Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 9, Industrial Waste, Page 2

RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Since the splitting of the atom, both uranium and plutonium have been used to create bombs, provide medical supplies and furnish energy. Not surprisingly, these uses create waste management problems: what do you do with materials which stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years? The disposal of most radioactive materials is regulated under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, as well as by a radioactive material licensing program established by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978. While some states are subject to direct control by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Texas also has its own laws and regulations relating to the use of radioactive materials and radioactive waste disposal. Radioactive waste can be divided into four categories (see box).

Nickel-59, a low-level radioactive waste, has a half-life of 75,000 years - in 75,000 years it will be half as radioactive as today - and will stay radioactive for upwards of 750,000 years. Humans in their present form have roamed the earth for 100,000 years.

Source: Scott Saleska, Ken Bossong and Others, Nuclear Legacy, An Overview of the Places, Problems and Politics of Radioactive Waste (Washington, DC: Public Citizen, September 1989).

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DISPOSAL AND GENERATION OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE

In Texas, low-level radioactive waste associated with power plants, industries, hospitals and research connected with the University of Texas System and mining amounts to about 20,000 cubic feet per year.(10) By volume, about a third of this low-level radioactive waste comes from Texas' two nuclear power reactors: the South Texas Project in Matagorda County, and the two-unit Comanche Peak Project in Somervell County.(11)

By the amount of radioactivity - as measured in a radioactivity scale known as curies - nuclear power plants account for at least 70 percent of the state's low-level radioactive waste.(12) While most waste produced in Texas stays radioactive less than 100 years, about 1 percent - again associated with power plants - will remain hazardous for thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years.(13)

Federal and state definitions differ. In Texas, low-level radioactive waste includes radioactive waste that has a half-life of 35 years or less and fewer than 10 nanocuries per gram of transuranics, as well as waste with half-lives of more than 35 years if special criteria for the disposal of the waste are established by the TNRCC.(14) These special criteria have been met by the TNRCC for some waste. The federal definition is more lenient since it considers any radioactive waste that has less than 100 nanocuries per gram low-level.(15) In 1995, the Texas Legislature considered changing Texas regulations so that state and federal definitions of low-level radioactive waste would be the same.

Each cubic foot of low-level radioactive waste costs $350 - $500 to ship and manage at a proper waste management facility.

Source: Susan Jablonski, Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, interview with Texas Center for Policy Studies by phone, September 1994.

Texas' nuclear plants - as well as many of the universities and industries - sent their waste to a low-level radioactive facility in Barnwell, South Carolina until July of 1994, when the facility closed. Since the closing of the facility, the two nuclear plants have stored their nuclear waste on-site in above-ground facilities, while hospitals and universities have either stored it on-site or sent it to a centralized storage facility in Fort Stockton.(19)

A proposed compact between Texas, Vermont and Maine contemplates the disposal of low-level radioactive waste from these three states in a proposed underground cement bunker landfill in Hudspeth County, Texas, seven miles from the town of Sierra Blanca. In 1981, the Texas Legislature created the Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority to develop a state site to manage LLRW. In 1992, the Waste Disposal Authority approved the Hudspeth County site. The site must be permitted by the TNRCC before it can begin operation, scheduled for 1996. If permitted, it would take waste for 30 years, although under the compact the state would maintain supervision for 100 years.

Proponents of the site include state and university officials, the utility industry and others. They argue that it would be far superior than the present policy of storing the waste on-site at locations throughout the state, with limited state supervision.(20) The areas where low-level radioactive waste are presently being stored tend to be more prone to flooding and natural disasters, raising the possibility that radioactive waste could leach from the storage areas. Finally, proponents point out that the Hudspeth County site is technologically superior to any site presently operated in the country.

Local and state environmental groups have opposed the project on several grounds. They argue that nuclear power plants should store their own waste in above-ground storage units because it would prevent traffic mishaps and make power plants themselves responsible. A centralized storage facility could take care of less-radioactive industrial and university waste.(21) Other stated reasons for the groups' opposition include concerns related to the geologic stability of the proposed site, which lies near aquifers Texas shares with Mexico, how large it needs to be and whether, if it is the first new low-level waste site in the U.S., it will eventually have to take waste from around the country.

