Three decades after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission first promulgated rules for disposal of low-level waste, it is proposing to massively relax them. The original rules were none too strict. As you can see from the calculation in the comments I made yesterday on the proposed rule, the existing rules would allow for contamination of groundwater hundreds of times above the drinking water limit in the case of disposal of graphite made radioactive by being used in a reactor. This is a Department of Energy calculation used in my comments as an illustration of what is now allowed under NRC rules. Instead of making the rules better and more rational and instead of filling the health protection gaps, a massive relaxation is proposed. For instance, the allowable pollution from plutonium, uranium, thorium strontium-90, radioactive iodine and many other radioactive materials from low-level waste disposal would be allowed to go up greatly because the dose limits for individual human organs are to be eliminated, according to the proposal. The proposed rule also does not define the term “member of the public.” So far in calculating compliance, infants and children are not explicitly taken into account.

Take a look at the proposed rules. Read my comments, and also read my letter to Allison Macfarlane, the new Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I had a very interesting meeting with her in November and I hope she will follow up to get children into the picture and, as a scientist, to straighten out the NRC bureaucracy on fixing at least egregious scientific errors.

I am going to write a bit more broadly on science and democracy this year.
Happy New Year