Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Status of Disposal Availability in  
the United States and Other Countries (20-MAY-08, GAO-08-813T).  
                                                                 
Disposal of radioactive material continues to be highly 	 
controversial. To address part of the disposal problem, in 1980, 
Congress made the states responsible for disposing of most	 
low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), and allowed them to form	 
regional compacts and to restrict access to disposal facilities  
from noncompact states. LLRW is an inevitable by-product of	 
nuclear power generation and includes debris and contaminated	 
soils from the decommissioning and cleanup of nuclear facilities,
as well as metal and other material exposed to radioactivity. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranks LLRW according to	 
hazard exposure--classes A, B, C, and greater-than-class C	 
(GTCC). The states are responsible for the first three classes,  
and the Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for GTCC. Three
facilities dispose of the nation's LLRW--in Utah, South Carolina,
and Washington State. The testimony addresses (1) LLRW management
in the United States and (2) LLRW management in other countries. 
It is substantially based on two GAO reports: a June 2004 report 
(GAO-04-604) and a March 2007, report (GAO-07-221) that examined 
these issues. To prepare this testimony, GAO relied on data from 
the two reports and updated information on current capacity for  
LLRW and access to disposal facilities. 			 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-813T					        
    ACCNO:   A82155						        
  TITLE:     Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Status of Disposal	      
Availability in the United States and Other Countries		 
     DATE:   05/20/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Access control					 
	     Comparative analysis				 
	     Data integrity					 
	     Databases						 
	     Facility management				 
	     Federal/state relations				 
	     Foreign governments				 
	     Hazardous waste disposal				 
	     License agreements 				 
	     Licenses						 
	     Nuclear facilities 				 
	     Nuclear waste disposal				 
	     Nuclear waste management				 
	     Nuclear waste storage				 
	     Policy evaluation					 
	     Radiation exposure hazards 			 
	     Radioactive waste disposal 			 
	     Radioactive wastes 				 
	     Regulation 					 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Toxic substances					 
	     Low-level radioactive waste			 

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GAO-08-813T

This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-08-813T 
entitled 'Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Status of Disposal Availability 
in the United States and Other Countries' which was released on May 20, 
2008.

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Testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, Committee 
on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

For Release on Delivery: 
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT: 
Tuesday, May 20, 2008: 

Low-Level Radioactive Waste: 

Status of Disposal Availability in the United States and Other 
Countries: 

Statement of Gene Aloise, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

GAO-08-813T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-08-813T, testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy 
and Air Quality, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of 
Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Disposal of radioactive material continues to be highly controversial. 
To address part of the disposal problem, in 1980, Congress made the 
states responsible for disposing of most low-level radioactive waste 
(LLRW), and allowed them to form regional compacts and to restrict 
access to disposal facilities from noncompact states. LLRW is an 
inevitable by-product of nuclear power generation and includes debris 
and contaminated soils from the decommissioning and cleanup of nuclear 
facilities, as well as metal and other material exposed to 
radioactivity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranks LLRW 
according to hazard exposureï¿½classes A, B, C, and greater-than-class C 
(GTCC). The states are responsible for the first three classes, and the 
Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for GTCC. Three facilities 
dispose of the nationï¿½s LLRWï¿½in Utah, South Carolina, and Washington 
State. 

The testimony addresses (1) LLRW management in the United States and 
(2) LLRW management in other countries. It is substantially based on 
two GAO reports: a June 2004 report (GAO-04-604) and a March 2007, 
report (GAO-07-221) that examined these issues. To prepare this 
testimony, GAO relied on data from the two reports and updated 
information on current capacity for LLRW and access to disposal 
facilities. 

