effects are going to be catastrophic,” Hurley said. Monitored Retrievable Storage The concept of a deep underground repository involves total isolation of waste and permanence of the site. Isolation is to be accomplished through a system of engineered and natural barriers. According to DOE literature, the waste would be solidified into a material such as glass, put into a metal canister, then a sleeve or overpack or both, and a filler and backfill. The natural barriers would be the host rock and overlying strata. During the early period of emplacement, canisters would be retrievable. But when the repository became full, surface facilities would be decommissioned and all access to the underground would be plugged and sealed. Details of whether monitoring would take place in the long term have not been worked out; initially it was thought that full time monitoring of waste would not take place. Although criticism has been lengthy concerning the nature and potential stability of various host rock materials as well as canister materials, the basic premise of placing nuclear waste in deep underground storage has generally been accepted as the only permanent solution for the storage of nuclear waste. Many observers suggest that the DOE very likely will not meet the repository schedule outlined in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to accept the waste by 1998. The Act in fact allows the DOE to provide a repository, provide interim storage, or provide no storage at all and let the utilities continue to restack and repack fuel rods in the already overfilled near-reactor storage pools. The most commonly mentioned storage measure is monitored retreivable storage (MRS). There is also some talk of making such sites the only “permanent” solution. Designs for such sites have not reached the level of detail of repository designs. The concept is that the waste would be fully monitored and could be retrieved if problems arose. Nick Lewis of the Wash. State Nuclear Waste Board comments: “There is more we will learn in the next 200 years about waste storage. I feel it is arrogance in the highest order to speak of a permanent storage site. I think we would be better off with 4 or 5 MRS around the country to minimize transportation hazards. At least as an interim measure we need to look at MRS. We may not be in the position by 1998 to establish a permanent repository. The Nuclear Waste Board recognizes Hanford is very high on the list for a MRS facility. My colleagues on the Board have essentially an open mind to considering such a site.” Rep. Dick Nelson, also a Nuclear Waste Board member, says he thinks the process of state review is theoretically a good one, but whether adequate scientific data can be obtained is questionable. “Contractors at Rockwell are not reassuring,” says Nelson. “Recently they say they are going to do the most accurate job possible. But understanding the complexities of mother earth is expensive. Technical people are confronted with the reality that trying to gaze into the earth at 3000 feet leaves them a broad range of uncertainty. Is the minimum time for waste to reach the environment going to be too risky? Or will they be forced to say it is as risk-free as they can make it? “My prediction is that it is going to be difficult to prove any of the sites as risk- free and will probably look at MRS alternatives,” Nelson continues. “It raises a more philosophical question: do you want to see waste? Maybe nuclear waste is sufficiently different from other forms of waste that we have to design and build institutions with technical expertise. The technology of storing waste temporarily is understood. But the geology and climate may change, and the location may have to be changed. Are we willing to accept the responsibility? It becomes more philosophical than technical. Original studies did not address the larger issues. They just assumed it should go underground. We ought to learn it isn’t out of sight, out of mind forever. No one has really questioned that basic assumption. Why isn’t it better to keep it where you can see it.?” Melissa Laird is a writer living in Seattle and working on a novel about the Hanford area. Tom Prochaska is a Portland artist. J SOARING HEART Buying a bed is not like buying a car or a boat or a coat. It is-something with which you are having an intimate affair—an intimate affair which represents a full one-third of your lifetime. 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