Debate over waste imperils 3-Mile cleanup

The cleanup is a task of extraordinary proportions. Every step in the cleanup must be taken in a highly sensitive political and regulatory environment. A demineralizer or ion exchange filtration unit was installed in order that the fission products could be removed from the water spilled in the auxiliary and fuel handling buildings. GPU later vented krypton gas. Twice now engineers have made cautions entries into the containment building as part of the effort to size up the job. Cleanup will be costly, requiring many workers. Some wastes will require special packaging in hundreds of containers with shielded overpacks, plus bulky items of hardware and equipment that cannot be easily packaged. There will be the damaged fuel assemblies from the reactor core. Removing the fuel from the reactor may be difficult. A troublesome waste disposal question has to do with the material to be generated in cleaning up the containment building's sump water. GPU's man in charge of clean-up strategy is to collect the wastes in a form that permits maximum flexibility with respect to their stage, packaging, transport, and ultimate disposal. If plans for disposal of all the wastes from the cleanup are to be completed, an early commitment by Pennsylvania and other northeastern states to establish a burial ground for low level waste generated within the region is needed. Also a speedy commitment by NRC, DOE, and Congress to a plan for disposal of the first-stage zeolites is needed. Should there be a failure to cope with the wastes that Three Mile Island cleanup generates, the whole nuclear enterprise may suffer