the manufacturing process.
NRC public-affairs officer Mindi Landau defends her agency's recycling policy, arguing that people are already exposed to naturally occurring background radiation. "Everything has
radioactivity," she says. "[The NRC] just has to establish what levels are
acceptable."
But John Gofman, the physicist who isolated the first milligram of plutonium from irradiated uranium in 1942, finds the NRC's stand ludicrous. "By any reasonable standard of biomedical proof," says Gofman, "there is no safe dose [of radiation]; just one decaying radioactive atom can produce permanent mutation in a cell's genetic molecules." The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the British Radiological Society, among others, agree with Gofman.
Landau is unmoved by such claims. "A lot of scientists also say that a small dose of radioactivity is good for you," she responds. "I'm not saying that that's true, but you'll find just as many scientists who disagree with [Gofman's] position. We're not going to react to emotions. People are afraid of radioactivity; they're afraid of anything nuclear. It's just like a built-in emotion. And we're not going to react to that."
p>The NRC's public-comment period has expired, but there is no statute of limitations on public opposition. To find out what you can do, visit the Nuclear Information and Resource Service or call (202) 328-0002.
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