[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 27, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E21]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CHALLENGING WARD VALLEY RADIOACTIVE DUMP

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 27, 1998

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, along with Senator Barbara 
Boxer and others in California, I have long been raising strong 
concerns about Ward Valley, the proposed nuclear waste dump being 
promoted for southern California. Not only are there serious questions 
about the environmental safety of the proposed facility, but now 
legitimate questions have been raised about whether the dump is really 
required at all.
  Interior Secretary Babbitt and Deputy Secretary Garamendi have been 
taking the prudent approach, ordering additional environmental reviews 
based on credible questions about the potential leakage of highly 
radioactive wastes that could transmigrate and contaminate the Colorado 
River. Nuclear waste experts have declared that there is no need to 
build expensive new waste dumps as there is adequate storage capacity 
for low level wastes in existing facilities.
  The pressure to move forward is coming from Governor Wilson of 
California and several of the industries that are also adamant about 
building Ward Valley. But even executives of the company that wants to 
build and operate Ward Valley have told numerous congressional staffs 
that there is no national capacity shortage for low level nuclear 
wastes.
  Public opinion in California is growing in opposition to the Ward 
Valley facility. I hope that my colleagues will read the editorial from 
the Contra Costa Times of January 26 that rightly calls for caution 
before proceeding with this costly and potentially hazardous facility.

              [From the Contra Costa Times, Jan. 26, 1998]

                       Use Caution in the Desert

       Neither Gov. Wilson nor anti-nuclear activists likes the 
     idea of more testing at Ward Valley. But the Interior 
     Department's plan to find out just how dangerous radioactive 
     wastes are to the water supply merely makes good sense.
       The Interior Department last week approved the tests at 
     Ward Valley, a 1000-acre stretch of desert in the Mojave 
     Desert, 20 miles west of the Colorado River and the town of 
     Needles. For more than a decade there have been plans to 
     dispose of so-called ``low-level'' radioactive wastes on 80 
     acres at the site. The waste would come from California, 
     Arizona and North and South Dakota.
       Low-level wastes include irradiated mice and gloves from 
     research hospitals and pharmaceutical laboratories. There 
     have been reports that Ward Valley also would get worn out 
     parts from nuclear power plants, and materials with a ``half-
     life'' of 24,000 years. Currently nuclear waste is shipped 
     for disposal at the nation's three dumps in Utah and South 
     Carolina.
       Before the dump can be approved, and used, the federal 
     government must turn over the land to the state government. 
     The Clinton administration has balked from the start at doing 
     this, citing safety concerns. The Colorado River, they note, 
     is a drinking source for millions of people.
       Wilson claims enough tests have been run and that the site 
     is safe. Clinton, noting leaks at dumps in Nevada, wants to 
     be sure. His administration particularly wants to be 
     convinced that the waste won't leach into groundwater 650 
     feet below the surface, and thence to the river. That is what 
     the new tests would ascertain.
       While the discussion over safety has been burbling, 
     information has surfaced that there may no longer be a need 
     for Ward Valley, or for similar sites proposed for Nebraska, 
     North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. A study by University of 
     Nebraska economist Gregory Hayden asserts that there has been 
     a 16-year decline in the volume of low level nuclear waste 
     being disposed of in current dumps, and that their 
     profitability would be threatened by Ward Valley. Some 
     proponents of the dump have questioned Hayden's research.
       In addition, new technology allowing for wastes to be 
     compressed has increased storage capacity at Utah and South 
     Carolina.
       Given all these questions, it is hardly out of line to let 
     the new tests proceed. And while the tests are going forth, 
     Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is the 
     desert's greatest friend in Congress, has called for studies 
     to see if Ward Valley is necessary at all. That, too, is 
     prudent, before the state spends a ton of money developing 
     it.
       Ward Valley may yet end up as a site for disposing of 
     nuclear waste. If it does, let's make sure that the materials 
     to be deposited there pose no threat. Twenty-four thousand 
     years is a long time for a water supply to be contaminated.

     

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