Only 1.4 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste was generated in 1990 nationwide, while experts of the nuclear waste disposal industry in the late 1970s were predicting as much as 5 million cubic feet by that date. Source: Office of Technology Assessment, Partnership Under Pressure (Washington, DC: OTA, 1989).

In addition to low-level radioactive waste, Texas' two nuclear power plants also produce spent fuel rods and other high-level nuclear waste, which is stored in pools of water at the reactors. By 1990, the nation's nuclear plants had produced more than 20,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste.(25) In addition, while taking apart the nation's nuclear arsenal, tons of plutonium will be stored at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant some 16 miles northeast of Amarillo. About 2,000 nuclear weapons will be dismantled there each year and stored at the plant site.(26)

Other radioactive waste such as those generated by uranium mining, phosphate mining, oil and gas production and many other industries are not proposed to go to the LLRW site. These materials have not received the attention or regulation that other radioactive waste have.

Uranium is used by the nuclear power industry. Texas has been a leading producer of this mineral, which can also be used to make nuclear weapons. Uranium used to be strip-mined much like coal mining. This mining process results in "tailings," left over radioactive material from the processing of uranium, as well as the need for the remediation of areas that have been mined. These tailing materials have been placed in ponds, which often have neither natural nor synthetic liners. Some ponds have leaked, contaminating soils and subsurface aquifers, as well as emitted radioactive gases into the atmosphere.(27)

While no uranium strip-mines are currently operating in Texas, three companies are involved in reclamation projects at five different uranium mining sites.(28) In addition, four tailing ponds in Karnes and Live Oak Counties are being closed and covered to prevent further contamination of subsurface aquifers or radioactive waste emissions. Three of the sites - run by Chevron, Exxon and Conoco - are being supervised by the TNRCC, while the Department of Energy is supervising clean up of a fourth tailing pond in an area which produced uranium for the defense industry.(29)

Recently in Texas, uranium mining has been limited to 22 sites which use injection wells rather than a uranium strip mining operation. The injection process does not result in tailings. However, only two of these sites were mining as of September 1994, with the others closing down operations as the demand for uranium decreased.(30) These "in-situ" or "solution" mines are considered by state agency regulators to present less environmental problems than strip-mines because liquids are pumped underground to dislodge uranium which is then pumped out through wells. Temporary settling ponds which store water, sand and precipitate and drilling liquids must be lined, but not covered.(31) However, spills, accidents and leaks can still occur at such facilities.

WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT HAZARDOUS WASTE?

Over the last five years, Texans and their industries have produced at least 60 million tons of hazardous waste every year.(32) Although there are plenty of places to put our industrial waste, none of the management or disposal alternatives is fail-safe. Among state officials and the public, serious concerns about both commercial management of industrial waste and on-site industrial management of waste remain:

• Hazardous and many "non-hazardous" industrial waste are inherently dangerous to human health and the environment no matter how they are managed;

• Hazardous and industrial land disposal units in Texas resulted in more than 450 cases of groundwater contamination over the last five years;(33)

• Underground, as of February 1994, the 150,000 chemical and petroleum storage tanks in Texas had reported 15,731 leaks, contaminating either groundwater, soils or both;(34)

• Abandoned oil and gas and water wells located near a hazardous waste injection well might provide possible avenues for hazardous waste injected underground to seep up to the surface or into underground drinking water supplies;(35)

• The specific health effects of many toxic substances are not well understood, and past experience with toxics such as dioxin has shown us that some toxic chemicals can accumulate in the environment for many years before their worst effects are revealed.

