50. 



DR. HUBBERT: It may ultimately determine where you put 

 the reactors. 



DR. LIEBERMAN: We have had experience in transporting 

 solid fuel elements to a chemical processing plant, but the handling 

 of the liquid waste from the chemical processing plant, assuming we 

 want to put the waste in the ground, might determine the location of 

 the process . 



MR. HEDMAN: Millions of gallons of waste is something I 

 wouldn't want to handle. 



DR. LIEBERMAN: Neither would I. 



CHAIRMAN HESS: If there are no other questions, I would like 

 to ask Mr. Morton, of Oak Ridge, to talk to us. 



Mr. Roy J. Morton 



Health Physics Division 



Oak Ridge National Laboratory 



P.O. Box P 



Oak Ridge, Tennessee 



MR. MORTON: Dr. Lieberman asked that Mr. Struxness and 

 I discuss our experience and our study program at Oak Ridge. As 

 background information for Mr. Struxness's discussion of high level 

 waste problems, I will give a brief resume of past activities and de- 

 velopments, and a summary of the present studies. 



At Oak Ridge National Laboratory the waste studies are carried 

 on in the Health Physics Division and were organized in 1948. Until 

 1953 we were concerned principally -with low level wastes, ■with water 

 decontamination problems, with stream surveys, and the needs, cri- 

 teria, and techniques of laboratory analysis. Those problems have 

 not been solved completely but they have been given considerable at- 

 tention and reported. The high level waste disposal problem became 

 urgent, and in early 1954 the section was reorganized as the Sanitary 

 Engineering Research Section. Since that time our efforts have been 

 devoted almost entirely to this problem in anticipation of the peace- 

 time uses of nuclear energy, particularly by the power industry. 



The early studies had to do with the wastes which could be dis- 

 charged from the Laboratory into White Oak Creek and thence into 



