266 



their research has tried to determine the fate of the radioactive 

 waste packages dumped by the United States under the Atomic 

 Energy Commission (AEC) licensing authority between 1946 and 

 1970. 



EPA has never adequately answered this question. 



First, let us destroy the myth that the only materials the United 

 States dumped in the ocean were low-level radioactive wastes. EPA 

 uses the Ocean Dumping Act definition of high-level radioactive 

 waste to refute any assertions that high-level materials were 

 dumped in the ocean. 



This is not a quantitative definition. According to EPA officials 

 you could have a gallon of waste from a nuclear reprocessing 

 facility and a gallon of waste from Berkeley Laboratory, they could 

 be identical in content and radiation emissions, equally deadly, but 

 because the first came from a reprocessing facility it would be 

 defined as high level and because the second gallon came from a 

 laboratory it would be low level. 



Therefore, to get a more representative view of the danger these 

 materials may present, let us use an Atomic Energy Commission 

 definition from their 1955 declassified report on Radioactive Waste 

 Disposal Practices in the Atomic Energy Industry. This report de- 

 fines 50 millirems or less per hour as low level, and 2 rems or more 

 per hour as high level. 



The licenses issued to the disposal companies stated that: The 

 radiation level at any accessible surface of the container shall not 

 exceed 200 millirems per hour. So immediately we find that at the 

 exterior surface of the drum a person or marine life form may be 

 exposed to intermediate radiation. 



Next we must examine the types of packaging used to keep the 

 exterior radiation exposures below this 200 millirem requirement. 



An even more detailed example was given in the declassified 

 1955 AEC report which described the procedures used by the Wes- 

 tinghouse Atomic Power Division— Bettis Field facility in Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa., to dispose of their wastes, and it stated: 



High level solid wastes are accumulated in specially prepared 55 gallon drums. 

 Sheet metal cylinders four inches in diameter having peripheral lead shields of 

 varying thicknesses (1 inch to 4 inches) are set in 55 gallon drums. Concrete is 

 poured around the shielded cylinder up to its top which is about 12 inches below the 

 top of the drum * * *. Operating personnel insert high level wastes as they are 

 created * * *. After each drum receives its charge of high level waste, a lead plug is 

 inserted into the four inch cylinder prior to removal from the working areas. These 

 drums are then moved to the processing area where they are filled to the top of the 

 drum with concrete. Drums containing high level wastes make up the largest 

 proportion of waste packages shipped from Bettis * * *. Wastes are shipped via a 

 commercial trucking company to the Navy dock at Earle, New Jersey. 



This was the Navy's embarcation location for radioactive materi- 

 als to be dumped at sea. In 1955 alone, Bettis Field packaged 740 

 high- level drums for ocean disposal. Similar procedures were fol- 

 lowed by the Brookhaven National Laboratory for the disposal of 

 their high-level nuclear waste material. 



What we must look at here is not the external radiation levels — 

 but the internal radiation levels — which will threaten the marine 

 environment when the containers are crushed and EPA studies 

 have found 25 percent of the containers have been visibly crushed. 



According to the Congressional Research Service, 6 to 8 inches of 

 concrete can decrease the radiation emissions by a factor of 10, and 



