An Energy Department plan to allow the recycling of scrap
metals emitting very low levels of radiation is drawing opposition
because of concerns about potential health hazards. But the upside for
U.S. atomic bomb-makers is that waste now requiring costly storage
could be sold for a profit.
In something of a stealth maneuver during the 2012 holiday season,
the U.S. Department of Energy set about to give every American a little
more radiation exposure, and for some a lot, by allowing manufacturers
to use
radioactive metals in their consumer products – such as zippers,
spoons, jewelry, belt buckles, toys, pots, pans, furnishings,
bicycles, jungle gyms, medical implants, or any other metal or partly-metal
product.
The Energy Dept. announced its plan in the Federal
Register on
Dec. 12 and invited comment for 30 days, through Jan.11. Citing its
need to address environmental concerns under the National Environmental
Protection Act (NEPA), the agency said, in part, that its plan was: “to
delegate authority to manage radiological clearance and release of scrap
metal from radiological areas to each Under Secretary for sites under
his or her cognizance. …
“ This
Draft PEA for
the Recycling of Scrap Metals Originating from Radiological Areas
analyzes the potential environmental impacts associated with resuming
the clearance of scrap metal, originating from DOE radiological areas,
for recycling pursuant to improved procedures designed to assure that
clearance for release is limited to metals meeting stringent criteria.”
Translated from the bureaucratese, this is a proposal to lift a ban on recycling
radioactive metals left over from American bomb-making and other nuclear
activities and allow them to be used commercially with “stringent” but largely
unenforceable criteria for their use. The initial ban was ordered in 2000, by then Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson.
Largely ignored by mainstream media, the plan caught the attention of
an alert member of Congress, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, who
wrote a three-page letter to Energy Secretary
Steven Chu on Jan. 11, beginning:
“I write to convey my grave concerns regarding your December 2012
proposal to rescind the agency-wide suspension of the release of
radioactively contaminated scrap metal from Department of Energy (DOE)
facilities for purposes of recycling it into consumer products that
could ultimately by utilized by pregnant women, children or other
vulnerable populations. This proposal is unwise, and should be
immediately abandoned.”
Although Rep. Markey was writing on the date of the original
deadline, the Energy Department had invited the public to respond to an
email address that was non-functional during the first nine days of the
response period, Dec. 12-20. On Dec. 28, the department announced in
the Federal Register that the comment period was extended to Feb. 11.
On Jan. 16, while taking note of Markey’s letter, the
Wall Street Journal covered
the story by starting this way: ”The Department of Energy is proposing
to allow the sale of tons of scrap metal from government nuclear sites —
an attempt to reduce waste that critics say could lead to
radiation-tainted belt buckles, surgical implants and other consumer
products. …
“The approximately 14,000 tons of metal under review for
possible initial release is only a fraction of the tens of millions of
tons of metal recycled annually, it said. Smaller amounts could be
eligible for release in future years. Selling the metals could bring in
$10 million to $40 million a year, the DOE estimates.”
Minimizing Radiation Dangers
As is common in nuclear industry proposals of all sorts, the Energy
Department sought to assure readers of its proposal that any radiation
exposure resulting from recycling radioactive waste into the commercial
mainstream would have minimal impact on any given individual. The
article in the
Journal included a chart from the department
that reinforced its claim that “would at worst expose a person to very
low levels of additional radiation.”
This approach ignores the current scientific
consensus that
there is NO safe level of radiation exposure. Since there is already a
measurable level of background radiation worldwide, and since worldwide
radiation levels have increased as a result of nuclear weapons testing
and nuclear accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima, the fundamental
safety question is whether any additional radiation exposure is safe in
any meaningful sense.
This approach also fails to deal with the reality that once the
department has released radioactive materials for commercial use, it
loses almost all control over how and where they’re used, and in what
concentrations. The same material used in a ceiling light fixture will
pose less risk than if it is used in a belt buckle of jewelry, worn
close to the skin. These uses are less dangerous than material inside a
human body, in a joint replacement or heart valve.
The issue is of
global concern because other countries are
recycling their
radioactive waste as well, with uncertain control and safety. As Rep.
