Radioactive waste article disturbing
I found the front page article Tuesday on radioactive waste to be disturbing for a number of different reasons.
The first was that John Poister, the spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection, was “misinformed” when he basically assured the public back in May that the drill cuttings in the container rejected by a landfill operator had been disposed of properly. Obviously, the department had lost track of that particular problem – which one might cynically say is not all that unusual for the agency.
But then Poister is quoted as saying ” … in terms of what is out there we don’t know. We don’t have a registry of (rejected waste from well sites).” This in turn implies that the DEP really has no idea how many containers of radioactive waste are currently sitting on well pads around the commonwealth, and therefore has no way of making sure that the companies which produce the waste do, in fact, seek an appropriate landfill for its disposal within one year. So much for the “stringent guidelines” for dealing with such wastes.
On the plus side, I assume that the DEP deserves the credit for the fact that every landfill in the state is equipped with radiation monitors. Further, at least some landfill operators seem to take seriously the need to prevent radioactive contamination of their sites. That’s a start. However, it does nothing to reduce the risk of the problem being shipped off to another state or simply dumped in the dark of night into a stream or down a borehole into an abandoned, or still-active, coal mine.
A more effective approach would be for a number of field inspectors in the DEP, whether in the oil & gas, water quality or mining divisions, to be provided with and trained in the use of a Geiger counter or other radiation detector. The oil & gas inspectors could detect radioactive drill cuttings before they ever leave a site in the first place and tag them for mandatory tracking by the operator to the point of final disposal. The water quality personnel could spot-check streams for abnormal radiation levels, and trace the contamination back to permitted outfalls or other sources. The mine inspectors could monitor mine-related impoundments and boreholes for evidence of illegal dumping.
At any rate, with “loads being rejected at a steady rate” and well pads across the state “becoming temporary storage facilities,” some form of proactive management is long overdue.
George Carter
Jefferson