Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994 TAG: 9403220007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The clanking down of the Iron Curtain, the fear of the Red Menace, the precarious balance of the nuclear standoff made for genuinely fearful times. In trying to stay one weapon of mass destruction ahead of the enemy, the United States built an astounding stock both of nuclear waste and nuclear weaponry, much of which it would like to dispose of.
If only there were a way.
The weapons can be disassembled. According to the Department of Energy, the United States built nearly 70,000 nuclear warheads (none since 1990), and has retired more than 53,000. The radioactive materials used in making them, however - about 89 metric tons of plutonium and 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium - are not so easily eliminated.
Plutonium-239, the lil' ol' radioisotope used to fuel nuclear weapons, has a half-life of 24,000 years, according to the Center for Defense Information. Meaning half the plutonium-239 that exists today will be here 24,000 years from now. And it will continue to emit radiation for about 10 half-lives, or 240,000 years.
That wouldn't be so frightening if all nuclear waste were stored securely in an earthquake-proof bunker somewhere, away from people and unable ever to escape into the environment. But, largely unencumbered by public scrutiny, nuclear-weapons facilities contaminated an estimated 4,500 sites with radioactive or hazardous wastes, or both, usually accidentally but sometimes deliberately.
The extent of the threat to health and safety is not known. But DOE concluded last year "the likelihood of a disaster is high" at nuclear-weapons plants, where a chemical explosion or fire involving underground storage tanks of high-level radioactive waste could be catastrophic.
Can't happen? Sixty-eight of the 177 waste tanks at the Hanford Reservation in Washington state are known or assumed to be leaking. At least 53 may be at risk of fire or explosion from a buildup of hydrogen gas.
The United States spent billions on a defense industry to protect the nation from nuclear annihilation. But the greatest nuclear threat today is sitting under this nation's own soil - is, in some cases, seeping into that soil.
To meet a threat, mopping up seldom is assigned the urgency of building up. But in the nuclear age, it is critical. The nation must muster the will and the resources to clean up, as quickly as possible, the mess left by Cold War weapons production.
by CNB