Coming Your Way: Radioactive Garbage

Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #183 30may90

Bad News About Low-Level Radiation  Rachel's # 184 (below)

Human Harm From Low-level Exposure Rachel's # 185 (below)

The government has two answers to this question. One answer is an effort to site 16 new low-level radioactive wastes landfills in New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington state, Nevada, Colorado, South Carolina, North Carolina, and California.

The federal government's other answer is to press ahead with a plan to simply declare 1/3 of the nation's "low-level" radioactive waste "below regulatory concern" (BRC) and thus to remove these materials from the "radioactive waste" category entirely. Then these BRC radwastes will be allowed to go wherever municipal trash is going today. If your community has a dump, BRC radioactive materials will be allowed into your dump; if you incinerate, you'll be allowed to incinerate radioactive materials; since liquid wastes are now entering your town sewer, you'll be able to have radioactive liquids (for example, from laboratory drains) entering your sewage treatment plant and if you then compost your sewage sludge, you'll be allowed to have radioactivity in your compost; if you recycle, you'll be able to recycle radioactive materials which may then be remanufactured into radioactive household products such as appliances or kitchen utensils.

Why would our government declare millions of cubic feet of radioactive materials "below regulatory concern?" The reason is simple: economics. Nuclear power is brought to you by a partnership between Uncle Sam and big companies like Westinghouse and G.E. Since these companies still hope to sell the American public more nuclear power plants (it's potentially a partial answer to the greenhouse global warming problem; another possible solution is solar energy, but solar suffers from a fatal disadvantage: Westinghouse and G.E. can't sell sunlight), the Bush administration is trying to reduce the costs of nuclear energy by declaring large quantities of radioactive wastes "below regulatory concern" so they can be dumped cheaply. It's just one more way that Uncle Sam can subsidize the nuclear power industry, to reward industrial friends who may later make substantial campaign contributions.

BRC would be a major gift to the nuclear industry. As the nation's nuclear power plants approach the end of their useful lifetimes (about 25 years), they must be dismantled piece by piece and put somewhere. All the radioactive pipes, tubes, tanks, tools, instruments, gauges, filters, and so forth will vastly increase the nation's stockpile of "low-level" radioactive wastes. If all these wastes have to be handled with special care and buried in special vaults under ground (or above ground) at $40 per cubic foot (or more), the total costs of nuclear energy will increase substantially. At today's prices, the BRC program would save the nuclear power industry an estimated billion dollars over the next 20 years. And when the government gets around to cleaning up the nation's enormous, contaminated nuclear weapons sites (such as Fernald, Ohio, Rocky Flats, Colorado, and Hanford, Washington--see RHWN #124), a BRC program could reduce cleanup costs by many billions of dollars.

The key problem with the BRC proposal is that it seems certain to increase exposure of the general public to radiation. Why is this bad?

To begin with, medical doctors who use radiation for diagnosis or therapy agreed on ethical standards long ago. Medical views of radiation are based on the assumption that any amount of radiation causes some harm and some risk of serious consequences (such as genetic damage or cancer). Medical ethics dictate that a person should not be exposed to any radiation unless that person derives a benefit from the exposure. Secondly, the general public has a right to know, a right to be informed before they are exposed to any hazards such as radiation. The BRC program will result in people being exposed without their knowing it, and the exposed individuals will very likely not have received any benefits from the sources of the exposures. Thus the BRC program violates medical ethics.

The federal government ignores these ethical standards and simply says that existing exposure limits for radiation are safe enough to protect the public. The current regulations are intended to allow the development of one fatal cancer in every group of 100,000 exposed individuals. The government's position seems to be that it's OK to risk killing one out of every 100,000 Americans in order to reduce costs for the nuclear power industry. Thomas Cochran, a physicist with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), says that, according to the government's logic, "it is 'BRC' to randomly fire a bullet into a crowded Manhattan street on the basis that the individual risk to a person in New York City is less than one in several million." In short, it just doesn't make sense, and isn't ethical, to expose the general public to additional radiation if it can be avoided. Furthermore, there is a great deal of new evidence (which we will discuss later in this series) indicating that radiation is five to 10 times more dangerous than was believed when current exposure limits were set. Radiation-- particularly at low levels of exposure--is now thought to be much more dangerous to humans than was previously believed. Lastly, since the government does not intend to monitor solid waste to see if permissible radiation levels are being exceeded (by accident or more likely by unscrupulous waste haulers), the BRC program appears to be opening the door for abuses and violations that will further endanger the public and which cannot be controlled.

