COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state is drafting rules to allow private companies to store low-level radioactive waste for up to 100 years.
The goal is to have regulations in place if a company proposes to create such a storage depot, although no proposal is forthcoming, Roger Suppes, chief of the Department of Health's Bureau of Radiation Protection, said Thursday.
"It's not coming to Ohio next week or next month or next year, or it may never come, but we do believe that it's better to be prepared to have a set of standards that we have looked at and are credible and that you can evaluate," Suppes said.
The state Radiation Advisory Council is drafting the regulations with help from Health Department staff.
Such a regulation would be for storage only, not for permanent disposal. Material would remain the property and responsibility of the entity that created it and would eventually have to be retrieved.
Users could include nuclear power plants and academic research facilities, among others, Suppes said. The material could range from contaminated clothing and tools to some contaminated medical waste.
Ohio now sends its radioactive waste to sites in Utah and South Carolina. The South Carolina site is reducing its capacity and will stop accepting waste by 2008.
Ohio companies that generate low-level waste typically receive five-year licenses to store waste on their sites, said Dan Swanson, a council member and chairman of the committee drafting the regulations.
Some companies might prefer a place to store waste longer, either to store up more before shipping or because they're running out of room, Swanson said.
"If you don't have the capacity to store more than X amount and you're going to accumulate more than that, you're going to have to do something," he said. "If you don't have a disposal option, a commercial storage facility might be answer."
In 1997, the Midwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission voted to shelve plans for an Ohio radioactive waste dump that would have held waste from the compact's six states -- Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin.
Ohio Department of Health: http://www.odh.state.oh.us/ODHPrograms/TECHS/techs1.htm
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