University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 29, 1987
9
Nuclear waste burial foes to demonstrate in Topeka
By CHRISTOPHER-HINES
Staff writer
The possibility that Kansas will have a large radioactive waste dump has created concern among a number of Kansans, prompting them to plan a demonstration tommorrow in Topeka.
"We are not satisfied with the answers we have received from the state," said Laura Menhusen, president of North Central Kansas Citizens. The demonstration is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the steps of the state capitol.
Kansas belongs to a five-state association, the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, that is responsible for finding and central radioactive waste disposal site in one of the member states.
The other states in the compact are Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
State compactes were formed across the country, at the federal government's request, to better control the country's radioactive waste and to avoid having 50 individual disposal sites.
The compact had an emergency Meeting April 24 in Kansas City, Missouri. We gave disposal study by the New York consulting firm of Dames and Moore.
In its $350,000 study, the firm recommended several disposal sites based on geological studies and population levels. About three-fourths of the recommended sites were in Kansas.
"They're going to choose a disposal technology that is not proven," said David Ebbert, Lawrence resident, who is organizing a local group to go into the state. The state would be liable for the radiative waste for a long time to come."
The compact is not obligated to use the firm's recommendations. At the request of Gov. Mike Hayden it deleted the two sections dealing with disposal in Kansas.
However, the potential of a Kansas site becoming the 10th low-level radioactive waste disposal site in the United States has raised concern and fear among many Kansans. Four of the present disposal sites have developed radioactive leaks.
"Why should we take the waste when Kansas produces the least amount of radioactive waste of all the compact states?" Menhusen
asked
Earlier this spring, the Kansas House approved a bill that would have withdrawn the state from the waste disposal compact.
But the Senate rejected the bill out of concern that withdrawing from the compact would result in the federal government taking control of radioactive waste disposal in Kansas.
Lewis Perky, Osborne resident, has a doctorate in nuclear chemistry and studies organic chemical changes resulting from radiation exposure. He said the present U.S. radioactive disposal technology
meant lining a hole in the ground with plastic and throwing the waste in it.
"The waste can stay radioactive for hundreds of years," said Perky, who plans to attend the demonstration tommorrow. "We need to develop a better technology of disposal before taking any further steps in the compact."
He said France had developed an effective disposal system of sealing waste in large concrete containers and burying them halfway in the ground to monitor their radioactive leakage.
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