For at least a decade, California has allowed mildly radioactive waste from old nuclear sites to go to recycling plants and city dumps not licensed to handle radioactive material of any type.
Yet neither landfill owners nor their employees, nearby residents nor elected officials, were ever notified of the state's policy, details of which are only now becoming public after a lawsuit and questions from concerned state lawmakers.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday December 11, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 ..CF: Y 19 inches; 691 words Type of Material: Correction
Radioactive waste -- An article in the California section Sunday on radioactive waste incorrectly stated the amount of radioactivity that Americans are commonly exposed to in everyday life. They are exposed to roughly 360 millirems every year, rather than during their lifetimes as the story stated.
Anti-nuclear activists, environmental groups and others are demanding to know more about where the state has allowed the waste -- mostly soil, concrete and metal with residual traces of radiation -- to be disposed of.
But the California Department of Health Services contends that it did not keep detailed records on slightly radioactive trash because officials never considered it contaminated enough to pose a health hazard.
"There is a lot of public fear and concern about anything radioactive; it's a polarizing issue," said the deputy director of the Health Services Department, Kevin Reilly. But the slightly radioactive trash, he said, "does not pose a significant health risk. And it is not just California's opinion; it is a near-universal opinion within the scientific community.
"When you get down to low levels, you don't have any scientific evidence to suggest they are a threat, especially when you take into account the ability of the human body to repair itself," he added.
Experts disagree on whether exposure to the material -- mostly debris from old buildings where radioactive experiments took place -- is a serious health risk. Under current state standards, it can be the equivalent of 2 1/2 chest X-rays a year.
But standards were much looser in previous years, and state officials concede that waste from some older nuclear sites might have been as much as 20 times as radioactive as the maximum the state would consider safe today.
The danger is greatest for those who live or work near the waste and are more likely than others to be exposed to it repeatedly.
And even though they insist that the waste is harmless, state attorneys refuse to release records on its likely sources -- the more than 1,400 former nuclear sites that the state has released from oversight in the last 15 years -- because of post-Sept. 11 concerns that terrorists might be trying to collect radioactive materials for a "dirty bomb."
