Ward Valley

To sway public sympathy, the advertisement used scare tactics. Alternative scenarios portrayed radioactive waste stored in densely populated areas, disruption of medical research, and further hurting California's already ailing economy.

Sound science, however, cannot yield emphatic solutions to questions such as this. These advertisements do real science a misjustice by abusing its authority.

The final location of this radioactive dump site will be primarily a political decision, a decision lent credence by the approval of a distinguished panel of scientists but not one that is tempered by any aesthetic values.

On March 13, 1996, the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to direct the Interior Department to transfer federal land to the state of California for construction of a low-level nuclear waste site in Ward Valley.

Ward Valley sits between the Old Woman Mountains Wilderness to the west and the Stepladder and Turtle Mountains Wildernesses to the east, not far from Needles, California and the Colorado River. It is an absurd juxtaposition to site a radioactive waste dump in this location, encircled by three Wilderness areas adjacent to the newly created Mojave National Preserve. Nevertheless, some 2,000 signatories of the paid advertisement demanded that Ward Valley be used as the nuclear waste dump site.

Nearby Native American nations hold this land sacred.

If Ward Valley become a radioactive waste dumpsite, what precedence will this set for future violations of the Mojave desert, both the Mojave National Preserve, other desert Wilderness areas and for our National Parks and Wilderness in general?

Aside from the aesthetic degradation of the Mojave desert, the potential threat to human health from contamination of drinking water supplies with this radioactive waste site, situated only 20 miles from the Colorado River, warrants considerable caution.

The Federal Government (the Department of the Interior, the same agency that oversees the Bureau of Land Managment) was not so anxious as the State of California to site the radioactive waste dump in Ward Valley. Bruce Babbitt, chief of the Department of the Interior, commisioned studies by the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the repercussions of siting this waste dump in Ward Valley. Chief amongst these concerns is the possibility that radioactive waste might leach into the Colorado River, a major supplier of domestic (drinking) water for the huge metropolitan areas of San Diego and Tijuana.

Polluted ground water seeping into the Colorado River poses a chronic health threat, a health threat that exceeds our lifespans and even the lifespans of our great grandchildren.

Last year, the National Academy of Sciences study found that it was highly unlikely that low-level nuclear waste could be washed through 600 feet of desert sediment into ground water and then into the Colorado River 20 miles away. "And if it did", the report continued, "it wouldn't be in amounts large enough to endanger the water supply."

In an editorial dated October 7, 1996, the Union-Tribune states that "It's not dangerous items like spent fuel rods." In constrast, over 85% of the waste slated for Ward Valley will come from Nuclear power plants, including isotopes such as plutonium-239.

The Ward Valley site will be run by the ironically misnamed, US Ecology Corporation, a company which has a long track record of mismanaging nuclear waste sites.

Maxey Flats, Kentucky

Closed.
Declared an EPA Superfund site.

Sheffield, Illinois

Closed.
The state of Illinois filed suit against US Ecology for contaminating the groundwater.

Beatty, Nevada

Closed.
The groundwater, 10 feet above the water table, is contminated with 3-H (tritium) and 14-C (carbon 14).

In each of the above cases, US Ecology said that the sites would not leak. Also,

There was never going to be an oil spill in Alaska.

Chernobyll wasn't supposed to happen either.

The dam across London's Thames river is designed to withstand the
highest tidal flood in any 100 year period.

The Ward Valley site will have to operate safely in perpetuity.

Common sense tells us that it just isn't possible that the Ward Valley site won't leak.

History tells us that it isn't possible the Ward Valley site won't leak.

A nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley would be an environmental disaster.

At this juncture, both Boxer and Feinstein are precariously perched with environmentalists on one side and the biotech and nuclear industries on the other.

We can not afford to submit passively to the pressures brought to bear by "big business". The aesthetic degredation and environmental cost of hosting a nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley are incalculable. But, more than this, too many uncertainties remain about Ward Valley's ability to host a nuclear waste dump site and especially about US Ecology's ability to manage this site.

Let your opinions be heard by the decision makers.

Email them at:

senator@boxer.senate.gov
senator@feinstein.senate.gov
president@whitehouse.gov

Why is so much radioactive waste being generated in the first place? Can this not be more efficiently sorted at the source to concentrate the radioactive component of the waste?

What are the projected dump loads for the future in relation to the capacity of the proposed Ward Valley site?

There is so much that we do not know, and so much more that we need to know in order to even hazard a guess as to whether or not the potential benefits that might accrue from the generation of all this waste is worth the real life hazard.

For now, a great many questions remain unanswered. Our speculation lead us to conclude that Ward Valley is a poor choice for a nuclear waste dump. The decision makers are being pushed around by economic forces that ring loud, usually loud enough to drown out the alarm of environmentalists.

Now you can add your personal tribute to Ward Valley. It might help to make a case to save Ward Valley if we each write about how we came to discover Ward Valley and why we want it to be preserved. You can also use this forum also to post bulletins on Ward Valley.

Does nuclear waste ring the knell for Ward Valley?

Mark Adrian and Richard J. Hughes