Most of the nation has nowhere to send its low-level nuclear waste. It can’t stop producing this waste. It’s necessary for diagnosing and treating cancer and other diseases, and for research. But because there is nowhere to send the waste, it piles up in hospitals, other medical facilities and research centers.
It’s an illustration of our nation’s inability to deal realistically with nuclear issues.
Most of this waste used to be sent to South Carolina to the Barnwell Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility. It was the first such facility in the country when it began receiving radioactive waste in 1971. It is just one of three in the nation today.
On July 1, a new policy took effect: The Barnwell facility takes waste only from South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey.
The problem isn’t South Carolina’s fault. States were supposed to build their own low-level nuclear waste facilities or form compacts to handle the waste. In 2002, Florida joined three other Southern states suing North Carolina for its failure to build a low-level waste facility there. The matter is still in litigation.
The same process has been repeated all over the nation. States have been unable to build low-level waste sites because citizens oppose them. But those citizens still want tests for breast cancer and radiation therapy for their brain tumors. The result is unsafe storage of nuclear waste within population centers. ..
The (Lakeland, Fla.) Ledger
Afghanistan
The latest price that America is paying for the Bush administration’s blunder in going to war in Iraq is Afghanistan falling back into the hands of the Taliban, who host al-Qaida.
After careful study, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the government set up by the United States in Afghanistan, after U.S. forces collaborated with the Northern Alliance to drive out the Taliban, is now on the ropes. According to New York Times reporters who have talked with U.S. government officials, the National Intelligence Estimate is very clear on that.
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