Nuclear-waste problems still await solutions

Congress and the Administration are trying to resolve the problems of nuclear wastes, but legislators and agency officials disagree on whether enough study has been done. Critics who feel the subject has been over-studied think it is time to build the hardware and get started with permanent disposal sites. The key elements of disagreement about full-scale nuclear waste repositories revolve around the level of Federal, state, and local involvement, site reviews, military wastes, commercial low-level wastes, and inter-agency cooperation. Of the several disposal methods proposed for high-level wastes, storage in salt domes is the most promising. Low-level wastes are felt to be more of a mechnaical than a biological problem