[ OUR OPINION ]
THE Defense Department's decision to economize in the control of radioactive rubble left over from nuclear testing on Johnston Atoll is causing legitimate concerns about the long-term environmental risk. The government has spent more than $70 billion during the last 13 years to rein in the environmental hazards remaining from the Cold War. In what appears to be an example of penny wisdom, a Pentagon agency has rejected the relatively small cost of absolutely assuring a safe habitat at Johnston Atoll. Concerns must be fully addressed before the decision becomes final. Protection needed
from Johnston rubble
THE ISSUE A Pentagon agency has recommended that a landfill on Johnston Island will provide enough protection against radioactivity.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is scheduled next year to gain oversight of the atoll as a wildlife refuge, a habitat of 32 species of coral, 300 species of fish, the threatened and endangered sea turtle and Hawaiian monk seal and 20 species of migratory birds. Contaminants absorbed by fish could carry the threat elsewhere.
The Air Force conducted a dozen nuclear-test launchings in the 1950s and 1960s at the four-island atoll, less than 800 miles southwest of Honolulu. Two of the missiles exploded over the runway on Johnson Island, the largest of the islands. The government has spent four decades gathering the 60,000 cubic yards of radioactive contaminants that the aborted tests sprayed over Johnston Island. Manmade plutonium, one of the most hazardous elements in the rubble, is estimated to pose a danger for 6,000 to 24,000 years.
"We don't normally have wildlife refuges that have a plutonium landfill," says Don Palawski, project leader of the Honolulu-based Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Defense Department agency, recommended nearly a year ago that the rubble remain in a landfill on Johnston Island that was built at a cost $1.5 million. The Environmental Protection Agency questioned the plan, preferring that the waste be shipped to a repository on the U.S. mainland, such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, at a cost of $55 million.
According to a Pentagon study, Johnston Island's sea wall will fail in less than 50 years. "At some point," warns Hawaii environmental engineer Roy Smith, "the whole load is going to fall into the ocean."
Harry Stumpf, a geologist and oceanographer for the defense agency, assures that the two feet of coral capping the landfill are "two to three times denser than lead." Even if there were leaks, he says, radioactivity levels "are so low as to present no significant risk to either humans, wildlife or plant life." The risk is so low, he adds, that the Defense Department "is not likely to fund any sea wall maintenance or repair."
The defense agency has commissioned an ecology assessment that is due to be completed in June. Concerns expressed by EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service should not easily be brushed aside.
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