Why Arnie Gundersen’s Claims on Low Level Radioactive Waste Are Baffling

Over the past few days, plenty of folks have been asking questions about a claim anti-nuclear activist Arnie Gundersen made concerning some soil samples he took during a recent trip to Japan. Gundersen made his claims in a video he posted online last week, and the charge was repeated in an AP story that hit the national wire yesterday with a dateline out of Vermont (more on that later).

Gundersen says that the soil samples he took in Japan were so irradiated, that they would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S. Like a lot of folks, the claim struck me as rather odd given reported radiation levels in Japan, so I dialed up Ralph Andersen, NEI's resident health physicist for his take on Gundersen's claim. Here's what Andersen told me.

In order to classify anything as radioactive waste, it takes more than simply triggering a Geiger counter. When it comes to NRC licensees who need to dispose of items that have become irradiated -- in the case of nuclear power plants we're most often talking about water purification filters and resins, tools, protective clothing and other plant hardware -- there are two options. In the first case, you can ship the waste to a disposal site. However, there are cases where the levels of radioactivity are so low that you can actually petition the NRC to dispose of it in an alternate manner.

However, if someone finds materials that have been irradiated and they're not a licensee, all sorts of different regulations come into play. In the case of Japan, the levels of radiation found beyond Fukushima Prefecture -- and that includes the Tokyo metropolitan area -- are so low that Ralph told me that he can't imagine any criteria that would require the soil there to be disposed of. Furthermore, without seeing the report from the lab that Gundersen used, it would be impossible for any radiation protection professional to completely evaluate his claims.

When you look at it in those terms, it can be easy to see why the fact that the AP reported Gundersen's findings was so alarming. If an actual radiation professional can't properly evaluate Gundersen's statements unless the lab results are available for scrutiny, then how in the world could the reporter who wrote the story?

We'll write more if and when we get updates. In the meantime, click here to read more on our industry deals with low level radioactive waste.