What GAO Found: 

As GAO reported in 2004, existing disposal facilities had adequate 
capacity for most LLRW and were accessible to waste generators 
(hereafter referred to as disposal availability) in the short term, but 
constraints on the disposal of certain types of LLRW warranted concern. 
Specifically, South Carolina had decided to restrict access to its 
disposal facility by mid-2008 for class B and C wasteï¿½the facility now 
accepts about 99 percent of this waste generated nationwideï¿½to only 
waste generators in the three states of its compact. If there are no 
new disposal options for class B and C wastes after 2008, licensed 
users of radioactive materials can continue to minimize waste 
generation, process waste into safer forms, and store waste pending the 
development of additional disposal options. While NRC prefers that LLRW 
be disposed of, it allows on-site storage as long as the waste remains 
safe and secure. In contrast, disposal availability for domestic class 
A waste is not a problem in the short or longer term. In 2004, GAO 
reported that the Utah disposal facilityï¿½which accepts about 99 percent 
of this waste generated nationwideï¿½could accept such waste for 20 years 
or more under its current license based on anticipated class A waste 
volumes. Since 2005, the volume of class A waste disposed of has 
declined by two-thirds primarily because DOE completed several large 
cleanup projects, extending the capacity for an additional 13 years, 
for a total of 33 years of remaining disposal capacity. However, the 
June 2004 analysis, and the updated analysis, were based on the 
generation of LLRW only in the United States and did not consider the 
impact on domestic disposal capacity of importing foreign countriesï¿½ 
LLRW. 

Ten of the 18 countries surveyed for GAOï¿½s March 2007 report have 
disposal options for class A, B and most of C waste, and 6 other 
countries have plans to build such facilities. Only 3 countries 
indicated that they have a disposal option for some class C and GTCC 
waste; however, almost all countries that do not provide disposal for 
LLRW have centralized storage facilities for this waste. Only Italy 
reported that it had no disposal or central storage facilities for its 
LLRW, although it plans to develop a disposal site for this waste that 
will include waste from its decommissioned nuclear power plants and 
from other nuclear processing facilities. Italy initially expected this 
disposal site to be operational by 2010, but local governmentsï¿½ 
resistance to the location of this disposal site has delayed this date. 
The March 2007 report also identified a number of LLRW management 
approaches used in other countries that may provide lessons to improve 
the management of U.S. radioactive waste. These approaches include the 
use of comprehensive national radioactive waste inventory databases and 
the development of a national radioactive waste management plan. Such a 
plan would specify a single entity responsible for coordinating 
radioactive waste management and include strategies to address all 
types of radioactive waste. GAO had recommended that NRC and DOE 
evaluate and report to the Congress on the usefulness of these 
approaches. While the agencies considered these approaches, they 
expressed particular concerns about the significant resources required 
to develop and implement a national inventory and management plan for 
LLRW. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-813T]. For more 
information, contact Gene Aloise at (202) 512-3841 or [email protected]. 

[End of section] 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

We are pleased to be here today to discuss our past work on the 
management of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) as the Subcommittee 
considers H.R. 5632, which would prohibit the importation of certain 
LLRW into the United States. LLRW is an inevitable byproduct of nuclear 
power generation and of government, industrial, academic, and medical 
uses of radioisotopes. It includes items such as rags, paper, liquid, 
glass, metal components, resins, filters, and protective clothing that 
have been exposed to radioactivity or have been contaminated with 
radioactive material. LLRW also includes debris, rubble, and 
contaminated soils from the decommissioning and cleanup of nuclear 
facilities. Almost 30 years ago federal legislation addressed the need 
to dispose of LLRW, but management of LLRW continues to be a concern. 
Under the LLRW Policy Act of 1980, as amended (the act), each state is 
responsible for providing for the disposal of LLRW generated within the 
state, either by itself or in cooperation with other states. States are 
not responsible for waste produced by the Department of Energy (DOE) or 
the nuclear propulsion component of the U.S. Navy. The aim of the act 
was to provide for the safe and effective management of LLRW disposal 
capacity on a regional basis. As an incentive for states to manage 
waste on a regional basis, the Congress consented to the formation of 
interstate agreements, known as compacts, and granted compact member 
states the authority to exclude LLRW from other compacts or 
unaffiliated states.[Footnote 1] 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for licensing 
LLRW disposal sites and has divided the wastes covered by the act into 
categories of increasing levels of hazard exposure, beginning with 
class A--the least hazardous category--followed by class B and class 
C.[Footnote 2] There is also a fourth category, known as greater-than- 
class-C (GTCC) waste, which DOE is responsible for disposing of. NRC 
has relinquished to 34 states--called "Agreement States"--portions of 
its authority to license and regulate the use and disposal of 
radioactive materials. Although NRC has not licensed any disposal 
facilities, the Agreement States have licensed three commercial LLRW 
disposal facilities: one in Clive, Utah, operated by EnergySolutions, 
accepts almost all of the nation's class A waste; one in Barnwell, 
South Carolina, also operated by EnergySolutions, accepts almost all of 
the nation's class B and class C waste; and one in Richland, 
Washington, operated by US Ecology, accepts class A, B, and C wastes 
from the 11 states of the Rocky Mountain and Northwest LLRW compacts. 
Currently, there is no disposal facility for GTCC waste, although DOE 
is currently studying the feasibility of various disposal options. 