• The continued disposal of "non-hazardous" industrial waste at both municipal solid waste landfills and industrial solid waste facilities and at oil and gas exploration and production sites is not as highly regulated as hazardous waste disposal. In fact, municipal solid waste landfills are more highly regulated than non-hazardous industrial solid waste disposal sites, which often do not require permits, groundwater monitoring, liners or leachate collection systems despite the dangerous waste they may contain.

• Thousands of abandoned industrial waste sites in Texas will require public management and clean-up well into the 21st century.

WHO GENERATES SOLID WASTE IN TEXAS?

Municipal Waste includes residential, commercial and institutional waste, as well as a small percentage of non-hazardous industrial waste and construction debris.

Note: All figures from 1991.

Source: Texas Water Commission, Texas Solid Waste Strategic Plan, (Austin: TWC, July 1993);. and Texas Water Commission, Trends in Texas Hazardous Waste Management: 1991 Update, (Austin: TWC, July 1993).

GENERATION OF HAZARDOUS WASTE IN TEXAS BY INDUSTRY, 1991

Source: Texas Water Commission, Trends in Texas Hazardous Waste Management (Austin: TWC, July 1993), 4.

INDUSTRIAL SOLID WASTE IN TEXAS: WHO PRODUCES IT?

Historically, Texas has ranked first in the nation in total hazardous waste generated, due to the state's large size and industrial base.(36) Industries in Texas reported producing between 60 and 65 million tons of hazardous waste each year between 1986 and 1990. However, a new EPA rule known as the Toxicity Characteristic rule caused many waste that were previously considered non-hazardous to also be defined as hazardous. For example, the rule made large volumes of wastewater stored in surface impoundments and holding ponds subject to regulation as hazardous waste if they contained toxic levels of certain chemicals such as benzene, lead and arsenic. The new rule forced industries to discontinue the use of surface impoundments for holding and treating these large volumes of waste, and begin treating them in wastewater treatment tanks and facilities. Because of this rule, which expands the universe of waste considered dangerous, the amount of hazardous waste from 1990 to 1991 doubled.(37) By 1993, preliminary data showed that Texas industries generated about 180 million tons of hazardous waste.(38)

Thus, in 1991, while 17 million Texans discarded about 21 million tons of municipal waste in the state, some 7,000 businesses, commercial institutions and industries produced 139 million tons of "hazardous" waste. These economic sectors - along with the oil and gas exploration and development industry - also produced another 103 million tons of Class 1, "non-hazardous" waste.(39) Finally, solid waste generators were not required to report millions of tons of Class 2 and Class 3 industrial waste to the TNRCC, although municipal solid waste facilities were required to report any reception of these waste.

In 1992, Texas led the nation in the amount of toxic chemicals released on-site and transferred off-site. This information is from the Toxic Release Inventory Program, which requires major manufacturing companies to report to the Environmental Protection Agency their toxic releases and transfers (see box).(40)

In 1991, more than 80 percent of the industrial hazardous waste generated in Texas was from facilities in Harris, Galveston, Brazoria, Nueces and Harrison counties.(41) By 1993, these five counties still accounted for 80 percent of all hazardous waste generated (see Counties section for a full list).(42) Most hazardous waste in Texas is generated by two industrial sectors: petroleum refining and chemicals and allied products. For example, in 1987, these two industrial classifications accounted for 76 percent of all waste generated. By 1991, they accounted for more than 93 percent.(43) Most of the increase is due to the new wastewater rule since these industries produce large volumes of wastewater.(44)

The top 25 producers of hazardous waste in Texas generated about 90 percent of all hazardous waste in Texas.(45) It should be noted that volume - how much you produce - does not necessarily correspond to how hazardous the waste stream is to human health and the environment. Some methods of disposal and some types of hazardous waste are potentially more damaging than others.

INDUSTRIAL CLASS 1 WASTE - WHERE DID IT GO IN 1991?

Of the off-site total, 270,000 tons went out-of-state.

Source: Texas Water Commission, Texas Solid Waste Strategic Plan, (Austin: TWC, July 1993), 4-5.

Texas Environmental Almanac, Chapter 9, Industrial Waste, Page 2

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