The term "low-level" does not accurately describe the hazards from some "low-level" radwastes. For example, "low-level" wastes may contain dangerous amounts of nickel-63 (a radioactive form of the metal, nickel), which has a half-life of about 100 years and will therefore remain radioactive for about 1000 years. The well- known nuclear physicist, Theodore Taylor, says he used to think the problem of radwaste disposal was "politically difficult because of the NIMBY [not in my back yard] syndrome, but that technically it was probably solvable. Well," he says, "I don't think that anymore. I don't see any evidence of a solution that we can say with certainty will get rid of this stuff safely."

What can you do? 1) Inform yourself. For example, get: Scott Saleska, "Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Gamma Rays in the Garbage," BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS (April, 1990), pgs. 19-25. For a good (though somewhat out-of-date), detailed review of the problems of radioactive waste, get Ronnie Lipschutz, RADIOACTIVE WASTE (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1980).

2) Keep in touch with Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), 1616 P Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 328-0002, and the Radioactive Waste Campaign, 625 Broadway, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10012; (212) 473- 7390.

3) Get involved in your state's plan to deal with radioactive wastes. Your involvement is the key.

--Peter Montague

Descriptor terms: radioactive waste; llw; nickel-63; nuclear power plants; nv; wa; sc; landfilling; brc; nuclear information resource service; scott saleska;

Bad News About Low-Level Radiation

Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #184 6jun90

Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896, and its development for medical purposes has been one of humanity's proudest achievements. By various means, the nucleus of an atom can be made unstable and it becomes "radioactive." Once something becomes radioactive, it continuously gives off energy in small packets or "rays." These bundles of energy (called nuclear or atomic radiation, or, more generally, ionizing radiation) have many useful characteristics; for example, they can pass through the human body and thus allow shadowy pictures of our bones to be created on sensitized film; these are called "x-rays" and nearly everyone in the U.S. has benefited from an x-ray at one time or another. [The ionizing radiation from X-rays is produced by a high- energy electric source, not by a radioactive source such as uranium, which gives off ionizing radiation spontaneously and continuously without any external source of power necessary.]

The penetrating power of ionizing radiation makes it useful but also makes it dangerous. When radiation penetrates human tissue (which is composed of billions of cells), the radiation pierces the cells like a tiny but powerful bullet, disrupting the structure of any cells that take a direct hit. Under certain circumstances, which are still not understood, some disrupted cells start multiplying without limit, and this is a condition known as cancer. By direct observation of humans exposed to radiation, it has been definitely proven that radiation causes cancer in humans; only the exact mechanism of causation remains in doubt.

Americans began creating radioactive wastes shortly after 1896, but no special precautions were taken for handling such wastes until 1954 when the federal Atomic Energy Commission began licensing all radioactive materials. During this period of neglect, many places, including large sections of whole states (for example, New Mexico and Colorado, where uranium mining occurred), were contaminated with low-level radioactive trash.

As radiation became more widely used in industry and even in consumer products, the public has become concerned about possible hazards and about the carelessness of the people who handled and regulated radioactivity in the past. Since tighter restrictions on radioactivity could result from such concerns, and since tighter restrictions would inevitably cost money, people who profit from radioactivity have mounted a campaign in recent years to convince the world that there is some "safe" dose of ionizing radiation. These people argue that there is a "threshold" dose of radiation below which no damage occurs, and above which someone might be hurt. Existence or non-existence of this threshold is the key point in the radiation debate today. Pictures explain this story best.

Figure 1 represents the "threshold theory." Look across the bottom of Figure 1. As you move your eye from left to right, the numbers represent an increasing dose of radiation. However, until you get to a dose of 4, the line doesn't begin to move upward. When you get to 4 or more, the line moves upward, representing an increase in the number of cancers being caused by the dose. Four represents the "threshold dose" in Figure 1. If Figure 1 accurately represents reality, it means you could give everyone a small dose of radioactivity without any ill effects whatsoever. Many people in the nuclear power industry favor this theory.

