Lawmaker wants radioactive waste deposits made public

A Memphis lawmaker introduced a bill this week to require state environmental regulators to provide the public with information on the amount of low-level radioactive waste deposited in Tennessee landfills.

The measure by Sen. Lee Harris, a Democrat, would make clear that such information cannot be kept from the public unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has deemed it confidential.

The measure comes in response to a USA Today Network-Tennessee investigation in November that found regulators with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation had wiped data on radioactive waste deposits from their website.

That information had been routinely available until sometime last year. Asked why the state had removed it, an agency spokesman cited a 10-year-old law on what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required to be public. But an NRC spokesman told the USA Today Network-Tennessee there is no law or rule that makes confidential the location or quantity of low-level radioactive waste. “I don’t know why it would be,” said spokesman David McIntyre.

TDEC’s decision to keep confidential information that had long been public came at the same time that companies in Tennessee filed notice they plan to import up to 10,000 metric tons — or more than 22 million pounds — of low-level radioactive waste from Canada for processing.

The plan alarmed environmental activists who continue legal efforts to stop it at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There are four Tennessee landfills licensed to accept low-level radioactive waste, including one each in Hawkins and Anderson counties. Two are in Shelby County, including one in Harris’ district.