And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: <A HREF="http://www.oakridger.com/stories/051099/opE_0510990049.html">http://www. oakridger.com/stories/051099/opE_0510990049.html</A> ===================================================== On the issue of wastes To The Oak Ridger: Re: 4-22-99 letter to editor, MRS, Earth Day Only in Oak Ridge would a resident's letter get published on Earth Day, in the local paper, with some added thoughts that we should again consider an MRS in Oak Ridge. Previous local Oak Ridge work has blessed the idea, as stated in the Earth Day letter. I do not view the movement of my hometown, since 1973, as a nuclear dump or storage and the image issue as my only concern. My concern is that old rule "if things can go wrong they will," as men are not perfect and machines break, or fail, etc. In addition, the soils and rainfall, population density issues, presence of factors on exit pathways or movement of material are points that need to get fair consideration. To spill long-life rad wastes into our wet local environment is not pro-environment, nor Earth Day thinking. It is not a good place with all our rainfall for waste disposal and storage, and we have high water tables, karst underground, and much rainfall. This kind of spent nuclear material and other rad wastes need to go out west where it is dry, little rainfall, there is a deep water table, and little water contamination to worry about. Water is a great resource, and it can be an exit and spread pathway for wastes of all types. The long-term life of rad wastes, and even the long term life of many metal and chemical wastes make places like Tennessee less than good sites for such waste materials, assuming we wish to protect our natural resources. My view is the city was then willing to trade a safer long-term environmental future, a long-term and long-lasting waste, for some money. My view is the waste should go out west directly without bringing it into our Oak Ridge community or anywhere in the state of Tennessee. I do not see it as only the image of a nuclear waste town, although that is not minor. I see it as undue risk. Let the wastes go directly to the safer site(s) out west, when the sites can be accelerated for use, and made available. Who out there is going to argue that a remote site away from all the populations in and around Oak Ridge, and in a drier location where water contamination and movement of any accidental spilled wastes or breaks or whatever, are less threat to man and man's future than those low water and low population sites? There is another point -- cumulative wastes or the risks that go with them. This town has a great deal of waste burial and long-term storage, spillage, leaks, present RCRA storage, present rad waste storage, regular landfills, hazardous waste incineration, and other varied sources. To add more and more of whatever wastes to a community that carries a substantial number of acres of contamination, and a substantial negative impact to groundwater and surface water (mostly on site DOE lands at and around the plants) is just adding to what is already here now, and for the many thousands of years the half-life of varied materials will last. Can you have too much wastes in one city or county or not? There might be those who say no, not as long as they meet all applicable permits. My personal answer is yes, regardless of permits, for the above reasons. I do not view this position as anti-UVC nor anti-economic development. But rather as pro-environment and pro-health and safety. Jim Harless 237 Iroquois Road ======================================================= Comments: Westerners ----- feel free to write letters to the ORer to suggest you don't want DOE wastes --- dry or otherwise. Send letter submissions [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
