ent of that waste (Raloff, 1997).
That decision arose from a lawsuit on the part of a number of public utilities. In 1983, the Department of Energy had agreed that by February 1, 1998 it would start to take charge of over 100,000 metric tons of radioactive fuel rods from public utilities. The utilities paid the DOE approximately $13.5 billion during the time from 1983 in order to subsidize a nuclear waste repository. In the meantime, the fuel rods were stored primarily in cooling ponds at 73 separate utility owned reactor sites (Herrera, 1997). However, by the time of the court decision, the DOE was not ready to take charge of the fuel rods, the nuclear waste repository was not complete, and the deadline had been moved to at least 2010.
Despite the responsibility of state and local government to provide safe, adequate storage, however, the realities of political life and scientific controversy mean that most radioactive waste is currently held in old storage facilities or at the site of their production. For example, transuranic waste is generally held in barrels or underground tanks at locations like Hanford. Although there has been some contamination and leakage, there has been no major disaster as yet. In the meantime, the political debate goes on and deadlines for resolving the problem continue to be flexible.
One of the major problems is the development of risk estimates that are accepted by all parties to the disposal of the waste. The major elements of risk are the possibility of exposure of radioactive waste, either to the air or through groundwater, and the longevity of the activity of the wastes.
Kastenberg and Gratton (1997) looked at some of the possibilities, providing risk assessments dealing with nuclear waste disposal scenarios. For example, there is the scenario in which low level nuclear waste leeches into the groundwater in 1,000 years. At that time, much of the danger of the waste will have d...