Disposal of radioactive material continues to be highly controversial. 
We found that the impetus to develop new disposal facilities has been 
dampened by many factors, including decreases in disposal volumes, 
disposal availability, rising costs of developing a new facility, and 
public and political resistance in states designated to host these 
facilities. The United States is a large generator of LLRW because it 
has 104 nuclear power reactors and thousands of radioactive material 
licensees. NRC has reported that future disposal availability and the 
costs of disposal under the current system remains highly uncertain and 
waste generators need predictability and stability in the national 
disposal system. Disposal availability for LLRW is also a concern in 
some foreign countries. Specifically, 29 other countries generate 
electricity from 331 nuclear power reactors, and many others generate 
LLRW from industrial, academic, and medical uses of radioactive 
material. Like the United States, these countries face LLRW disposal 
challenges. 

Our testimony today is based on two reports: (1) our June 2004 report, 
which examined the adequacy of LLRW disposal availability for class A, 
B, and C wastes,[Footnote 3] and (2) our March 2007 report, which 
examined the approaches foreign countries use to manage their LLRW. 
[Footnote 4] 

To prepare this testimony we relied on data from our two reports and 
updated information on domestic LLRW disposal availability and volumes. 
Estimates of disposal volumes and capacity came from the operators that 
we interviewed for our June 2004 report. We updated the information in 
a LLRW database through discussions with a cognizant DOE official. 
Information on disposal availability for foreign countries came 
directly from survey information that we used in preparing the 2007. 
Information on Italy came from survey data and supplemental reports. We 
conducted the work in the prior reports we used in preparing this 
testimony and the work we conducted in updating LLRW disposal 
information in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. 

In summary, we found the following: 

As we reported in June 2004, existing disposal facilities had adequate 
capacity for most LLRW and were accessible to waste generators (hereby 
referred to as disposal availability) in the short term, but 
constraints on the disposal of class B and C wastes warranted concern. 
Specifically, South Carolina had decided to close the Barnwell disposal 
facility to noncompact states by mid-2008. When this closure occurs 
later this year, Barnwell, which currently accepts about 99 percent of 
the nation's class B and C waste, will be available only to waste 
generated in three states. If after 2008 there are no new disposal 
options for class B and C wastes, licensed users of radioactive 
materials can continue to minimize waste generation, process waste into 
safer forms, and store waste pending the development of additional 
disposal options. While NRC prefers the disposal of LLRW, it allows on- 
site storage as long as the waste remains safe and secure. In contrast, 
disposal availability for domestic class A waste is not a problem in 
the short or longer term. We reported in June 2004 that the Clive, 
Utah, disposal facility, which accepts about 99 percent of the nation's 
class A waste, could accept such waste for 20 years or more under its 
current license based on then-projected class A disposal volumes. Since 
2005, the volume of class A waste disposed of has declined by two- 
thirds primarily because DOE has completed several large cleanup 
projects. This has extended by 13 years the time when this facility 
will be expected to reach its capacity. It is important to note, 
however, that our June 2004 analysis and our updated analysis of the 
availability of disposal capacity for class A, B, and C wastes was 
based on the generation of LLRW only in the United States and did not 
consider the impact on domestic capacity of importing foreign 
countries' LLRW. 