Figure 2 shows a competing theory of how radiation affects people. It is called the "linear theory" and it indicates that any dose of radiation causes some consequences. Notice that, as soon as you move your eye to the right across the bottom of the figure, the line rises, indicating some cancer effect. The only way to get zero cancer effect is to administer zero dose. (This does not mean that a low dose will cause cancer in everyone who receives the dose; it means that a low dose administered to a large group of people will cause cancer in some number of those people--but everyone in the group is at risk.) This is the theory that health authorities have used to set today's allowable limits for radiation exposure.

Figure 3 represents a different theory (called the "supra-linear theory" of how radiation affects humans. It shows that low doses cause greater damage, per unit of dose, than do high doses. For example, look across the bottom of Figure 3 until you get to a dose of 4; you can see that this causes a cancer effect of between 6 and 7. But if you move your eye to the left, to a dose of 2, the cancer effect has not been cut in half; it is still up around 5. The "supra-linear theory" indicates that low levels of radiation will cause more cancers, per unit of radiation, that will large doses. This view of radiation chills the hearts of those who profit from using radioactivity because it means "low level" radioactive waste is more dangerous than previously thought, and must be handled with greater care (and therefore greater expense).

Two new books have just been published showing, from studies of humans, that the supra-linear theory is the one that best represents the actual facts. We will explore the human consequences of this information as our series continues.

Get: John Gofman, RADIATION-INDUCED CANCER FROM LOW-DOSE EXPOSURE: AN INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS (San Francisco, CA: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility [P.O. Box 11207, San Francisco, CA 94101. First copy, $29.95; $15.00 each copy thereafter.], 1990). This is one of the most careful and thorough pieces of technical writing we have ever read.

And: Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT: LOW-LEVEL RADIATION, HIGH LEVEL COVER-UP (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Press [P.O. Box 548, Village Station, New York, NY 10015; $19.95]), 1990. A shocking revelation of U.S. government efforts to hide evidence of human birth defects caused by low-level radiation.

Increasing Number of Cancers (arbitrary units) . 12 * . * 10 * . Figure 1: Threshold * 8 Theory * . * 6 * . * 4 * . * 2 * . * 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Increasing radiation dose -->

Increasing Number of Cancers (arbitrary units) . 12 * . * 10 Figure 2: * . Linear * 8 Theory * . * 6 * . * 4 * . * 2 * . * 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Increasing radiation dose -->

Increasing Number of Cancers (arbitrary units) . 12 . Figure 3 * 10 Supra-linear * . Theory * 8 * . * 6 * . 4 * . 2 * . * 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Increasing radiation dose -->

--Peter Montague

Descriptor terms: cancer; radiation; supra-linear theory; linear theory; threshold theory; jay gould; john gofman; ben goldman; ionizing radiation; risk assessment; health effects; atomic energy commission; uranium; nm; co;

Human Harm From Low-level Exposure

Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #185 13jun90

Government approaches the matter differently. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) argues that any amount of radiation causes some damage to a large population of exposed individuals; they subscribe to the "linear theory" of radiation damage (see RHWN #184). They have set limits for radiation exposure based on the moral premise that it is acceptable to kill one citizen out of every 100,000 citizens by exposing them to radiation. Since the BRC program will not cause exposures that would kill more than one in every 100,000 citizens (and the linear theory tells them that, in reality, the program will kill many fewer people than one in every 100,000), the government argues that the BRC program is acceptable because it will save billions of dollars for the nuclear power industry (which must soon dismantle its aging nuclear reactors and put them "away" somewhere) and for the government itself (which must eventually clean up millions of pounds of radioactive contamination lying around near weapons factories).

Unfortunately, there is now very substantial evidence, from studies of human beings exposed to radiation, that both industry and the government have misunderstood (intentionally or not) the dangers of low levels of ionizing radiation. (By "low levels" we mean within the range 0 to 5 rem [centi-Sievert].)

The most compelling evidence comes from studies of 91,231 people who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. Contrary to popular belief, most of these survivors received only very low exposures to ionizing radiation. Their health has been continuously monitored by international scientific organizations, so they represent the best available information on the effects of low levels of ionizing radiation on humans. The bomb survivor data now shows without doubt that there is no safe dose of radiation and, furthermore, that the lowest doses have caused the greatest cancer increases per unit of radiation. (In other words, the shape of the dose-response curve is supra-linear; see RHWN #184.) This means that both the industry assumption (threshold theory) and the EPA's assumption (linear theory) seriously underestimate the dangers from exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation. Furthermore, the Japanese data reveal another important fact about low-level radiation: young humans (children and infants) are more sensitive to the effects of low levels of ionizing radiation than are older humans. We will discuss the Japanese data in detail at another time.

