Jim Woolf

About the author: Journalist Jim Woolf writes on environmental and local issues for the Salt Lake Tribune.

Lawmakers and the public are just beginning to grapple with the issue of radioactive waste storage. Toxic byproducts of nuclear power generation and weaponsmaking remain poisonous for centuries, in some cases millenia. A principal argument of nuclear opponents is the impossibility of assuring safe storage for such lengths of time, and the likelihood of an accident, a theft, or a natural disaster that would release radioactivity and possibly bring about a national catastrophe.
The problem hits home in South Carolina, where the Barnwell facility near the Georgia border has been accepting low-level radioactive waste for two decades. Although the facility has remained free of accidents, and generates tax revenues on the waste shipped...