An article posted Friday on tennessean.com opposes the dumping of federal nuclear wastes in Tennessee's municipal landfills. In October, the US Department of Energy announced its plans to ship over 200 truckloads of soil conataminated with uranium, plutonium & strontium to a municpal landfill in TN from New York. Thankfully, DOE changed its mind and shipped the waste to a licensed facility in Utah, as Tennessean officials objected. The article states, "Tennessee has unwisely allowed itself to become a chief dumping ground for material from defunct nuclear weapons-related facilities."
Municipal landfills are inappropriate destinations for federal nuclear wastes. Heart of America Northwest opposes this practice, wherever it occurs in the nation. We support fully regulated disposal in licensed, monitored landfills designed for radioactive wastes. The EnergySolutions Low Level Waste landfill in Utah, where the contaminated soils mentioned above were eventually shipped, is designed and licensed for Low Level radioactive wastes.
Yikes! This is scary to think that people are careless enough to let nuclear waste being dumped into landfills, which aren't designed for these materials. It's extremely dangerous and destructive to the environment, with no easy solution. Once in the ground or water, the contamination is very hard to remove and process. Regardless of the state, this definitely should not happen! Especially when there are licenses radioactive waste landfills, designed for these exact purposes.
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