LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES - STATES ARE NOT DEVELOPING DISPOSAL FACILITIES
GAO/RCED-99-238
The Envirocare facility is available to waste generators in all states except the Northwest compact region, which requires its waste generators to use the Richland facility. As the volume of wastes from routine operations has declined in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of wastes from cleaning up commercial nuclear facilities have been disposed of at the Envirocare site. Three types of low-level radioactive wastes do not have access to disposal facilities and, therefore, must be stored. One waste type is mixed waste that does not meet license criteria for disposal at the Envirocare facility. A second waste type is waste generated in North Carolina that does not meet the criteria for disposal at the Envirocare facility and which, according to South Carolina's law, is not allowed to be disposed of at the Barnwell facility. The third waste type is the most concentrated class of low-level radioactive waste. DOE is responsible for disposing of this type of waste but does not anticipate being ready to do so for another 20 years.
*From this chart it can be calculated that only 60 cubic feet of Class C LLW would exceed the total curies presently at the Envirocare facility.