Ten of the 18 countries we surveyed for our March 2007 report have 
disposal options for LLRW similar to U.S. class A and B waste and most 
of C waste, and 6 other countries have plans to build such facilities. 
Only 3 countries indicated that they have a disposal option for LLRW 
similar to greater-than-class C waste. However, almost all of the 
countries that do not provide disposal for LLRW provide centralized 
storage facilities for this waste. Only Italy reported that it had no 
disposal or central storage facilities for its LLRW, although it does 
have plans to develop a disposal site for radioactive waste from its 
decommissioned nuclear power plants and from other nuclear processing 
facilities. Italy initially expected this disposal site to be 
operational by 2010, but local governments' resistance to the location 
of this disposal site has delayed this date. Our March 2007 report also 
identified a number of LLRW management approaches used in other 
countries that may provide lessons to improve the management of U.S. 
radioactive waste. These approaches include the use of comprehensive 
national radioactive waste inventory databases and the development of a 
national radioactive waste management plan. Such a plan would specify a 
single entity responsible for coordinating radioactive waste management 
and include strategies to address all types of radioactive waste. We 
recommended that NRC and DOE evaluate and report to the Congress on the 
usefulness of these approaches. While the agencies considered these 
approaches, they expressed particular concerns about the significant 
resources required to develop and implement a national inventory and 
management plan for LLRW. 

Background: 

The disposal of LLRW is the end of the radioactive material lifecycle 
that spans production, use, processing, interim storage, and disposal. 
The nuclear utility industry generates the bulk of this LLRW through 
the normal operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants, and 
through the decommissioning of these plants. Other LLRW is generated 
from medical, industrial, agricultural, and research applications. 
Common uses of radioactive material are in radiotherapy, radiography, 
smoke detectors, irradiation and sterilization of food and materials, 
measuring devices, and illumination of emergency exit signs. In the 
course of working with these radioactive materials, other material, 
such as protective clothing and gloves, pipes, filters, and concrete, 
that come in contact with them will become contaminated and therefore 
need to be disposed of as LLRW. 

In the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor agency to 
DOE, began to encourage the development of commercial LLRW disposal 
facilities to accommodate the increased volume of commercial waste that 
was being generated. Six such disposal facilities were licensed, two of 
which, the Richland facility, licensed in 1965, and the Barnwell 
facility, licensed in 1969, remain today. Each of these facilities is 
located within the boundaries of or adjacent to a much larger site 
owned by DOE. The third facility, in Clive, Utah, operated by 
EnergySolutions (formerly known as Envirocare of Utah), was originally 
licensed by the state of Utah in 1988 to only accept naturally 
occurring radioactive waste. In 1991, Utah amended the facility's 
license to permit the disposal of some LLRW, and the Northwest Compact 
agreed to allow the facility to accept these wastes from noncompact 
states. By 2001, the facility was allowed to accept all types of class 
A waste. 

The United States Currently Has Available Disposal Capacity for Most 
Domestically Produced LLRW: 

At this time, sufficient available disposal capacity exists for almost 
all LLRW. However, fast-approaching constraints on the availability of 
disposal capacity for class B and class C wastes could adversely affect 
the disposal of many states' LLRW. Specifically, beginning on June 30, 
2008, waste generators in 36 states will be precluded from using the 
Barnwell disposal facility for their class B and class C LLRW. That 
facility currently accepts about 99 percent of the nation's class B and 
class C commercial LLRW. Although the Barnwell and Richland facilities 
have more than sufficient capacity to serve waste generators from the 
14 states that are members of the facilities' respective compacts until 
at least 2050, the remaining 36 states will have no disposal options 
for their class B and class C LLRW. 

Although waste generators in these 36 states will no longer have access 
to Barnwell, they can continue to minimize waste generation, process 
waste into safer forms, and store waste pending the development of 
additional disposal options. While NRC prefers the disposal of LLRW, it 
allows on-site storage as long as the waste remains safe and secure. 
Since September 11, 2001, both the public's concern with, and its 
perception of, risk associated with radioactive release, including that 
from stored LLRW, have increased. However, should an immediate and 
serious threat come from any specific location of stored waste, NRC has 
the authority under the act to override any compact restrictions and 
allow shipment of the waste to a regional or other nonfederal disposal 
facility under narrowly defined conditions. Waste minimization 
techniques and storage can alleviate the need for disposal capacity, 
but they can be costly. For example, in June 2004 we reported that one 
university built a $12 million combined hazardous and radioactive waste 
management facility. Two-thirds of this facility is devoted to the 
processing and temporary storage of class A waste. 

