With the year 2008 just around the corner, the closure of the Barnwell, S.C. site is becoming an urgent situation for several states. As mentioned in previous blogs, beginning July 1, the Barnwell site will be accessible only to South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey. This entry will take a look at how a couple states are handling this upcoming change.
Arkansas’ low-level waste is generated mostly from “Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One, the National Center for Toxicological Research, the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, and the University of Arkansas.” These sites reported to the Central Interstate Low-level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission that they have ample storage for the future. The compact commissioner, Rita Houskie, was quoted stating that there is no need to seek alternate sites to Barnwell at this time. Although most of the waste in Arkansas is Class A, the least radioactive, companies such as Entergy that ship their Class B and C wastes to Barnwell, will now store it on site. A spokesman for Entergy said “[they have] space to store the material for about 50 years.” The other main producers of low-level wastes are taking similar approaches. The other states that are members of the compact and make seek Arkansas’ spatial resources are: Kansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
The University of Arizona received a formal notice of Barnwell’s closure a few weeks ago. Dan Silvain, the director of UA’s Radiation Control Office stated “[the notice] prompted us to get rid of (our waste). It was an ‘Uh-oh’ we better get it in under the wire moment.” He described the waste as mostly medical material that was used in treating cancer patients. “This stuff we’ve had hanging around…so we’re taking advantage of the [closure] to get [it] out of here.” UA is sending “sealed sources” of waste like Cesium-137 (used for cancer treatment) that has a half-life of 30 years. They are also currently seeking safer treatment methods that involve materials with shorter half-lives. This material that had been stored on campus and in hospitals will now go to Barnwell but soon will need other resources for permanent storage. The university is currently negotiating with vendors to return unneeded radiation materials for disposal but time will tell which direction places like the University of Arizona will look to resolve this issue.