Here we will discuss more recent human data provided by accidents that released large amounts of ionizing radiation at Chernobyl (Soviet Union, 1986), Three-Mile Island (Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 1979), and Savannah River (Georgia, U.S.A., 1970). These accidents are the subject of a shocking new book: Jay Gould and Ben Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT, cited in our last paragraph. Page numbers inside parentheses in our text refer to this book. Like the Japanese bomb survivor data, these three accidents indicate that the lowest doses of ionizing radiation cause the greatest human damage per unit of radiation. This provides confirmation that the government's estimate of the hazards of low-level radiation is low; that is to say, today's allowable limits for human exposure to ionizing radiation will allow more deaths than our government officially admits. How many more is the question. Bomb survivor data indicate 30 times more, but even this may be low, according to Gould and Goldman.

The three accidental releases of large quantities of radiation also confirm what the bomb survivor data are showing: that infants and children are the most sensitive to damage from low levels of ionizing radiation. Consider these facts:

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up on April 26, 1986; nine days later, radioactivity monitoring stations in Washington state (9,000 miles from Chernobyl) detected radioactivity in rainfall. By May 16th, 50 EPA monitoring stations detected radioactive iodine-131 in cow's milk all across the U.S. Our government said "no problem." Now government data, analyzed by Gould and Goldman, show that in May, 1986, there was a 5.3% increase in the U.S. death rate, compared to the previous year; the chances are less than one in a thousand that this increase occurred by chance. During June, 1986, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was 12.3% higher than it had been in June, 1985, and in some parts of the country it was much higher; for example, in the south Atlantic states, the infant mortality rate in June, 1986, was 28% higher than it had been the previous year. Based on this, and on much additional evidence that we haven't space to review, Gould and Goldman suggest that current EPA limits on exposures to low level radiation may need to be tightened by as much as a factor of 1000 (pg. 21).

In November and again in December, 1970, two nuclear rod meltdowns occurred at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in Georgia. The plant was operated for the government by DuPont, who never told the public anything about these accidents until Senator John Glenn grilled Dupont officials in public hearings in late 1988. To this day, DuPont claims that no radiation escaped outside the plant, but official government measurements of radioactivity in rain throughout the southeastern U.S. reveal highly suspicious increases immediately after the accidents. In South Carolina in December, 1970, rain carried six times as much radioactivity as it had carried in December, 1969. Radioactivity was also measurable in local fish; fish in the Savannah river contained radiation levels 100,000 times higher than fish sold in New York City in 1971. A child who ate 1/4 pound of catfish from the Savannah River in 1971 would have received a radiation dose equivalent to 20 chest x-rays. Infant mortality in South Carolina in January, 1971, was 24% higher than it had been a year earlier; in contrast, infant mortality declined that month over the entire U.S. and over the southeastern states taken as a whole. During the following summer (May through September) infant mortality in South Carolina was 15% higher than it had been the previous year. Again, we are omitting a wealth of detail.

March 28, 1979, a meltdown at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant spewed more than 10 million Curies of radioactivity into the environment, most of it into the air. Because the radiation dispersed quickly, most people received only low levels of exposure. Government and industry spokespeople have repeatedly assured the public than no one was harmed. However, the government's own health data tell quite a different story. Comparing the period three months prior to the accident against the period four months after the accident, Pennsylvania's infant mortality rate increased 16% and the state of Maryland's increased 41%. All together, Gould and Goldman calculate that perhaps as many as 50,000 deaths occurred during 1980-1982 as a result of the TMI accident (pg. 63).

This is an important book. Any individual fact in the book may be disputed, but the cumulative weight of the evidence is persuasive. And though we generally do not give much credence to conspiracy theories, if you read this book from cover to cover, you will have difficulty believing that your government is telling the full truth about the effects of low-level radiation. We suggest that you act prudently to protect yourself and your family: do whatever it takes to keep BRC wastes out of your community.

Get: Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT; LOW-LEVEL RADIATION, HIGH-LEVEL COVER-UP (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Press [P.O. Box 548, Village Station, New York, NY 10014], 1990). $19.95

And: Keep in touch with Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), 1616 P Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 328-0002, and the Radioactive Waste Campaign, 625 Broadway, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10012; (212) 473-7390.

--Peter Montague