Additional disposal capacity for the estimated 20,000 to 25,000 cubic 
feet of class B and class C LLRW disposed of annually at Barnwell may 
become available with the opening of a new disposal facility in Texas. 
This facility has received a draft license and appears to be on 
schedule to begin operations in 2010. Although the facility may accept 
some DOE cleanup waste, there is presently no indication that it will 
be made available to all waste generators beyond the two states that 
are members of the Texas Compact (Texas and Vermont). 

In contrast, available disposal capacity for the nation's class A waste 
does not appear to be a problem in either the short or long term. Our 
June 2004 report noted that EnergySolutions' Clive facility had 
sufficient disposal capacity, based upon then-projected disposal 
volumes, to accept class A waste for at least 20 years under its 
current license. This facility currently accepts about 99 percent of 
the nation's class A LLRW. Since our report was issued, domestic class 
A waste has declined from about 15.5 million cubic feet in 2005 to 
about 5 million cubic feet in 2007. This decline is primarily 
attributed to DOE's completion of several cleanup projects. DOE waste 
constituted about 50 percent of the total waste accepted by 
EnergySolutions in 2007. This reduction in projected class A disposal 
volumes will extend the amount of time the Clive facility can accept 
class A waste before exhausting its capacity. According to the disposal 
operator, capacity for this facility has been extended another 13 
years, to 33 years of capacity. 

It is important to note, however, that our June 2004 analysis of 
available LLRW disposal capacity considered only domestically produced 
LLRW. We did not consider the impact of imported LLRW on available 
class A, B, and C disposal capacity at Clive, Barnwell, and Richland. 
Although disposal capacity at the time of our June 2004 report appeared 
adequate using then-projected waste disposal volumes, the impact of 
adding additional waste from overseas waste generators is unclear. 

Most Foreign Countries Either Have Available LLRW Disposal Capacity or 
Plan to Develop It: 

While none of the foreign countries we surveyed for our March 2007 
report indicated that they have disposal options for all of their LLRW, 
almost all either had disposal capacity for their lower-activity LLRW 
or central storage facilities for their higher-activity LLRW, pending 
the availability of disposal capacity.[Footnote 5] Specifically, we 
surveyed 18 foreign countries that previously had or currently have 
operating nuclear power plants or research reactors. Ten of the 18 
countries reported having available disposal capacity for their lower- 
activity LLRW and 6 other countries have plans to build such 
facilities. Only 3 countries indicated that they have a disposal option 
for some higher-activity LLRW. Many countries that lack disposal 
capacity for LLRW provide centralized storage facilities to relieve 
waste generators of the need to store LLRW on-site. Specifically, 7 of 
the 8 countries without disposal facilities for lower-activity LLRW had 
centralized storage facilities. Eleven of the 15 countries without 
disposal facilities for at least some higher-activity LLRW provide 
central storage facilities for this material. 

Of the 18 countries we surveyed, only Italy indicated that it lacked 
disposal availability for both lower-and higher-activity LLRW and 
central storage facilities for this waste. As reported by Italy to the 
international Nuclear Energy Agency, in 1999, the government began to 
develop a strategy for managing the liabilities resulting from the 
country's past national nuclear activities. The strategy established a 
new national company to shut down all of Italy's nuclear power plants 
and to promptly decommission them. It also created a national agency 
that would establish and operate a disposal site for radioactive waste. 
A subsequent government decree in 2001 prompted an acceleration of the 
process to select a disposal site, with the site to begin operations in 
2010. However, the Italian government has more recently reported it has 
encountered substantial difficulties establishing a disposal site 
because local governments have rejected potential site locations. In 
total, Italy will have an estimated 1.1 million cubic feet of lower- 
activity LLRW that will result from decommissioning its nuclear 
facilities in addition to the 829,000 cubic feet of this waste already 
in storage. 

Our March 2007 report identified several management approaches used in 
foreign countries that, if adopted in the United States, could improve 
the management of radioactive waste. These approaches included, among 
other things, 

* using a comprehensive national radioactive waste inventory of all 
types of radioactive waste by volume, location, and waste generator; 

* providing disposition options for all types of LLRW or providing 
central storage options for higher-radioactivity LLRW if disposal 
options are unavailable; and: 

* developing financial assurance requirements for all waste generators 
to reduce government disposition costs. 