Markey noted in his letter, “Just a year ago, Bed Bath and Beyond
recalled tissue holders made in India that were contaminated with low
levels of the radio-isotope cobalt-60 that were shipped to 200 of its
stores in twenty states.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, when discussing the discovery of
the contaminated products, said that, ‘There’s no real health threat
from these, but we advise people to return them.’ “
While that may seem contradictory, it’s mainly because the choice of
the word “real” is not very accurate. It’s true that there’s no threat
of immediate injury from a low level of radiation, whereas a high enough
level will be lethal. It’s also true that there may be no “realistic”
threat from a radioactive tissue box, but that’s not the same as “no
threat,” since harm from radiation exposure is cumulative.
Rep. Markey’s letter illustrates this concern, as he notes that the
Energy Department is proposing to release contaminated metals into the
market place, as long as, quoting from the document, it “can be shown
that the release will result in less than 1 millirem (mrem) above
background to a member of the public in any calendar year.” [One
millirem is a tiny amount of radiation.]
Nevertheless, Markey expresses doubt about even this low standard: “I believe this standard,
even it were the appropriate standard, will be impossible to assure or enforce.” [Emphasis added]
No One in Charge of Risk
There is no federal agency with responsibility for such oversight or enforcement. This
regulatory vacuum was illuminated by the discovery in 2009 of
thousands of contaminated consumer products from China, Brazil, France, Sweden and other countries, as
reported by
Mother Nature Network:
“The risk of radiation poisoning is the furthest thing from our minds
as we shop for everyday items like handbags, furniture, buttons, chain
link fences and cheese graters. Unfortunately, it turns out that our
trust is misplaced thanks to sketchy government oversight of recycled
materials.
“The discovery of a radioactive cheese grater led to an investigation that found
thousands of additional consumer products to be contaminated. The source is recycled metals tainted with
Cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope that can cause cancer with prolonged exposure.”
According to a Scripps Howard News Service
investigation in
2009, records of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “… show 18,740
documented cases involving radioactive materials in consumer products,
in metal intended for consumer products or other public exposure to
radioactive material.
“The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates there are some
500,000 unaccounted for radioactively contaminated metal objects in the
U.S., and the NRC estimates that figure is around is 20 million pounds
of contaminated waste….
“In 2006 in Texas, for example, a recycling facility inadvertently
created 500,000 pounds of radioactive steel byproducts after melting
metal contaminated with Cesium-137, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission records. In Florida in 2001, another recycler
unintentionally did the same, and wound up with 1.4 million pounds of
radioactive material.”
Nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderson echoed Markey’s warning in his Jan. 13
podcast,
pointing out that the nuclear industry has been trying to do something
like this for decades. The reason, he explained, was that radioactive
materials are now liabilities for those who own them and are responsible
for protecting them and eventually storing them safely. But if they can
sell the material, the liability instantly becomes an asset.
NIRS, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, has come out strongly against the Energy Department initiative, noting the long
history of the industry to unburden itself of its radioactive waste and any responsibility for it:
“We’ve fought this battle before. In the late 1980s, NRC adopted a
policy it called ‘Below Regulatory Concern (BRC),’ that would have
allowed about 30% of the nation’s ‘low-level’ radioactive waste to be
treated as normal garbage and dumped in landfills, be burned in
incinerators, and yes, be recycled into consumer products….
“NIRS and our allies responded with one of our largest organizing
campaigns ever…. 15 states passed laws banning BRC within their borders.
Hearings were held in the House and in 1992, Congress officially
overturned the BRC policy.”
The grassroots action contributed to Secretary Richardson’s ban on
selling radioactive metals for commercial use, the ban that the current
Energy Department proposal would overturn. The department has offered no
new basis for its recycling program beyond streamlining what it
proposed before. NIRS counters that:
“Nothing has changed since 2000 that would justify lifting its
current ban. Rather, just the opposite: since then the National Academy
of Sciences has acknowledged that there is no safe level of radiation
exposure, and we’ve learned that women are even more vulnerable to
radiation than men (while children have long been known to be more
vulnerable than adults).”
NIRS and
other advocacy
organizations are currently engaged in a
campaign to submit comments before the Feb. 11 deadline to ask the Energy Department to withdraw this proposal.
William Boardman runs Panther Productions. Reader Supported News is the publication of origin for this work.
