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Concern for unassessed, local failure of a repository in salt, comment submitted to the Department of Energy, Blue Ribbon Commission, 21 July 2010.

This is an informal evaluation of long-term integrity of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Scenarios for local failures of containment are found to alter the assessed risks of containment failure enough to warrant formal performance assessment. K Basin sludge from Hanford provides an example of how waste acceptance criteria that nominally assure tolerable risks can be more or less circumvented in the interest of economical waste disposal.

Mission statement:
The RadioActivist Campaign (TRAC) measures and publicizes artificial radioactivity around nuclear facilities, to promote site accountability and public safety.

TRAC collaborates with other public-interests on projects having shared common interests. TRAC performs radiological consulting.

TRAC is a not-for-profit corporation registered in Washington State.

How:
All essential resources for radiological surveys are in-house:
• radiological data bases
• integrated survey design, based on radiological
   pathways
• logistics and sampling
• sample processing
• survey-quality, wideband (10 - 3,000 keV) photon
   spectrometry
• analysis and data quality control and validation
• publications (including video and special media) and
   outreach

TRAC’s investigations are funded by taxable, private donations. TRAC occasionally conducts pro bono work for labor only.

Experience:
Staff has conducted radiological investigations around two dozen nuclear facilities, world-wide.

Norm Buske is also a consultant for radiological investigations.

Current projects:
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS); Bremerton, Washington.

    Objective: To help assure that PSNS protects the health and safety of its neighbors, while this largest nuclear naval facility on the West Coast supports the U.S. Navy’s missions abroad.

    Method: To sample kelp (Laminaria sp.) collected from Sinclair Inlet as medium to monitor marine contamination. TRAC proposes to add composite sampling of terrestrial mosses, as medium to monitor airborne contamination in neighborhoods around PSNS.

    Anticipated duration: ten years, beginning in June 2007. On hold as of January, 2008.

Hanford Reach, Columbia River; Hanford, Washington.

    Objective: To assess changes in migration of contaminated groundwater from Hanford Site into the Columbia River in Eastern Washington, to provide a basis public oversight of future waste storage and disposals at Hanford.

    Method: In-situ nitrate measurements of groundwater seepages entering the Columbia River, with radiological analyses of selected samples.

    Anticipated duration: Postponed.