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Why WIPP Is Needed
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15276 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1989 |
2,836 Words |
| Author
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Douglas G. Brookins
Douglas G. Brookins is a professor of geology at the
University of New Mexico and the author of numerous articles
on radioactive waste management |
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, is planned as the first permanent repository for low-level, transuranic radioactive wastes in the United States. As a geologist, chemist, educator, and concerned environmentalist, WIPP makes a great deal of sense to me. Yet, public acceptance of anything dealing with nuclear issues is extremely difficult to obtain, especially since the media usually focus on the assumed negative aspects of such in issue--whether or not there are factual data to back up a negative stand.
Transuranic waste (TRU) is garbage; it consists of gloves, laboratory coats, booties, old tools, metal clippings, glass and plastic ware, some sludge, and other materials one would recognize on a visit to any landfill in the country. The one thing that makes TRU different is that this garbage has been contaminated with small amounts of neptunium, americium, curium, and plutonium--the largest contaminant of these transuranic elements. Plutonium is an essential component of nuclear weapons manufacturing, and the other elements yielded are by-products of plutonium production and processing.
Plutonium is a very toxic material; nevertheless, it is not, as described by many, the "most toxic substance known to man." On a milligram-per-milligram basis, anthrax spores and botulism are thousands of times more toxic, and lead arsenate and potassium cyanide are 10 times more poisonous than reactor plutonium. The poison from many snakes is more toxic that an equal weight of plutonium, and the large diamond-back rattlesnake is just about as toxic as reactor plutonium. The point is not to dispute plutonium's toxicity, but rather to point out that there are many other equally or more poisonous substances that
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