THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506240358
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Utilities, laboratories and businesses throughout North Carolina are making plans to store the radioactive waste they generate, as the date for being squeezed out of a South Carolina landfill approaches.
Chem-Nuclear Systems Inc., operator of the landfill for radioactive waste in Barnwell, S.C., says it no longer will take North Carolina waste after Friday.
Chem-Nuclear officials said they have little choice. Last week, the South Carolina Legislature approved Gov. David Beasley's plan to reopen Barnwell to the nation but close it to North Carolina.
``We didn't encourage South Carolina to do that but it was something that Governor Beasley insisted on in his proposal,'' said Allan Stalvey, Chem-Nuclear's vice president. ``That's when we sent the letters out.''
Beasley has wanted to punish North Carolina for failing to open a replacement for Barnwell by 1996. Chem-Nuclear wants to build a repository in southwest Wake County but North Carolina regulators say the company hasn't proved that the site is safe.
Now, more than 70 industries, universities and research laboratories statewide must prepare to store their low-level nuclear waste until a solution to the landfill problem is found.
At the Shearon Harris nuclear plant near New Hill, engineers for Carolina Power & Light Co. have set aside a concrete storage site. The bunker will provide the company with several months of storage space, said Paul Snead, CP&L's director of corporate radioactive waste.
Officials at Duke Medical Center have a few rooms ready, and N.C. State University will use a new waste-handling facility.
Low-level radioactive waste is far less hazardous than nuclear fuel rods, for example. But it still contains isotopes that can remain radioactive for centuries.
Radiation experts say short-term storage of low-level radioactive waste poses few hazards for workers or nearby residents.
``I don't see any reason for alarm,'' said Dayne Brown, director of the state Division of Radiation Protection. ``Obviously, if there wasn't some risk involved, we wouldn't send this waste to a landfill. But for the immediate future, I am very confident about the generators' ability to ensure public safety.''
David Jorgensen, Duke's radiation safety officer, said a closure of Barnwell could force the medical center to use fewer radioactive elements as tracers and possibly to suspend some research projects.
``Obviously we are going to have to deal with this,'' Jorgensen said. ``If you have no possibility of disposing of materials, it will put a kink in your ability to use materials.''
Meanwhile, North Carolina officials say South Carolina's legislation, if signed into law by Beasley, is unlikely to withstand a legal challenge.
Closing Barnwell to a single state, they say, would violate interstate commerce statutes and other federal laws.
``The federal courts have never looked kindly on one state trying to exclude another group of states from a commercial waste facility,'' said Richard Whisnant, counsel for the state Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources.
Still unclear, however, is whether North Carolina or the industry will bear the legal expense of challenging South Carolina's action.
``There is a lot of discussion among the generators,'' Whisnant said. ``They are evaluating their options.''
Brown and his staff are reviewing Chem-Nuclear's continued studies of the Wake disposal site, which sits 20 miles southwest of Raleigh, upstream of the Cape Fear River.
One key issue is whether cracks under the proposed repository could allow waste to seep into underground water supplies after 100 years, when the concrete bunkers are expected to disintegrate.
The North Carolina Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority, the state board that hired Chem-Nuclear, expects to decide by October whether the Wake site still has a chance of a license.
KEYWORDS: NUCLEAR WASTE by CNB