Radioactive soil in Australia is being excavated and shipped to a waste disposal facility in Idaho.

The soil was polluted from a carbolic acid plant and uranium refinery that operated a century ago and is located in a suburb of Sydney.

The low-level radioactive waste will go to US Ecology's Grand View site in southwest Idaho. The news has been a relief for Australian residents living on the soil, but has raised a concern among some in the Gem State.

Tami Thatcher is a nuclear safety consultant for Environmental Defense Institute and former nuclear safety analyst at Idaho National Laboratory.

"Whenever you become aware of how radioactive waste is shipped from around the country and from around the world to Idaho, it's kind of alarming," said Thatcher.

Excavation of the contaminated soil began in September and is expected to take 18 to 24 months. It totals about 1,900 tons.

A spokesperson for US Ecology says the soil and debris are contaminated with a very low level of naturally occurring radioactive material but fall well below the established criteria in the company's Idaho permit.

Thatcher said there have been concerns about US Ecology's Grand View operations. In 2018, an explosion at the site killed one person and injured three others.

"They've never admitted where the waste came from," said Thatcher. "What type of waste it was and why it is - when they mixed their magnesium oxide to neutralize the waste - it blew sky high."

An investigation into the explosion found there was "non-conforming waste" included in material that was not supposed to be part of the waste stream.

US Ecology is the only commercial hazardous waste landfill operating to Idaho. According to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the facility received nearly 110,000 tons of waste in 2020, 96% of which came from outside the state or country.

The U.S. Department of Energy has opened a short public-comment window on an experimental nuclear technology in Idaho.

The agency has released a draft environmental assessment for testing of what's known as "molten chloride fast reactor" technology at the Idaho National Laboratory. The technology is from TerraPower, a company owned by Bill Gates that is developing nuclear reactor designs.

Leigh Ford, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, is critical of the experiment, saying it won't benefit Idaho.

"First, nuclear energy is too slow and expensive to help with the climate crisis," she said. "The environmental assessment says that maybe 10 jobs will be created, but we're not sure if those people are from Idaho or not. And third, the waste created from this experiment will stay in Idaho."

Ford said the technology uses highly enriched uranium, which presents proliferation fears. She also said the assessment doesn't properly address impacts to ground and surface water in eastern Idaho. The Energy Department has said it's committed to reviving and expanding domestic nuclear energy to help the United States reach its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Ford pointed out that the agency is giving the public a total of two weeks to react to this draft assessment.

"Fourteen days is not enough time for folks to digest this document, let alone make meaningful comments," she said. "Not to mention, we have a large rural population in Idaho that may not use email, may not have the greatest connectivity, may not be able to access this document online."

The public comment period began March 17. People have until March 31 to submit their thoughts on the assessment.

A film premiering this week tackles the potential harms of the nuclear industry.

Portland State University professor emeritus Jan Haaken directed the documentary "Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance."

The film draws on historical lessons from the campaign to shut down the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon. The plant closed in 1992.

Haaken said the nuclear industry is promoting a new design concept known as small modular reactors, or SMRs. Her initial interest in SMRs was about how the industry would handle waste.

"Many of us were very attuned to the fossil fuel problem," said Haaken, "but not so much nuclear that had kind of repackaged itself as clean, cheap and promising."

Haaken said her film also focuses on areas beyond waste - such as claims the new technology is safer even as the industry pushes to streamline the regulatory process, its financial viability, and risks of proliferation.

The film premieres Sunday in Portland and also includes a speakers panel.

Executive Director of Columbia Riverkeeper, Lauren Goldberg, said the nuclear industry has positioned the sector as a solution to climate change. But she noted that experts aren't convinced the technology can be deployed fast enough to combat the crisis.

Goldberg said the industry has its eye on the Northwest, although a proposal for SMR technology at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington was withdrawn last week.

"For example, in the case of the proposed SMR at Hanford," said Goldberg, "the waste would have just sat along the Columbia for an unspecified amount of time, potentially hundreds of years or more. That's been what's happened with other now-defunct nuclear facilities."

Haaken said nuclear technology that has not been completely fleshed out is not a good bet for the country's energy future.

"I would put my money on renewables and engineers that are trying to figure out the grid problem and ways of developing conservation," said Haaken. "Rethinking our approach to energy with the technologies we have."

A bill to block a nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico is being watched closely by opponents of the project.

Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, has long argued against a proposal by Holtec International to build what the company calls a "temporary" storage site there for spent nuclear rods. Hancock favors the bill, even though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already recommended a license be issued for Holtec's project.

"What the Senate Bill 53 does is to say the state will not issue those permits," Hancock explained. "The federal license is necessary, but it's not sufficient for the facility to actually operate."

The bill said no permits will be issued unless state officials support the idea, and the federal government has identified a permanent disposal site. City and county leaders from Carlsbad and Hobbs recruited Holtec to propose the nuclear waste storage facility, and believe it would be safe and provide local jobs.

The nuclear waste would be transported from the East Coast via railroad, a system almost entirely privately owned and operated. Even before the toxic Ohio derailment last month, states were urging federal regulators to take more oversight action of the railways, this year introducing more than a dozen bills.

Hancock believes there are too many unknowns and unresolved technical issues to safely transport such a large volume of waste.

"I think a lot of railroad companies would be very hesitant to transport this," Hancock asserted. "If you're Norfolk, the railroad in Ohio, with all of these cars on this big train with chemicals, do you also want to put two or three cars of nuclear fuel on that train? I doubt it."

As far back as 2008, Nevada's Yucca Mountain was designated as the site for the nuclear waste repository now proposed for New Mexico, but strong state and regional opposition eventually killed the proposal.

Last year, the Western Governors Association passed a resolution demanding the federal government require host states to support such projects before they can be built.


get more stories like this via email