Campus activists held a teach-in at the Natural Sciences Complex Wednesday night to educate students about what they see as shortcomings of a government proposal to clean up a radioactive waste dump near Buffalo.
In a forum hosted by the UB Environmental Network, environmentalists discussed the past, present and future of the West Valley Demonstration Project, a radioactive waste dump 35 miles south of Buffalo, where nuclear wastes have contaminated the soil.
Seth Wochensky of the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes spoke about the history and present condition of the site. Though the West Valley nuclear fuel-reprocessing unit closed in 1972, 600,000 gallons of radioactive waste leaked from storage in steel barrels and wooden and cardboard boxes.
"There's no protective lining. There's no miraculous technology here," said Wochensky, analyzing old pictures of one of the burial sites. "You couldn't get away with this stuff now. Poor maintenance and improper design led to increased contamination. It was a mess - a disaster."
When plutonium was discovered in the Springville dam in 1978, officials knew contamination had occurred. By 1980 the Department of Energy took on the responsibility of the West Valley cleanup, footing 90 percent of the bill while New York State agreed to pay the rest.
Originally, $800 million was allotted for the project. As of April 1999, a total of $1.9 billion had been spent, with the federal government pushing for a complete decontamination by 2013.
"Don't listen to anybody who says nuclear energy is cheap," said Wochensky. "Figures like these -- $2 billion for cleanup -- they don't take these numbers into account when they tell you nuclear energy is cheap."
By last year the 600,000 gallons of liquid waste was vitrified - mixed with molten glass so that it was still highly radioactive but now in a solid state - and stored in canisters, but those canisters are still sitting in West Valley and there are still equally toxic materials inside buildings and in the form of an "underground plume" discovered in 1992. Vaughn called the plume 29 acres of "radioactive mud."
According to a 1996 draft Environmental Impact Statement by the Department of Energy, eventually the south plateau of West Valley will erode into the Great Lakes Watershed, with a significant amount of wastes, which will be radioactive for thousands of years, ending up in Lake Erie.
Yet the federal government wants to wash its hands clean of West Valley as soon as possible, which means demolishing everything on the site and covering it with concrete, Vaughn said.
"They're making short-term costs lower, but long-term costs are going to be higher," said the coalition's Carol Mongerson in April 2002. "You're going to end up with a higher volume and a much greater problem once the site does finally erode."
"With a concrete cap over it, you're screwed," said Wochensky.
Wochensky said the coalition is fighting the government's proposal because it would only lead to greater contamination, a fact he claims even the Department of Energy itself has recognized in recent studies.
Ray Vaughn, another member of the coalition, criticized state and federal governments for trying to avoid responsibility for West Valley.
"The DOE does not want to stay on the site. They want to hand it off to the state," said Ray Vaughn, another member of the coalition. Vaughn said he would rather see the department spend extra money to build aboveground storage so that the waste could be monitored, which cannot occur underground.
Now is an important time for students to speak up against the department's proposal, which would be irreversible and highly detrimental, Wochensky said.
"People like you guys can really make a difference," Wochensky told the crowd. "It's essential that (government officials) know we want it cleaned up right, not the way they're proposing."
Members of the UB Environmental Network who attended the meeting said they were concerned by the proximity of the threat.
"I came because I care about the environment and because I want to make sure people are doing the right thing," said Rachel Taylor, a senior psychology major. "I think this should be important to people. It's close by and ... this is going to affect people."
West Valley is a short distance from Ellicottville, a popular skiing destination for UB students.
Jim Simon, the president of the organization, said that the activists' work on the West Valley debate is just beginning.
"I was really happy with the content of the talk," said Simon, a junior environmental studies-sociology double major. "Hopefully in the future more people will come out. Everyone who was there experienced seeing the pictures and hearing what he had to say. Now a few more people know what's going on."
At the end of the lecture, Wochensky passed out loose-leaf paper and envelopes and gave each student several minutes to write a short letter about the West Valley situation to New York senators Hillary Rodham Clinton or Charles B. Schumer.
"The silver lining in this dark cloud is that the coalition and the people have really made an impact," he said.
The federal government is expected to release another Environmental Impact Statement in April 2004. After its release, the coalition plans to hold a publicity blitz that will include a protest in Buffalo featuring distinguished speakers.
Wochensky explained that the West Valley site is called a "demonstration" because it is supposed to demonstrate how a nuclear waste site should be properly cleaned up.
"The real fear here is that if the DOE does this at West Valley, it will set the precedent for sites throughout the rest of the country," he said.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
