235
that would be fully characterized for suitability. These were a bedded sedimentary
salt in Deaf Smith County, Texas southwest of Amarillo, the Columbia River basalt
flows at the Hanford Site north of Richland, in east-central Washington state, and
the welded tuffs at Yucca Mountain, on the western border of the Nevada Test Site.
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act had directed DOE to carry out full technical
assessments of the three top candidate sites, and then select the best one based
solely on technical merits.
However, before any meaningful site characterizations could get underway at
these three locations, Congress intervened. An amendment to the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act in 1987 halted the investigations at Deaf Smith in Texas and Hanford in
Washington, and designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site that would
be fully characterized for a high-level radioactive waste repository. This wasn’t just
done on a whim – it was a sincere attempt to save some ratepayer money and there
was some sound technical reasoning behind this decision.
The Deaf Smith County location was on privately held land, and the federal government would have had to acquire it at substantial cost. The target horizon for storing the nuclear waste was a bedded sedimentary salt about 1000 ft deep (300 m),
which was considered to be a stable formation with little to no groundwater movement (salt is highly soluble, so if there was significant groundwater flow, it would
not be there). Local farmers became concerned about the negative impacts of a
repository on agriculture, and political opposition grew rapidly, with as many as
80% of the people in the county and surrounding counties eventually claiming to be
opposed to the repository (Easterling and Kunreuther 1995).
Of even greater concern was that in order to reach the salt formation, the Deaf
Smith repository shafts were required to penetrate the important Oglala and underlying Dockum Group aquifers, which are critically important water resources for
crop irrigation. Despite reassurances from DOE officials, the idea of excavating a
shaft through two aquifers and connecting them to a bedded salt raised red flags
about creating flowpaths and placing water resources at risk for the sake of nuclear
waste storage. Stiff local opposition, worries about groundwater risk, and turbulent
Texas politics were the main factors that led DOE to walk away from Deaf Smith
County as a potential site. Unfortunately for the workers hired and transferred into
northern Texas for the planned characterization studies, the small town of Hereford
quickly became an oversaturated real estate market as hundreds of people tried to
sell houses with nearly everyone else moving out.
The Hanford Site straddling the Columbia River in eastern Washington State had
been on federal land since 1943, when it was acquired under the Manhattan Project
to manufacture plutonium for the first atomic bombs. Hanford has many existing
environmental problems related to the frantic weapons development and manufacturing practices employed to keep ahead of the Soviets during the Cold War. Proper
waste disposal was not a high priority during this time. A number of very large and
partially-buried storage tanks were filled with mixed nuclear and chemical waste,
some of which has leaked into the groundwater. No one quite knows the magnitude
of the contamination because records of what was put into the tanks are sketchy at
best. Hanford has been undergoing massive cleanup operations since 1989 (source
DOE websites).
12.1 Technological Solutions
that would be fully characterized for suitability. These were a bedded sedimentary
salt in Deaf Smith County, Texas southwest of Amarillo, the Columbia River basalt
flows at the Hanford Site north of Richland, in east-central Washington state, and
the welded tuffs at Yucca Mountain, on the western border of the Nevada Test Site.
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act had directed DOE to carry out full technical
assessments of the three top candidate sites, and then select the best one based
solely on technical merits.
However, before any meaningful site characterizations could get underway at
these three locations, Congress intervened. An amendment to the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act in 1987 halted the investigations at Deaf Smith in Texas and Hanford in
Washington, and designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site that would
be fully characterized for a high-level radioactive waste repository. This wasn’t just
done on a whim – it was a sincere attempt to save some ratepayer money and there
was some sound technical reasoning behind this decision.
The Deaf Smith County location was on privately held land, and the federal government would have had to acquire it at substantial cost. The target horizon for storing the nuclear waste was a bedded sedimentary salt about 1000 ft deep (300 m),
which was considered to be a stable formation with little to no groundwater movement (salt is highly soluble, so if there was significant groundwater flow, it would
not be there). Local farmers became concerned about the negative impacts of a
repository on agriculture, and political opposition grew rapidly, with as many as
80% of the people in the county and surrounding counties eventually claiming to be
opposed to the repository (Easterling and Kunreuther 1995).
Of even greater concern was that in order to reach the salt formation, the Deaf
Smith repository shafts were required to penetrate the important Oglala and underlying Dockum Group aquifers, which are critically important water resources for
crop irrigation. Despite reassurances from DOE officials, the idea of excavating a
shaft through two aquifers and connecting them to a bedded salt raised red flags
about creating flowpaths and placing water resources at risk for the sake of nuclear
waste storage. Stiff local opposition, worries about groundwater risk, and turbulent
Texas politics were the main factors that led DOE to walk away from Deaf Smith
County as a potential site. Unfortunately for the workers hired and transferred into
northern Texas for the planned characterization studies, the small town of Hereford
quickly became an oversaturated real estate market as hundreds of people tried to
sell houses with nearly everyone else moving out.
The Hanford Site straddling the Columbia River in eastern Washington State had
been on federal land since 1943, when it was acquired under the Manhattan Project
to manufacture plutonium for the first atomic bombs. Hanford has many existing
environmental problems related to the frantic weapons development and manufacturing practices employed to keep ahead of the Soviets during the Cold War. Proper
waste disposal was not a high priority during this time. A number of very large and
partially-buried storage tanks were filled with mixed nuclear and chemical waste,
some of which has leaked into the groundwater. No one quite knows the magnitude
of the contamination because records of what was put into the tanks are sketchy at
best. Hanford has been undergoing massive cleanup operations since 1989 (source
DOE websites).
12.1 Technological Solutions