STATEMENT OF SENATOR BARBARA BOXER
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Hearing on the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program
July 25,2000

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank my colleague Senator Bennett for joining me in requesting this hearing.

When I learned that the Corps had disposed of 2,200 tons of radioactive waste at an unlicensed hazardous waste facility in Buttonwillow, California, I was shocked. The facility sits atop aquifers that supply water to the Central Valley of California.

When I called the Corps, they told me "Senator, this waste is so safe, you could roll around in it." What is this "safe" radioactive waste? The radioactive waste dumped at Buttonwillow is uranium, thorium and radium. These radioactive materials can cause cancer, leukemia and genetic defects. They persist in the environment for millions to billions of years. Uranium 238, for example, has a half life of four and a half billion years.

When I started looking into it, I found that the Corps sent this radioactive waste to Buttonwillow, even though Buttonwillow is not regulated by the NRC. It does so under FUSRAP, the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. The program focuses on cleaning up old Manhattan Project nuclear weapons facilities. The Corps involvement surprised me because it is so far outside of the navigation and flood control mission of the agency.

I also learned that when the program was managed by the Department of Energy (DOE), it required that all wastes generated from cleanups had to go to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed low level radioactive waste facilities.

That was DOE policy for as long as it ran the cleanup program - from 1974 to 1997. The DOE had this requirement because NRC-licensed facilities are specially equipped to deal with radioactive waste. They are sited to guard against radioactive waste leaking into the environment. They are monitored to catch leaks if they do occur. They are required to be monitored and managed into perpetuity to make sure the public health and environment are protected.

When the Corps took over the program in 1997, it wrote to the NRC. The Corps asked the NRC whether it was required to dispose of this radioactive waste at an NRC-licensed facility.

The NRC responded with an answer that is even more remarkable than the fact that the Corps dumped 2,200 tons of radioactive waste at an unlicensed California dump. The NRC said that if the radioactive waste was generated before the passage of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978, the NRC would not regulate that waste.

If the waste was generated after the passage of that Act, the NRC would require that the waste go to an NRC-licensed low level radioactive waste facility. The Buttonwillow waste, and indeed most of the radioactive waste resulting from Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) cleanups, was generated before 1978. So, according to the NRC answer to the Corps, the NRC wouldn't require the Corps to dispose this radioactive waste at a protective NRC licensed facility.

If the NRC doesn't tell the Corps how to safely dispose of this radioactive waste, then who does?

The answer is no one.

Under the NRC interpretation of the law, it appears that no federal or state agency has the authority to require that this waste go to an NRC- licensed low level radioactive waste facility.

According to the Corps, this NRC position means the Corps - can send the waste wherever it chooses -- to hazardous waste facilities or even to regular landfills.

Is there a difference between this pre- and post-1978 generated radioactive waste?

None except its birthday. The radioactive waste is the same. It is just as harmful to people. It is just as harmful to the environment.

What is the NRC's justification for the result that identical waste is protectively regulated in one case, but not regulated at all in the other? The NRC answers this question in its testimony. It says that it is not "unusual" for similar radioactive materials to be regulated differently. They say "this is the result of the fragmented statutory regime governing radioactive materials."

The NRC answer isn't that its policy is protective of public health and the environment. The answer isn't that it makes good policy sense. The NRC answer is that when it comes to the regulation of radioactive waste, the regulatory regime doesn't make much sense. It doesn't make any sense because that's the way the NRC has chosen to regulate.

That's not comforting to me. That's not comforting to the people of Buttonwillow, California. And I doubt that answer will be comforting to other communities that become radioactive waste dumping grounds for the Corps.

The Corps, for its part, assures me that its actions in the Buttonwillow case are protective of public health and the environment. At the same time, the Corps has rejected my repeated requests to remove the waste from California, now saying the waste is too dangerous to move when at first it said I could roll around in it. The Corps also told me it has no authority to move the waste.

The story keeps changing.

The Corps also assures me that its policy of disposing of this waste at hazardous waste dumps is a good idea. When I ask the Corps for the environmental and public health studies they rely upon to tell me this policy is safe, they can't give me anything. Why? Because there are no studies. The Corps and the NRC reversed a long-standing DOE policy of disposing of this radioactive waste at NRC licensed facilities without so much as a single study.

Why do we need to have such studies? Hazardous waste facilities like Buttonwillow aren't sited with the disposal of radioactive waste in mind. Climate, geography, and other site characteristics figure heavily in the siting of a radioactive waste dump.

Extensive studies are prepared to help ensure that these long-lived and dangerous materials are not leaked into the environment. The citizens who would have to live each day near the facility are extensively involved in the siting process. They participate in hearings and help scrutinize studies.

Unlike radioactive waste facilities, hazardous waste facilities are only monitored for 30 years after they close to make sure they are not leaking. This is of little use where the waste is radioactive and stays that way for millions to billions of years.

The Buttonwillow community and the other communities across the nation that may become dumping grounds for the Corps have no say about whether their hazardous waste facilities should be turned into radioactive waste dumps.

It just happens through the back door.

And it happens at the hands of the federal government. Now we have solution. Put this waste at safe, NRC licensed facilities such as the one in Utah.

I look forward to hearing from all the witnesses here today. I look forward to getting some answers. I renew my demand that the Corps remove this waste from California.

You never had the proper permits to put it there. You should make it right now by removing it.

Thank you.