We also identified another management approach used in most countries-
-national radioactive waste management plans--that also might provide 
lessons for managing U.S. radioactive waste. Currently, the United 
States does not have a national radioactive waste management plan and 
does not have a single federal agency or other organization responsible 
for coordinating LLRW stakeholder groups to develop such a plan. Such a 
plan for the United States could integrate the various radioactive 
waste management programs at the federal and state levels into a single 
source document. 

Our March 2007 report recommended that DOE and NRC evaluate and report 
to the Congress on the usefulness of adopting the LLRW management 
approaches used in foreign countries and developing a U.S. radioactive 
waste management plan. Although both agencies generally agreed with our 
recommendations, NRC, on behalf of itself and DOE, subsequently 
rejected two approaches that our March 2007 report discussed. 
Specifically, NRC believes that the development of national LLRW 
inventories and a national waste management plan would be of limited 
use in the United States. In a March 2008 letter to GAO on the actions 
NRC has taken in response to GAO's recommendations, NRC stated that the 
approach used in the United States is fundamentally different from 
other countries. In particular, NRC argued that, because responsibility 
for LLRW disposal is placed with the states, the federal government's 
role in developing options for managing and/or disposing of LLRW is 
limited. NRC also expressed concern about the usefulness and 
significant resources required to develop and implement national 
inventories and management plans. 

We continue to believe comprehensive inventories and a national plan 
would be useful. A comprehensive national radioactive waste inventory 
would allow LLRW stakeholders to forecast waste volumes and to plan for 
future disposal capacity requirements. Moreover, a national radioactive 
waste management plan could assist those interested in radioactive 
waste management to identify waste quantities and locations, plan for 
future storage and disposal development, identify research and 
development opportunities, and assess the need for regulatory or 
legislative actions. For example, there are no national contingency 
plans, other than allowing LLRW storage at waste generator sites, to 
address the impending closure of the Barnwell facility to class B and 
class C LLRW from noncompact states. The availability of a national 
plan and periodic reporting on waste conditions might also provide the 
Congress and the public with a more accessible means for monitoring the 
management of radioactive waste and provide a mechanism to build 
greater public trust in the management of these wastes in the United 
States. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to 
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Committee may have 
at this time. 

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements: 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may be found on the last page of this testimony. For further 
information about this testimony, please contact Gene Aloise at (202) 
512-3841 or [email protected]. Major contributors to this statement were 
Daniel Feehan (Assistant Director), Thomas Laetz, Lesley Rinner, and 
Carol Herrnstadt Shulman. 

[End of testimony] 

Footnotes: 

[1] There are 10 compacts: the Appalachian, Atlantic, Central, Central 
Midwest, Northwest, Midwest, Rocky Mountain, Southeast, Southwestern, 
and Texas Compacts. Together, these 10 compacts encompass 42 states. 
Generators of LLRW located in a compact or in unaffiliated states that 
do not have their own disposal facility can contract with a disposal 
facility in another compact if the other compact allows them to do so. 

[2] The classification of waste is determined by the type of 
radionuclide (e.g., americium-241) and the concentration of 
radioactivity (often measured in curies per gram). 

[3] GAO, Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Disposal Availability Adequate in 
the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to Identify Any Future Shortfalls, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-604] 
(Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2004). 

[4] GAO, Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management: Approaches Used by 
Foreign Countries May Provide Useful Lessons for Managing U.S. 
Radioactive Waste, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-221] (Washington, D.C.: 
March 21, 2007). 

[5] In general, U.S. class A, B, and most of class C waste falls into 
the international category of short-lived low-and intermediate-level 
radioactive waste (lower-activity LLRW), and the remaining 25 percent 
of class C waste and all GTCC waste falls into the long-lived low-and 
intermediate-level radioactive waste category (higher-activity LLRW). 

[End of section] 

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441 G Street NW, Room 7125: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Public Affairs: 

Chuck Young, Managing Director, [email protected]: 
(202) 512-4800: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7149: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

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