HOW "BRC" LED INTO RADIOACTIVE "RECYCLING"

About 20 years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission first pro-posed the idea of allowing some radioactively contaminated mate-rials to enter into the consumer marketplace. The agency's timing wasn't good: the Three Mile Island accident sent agency resources elsewhere, and the concept did nothing to quell growing public skepticism toward the nuclear industry. A front-page article in the Wall Street Journal that discussed the possibility of radioactive frying pans stopped the notion in its tracks-at least for a while.
The concept re-emerged in the post-TMI era. In 1986, the NRC proposed a new idea: calling some radioactive materials "be-low regulatory concern (BRC)" and thus eligible to be treated as non-radioactive. The proposed policy evolved into a major agency effort released in 1990. The BRC policy would have allowed some 40% of the nation's "low-level" radioactive waste stream to be placed in ordinary landfills or burned in incinerators. Radioactive materials could be turned into consumer goods, with no monitoring or oversight. Nuclear utilities would only have to clean their sites to this newly established radiation level. Tucked deep inside the agency's proposed policy was a chart that indicated that the agency's proposed BRC level-100 millirems/year-would kill 1 in 286 people exposed to that level over a lifetime.
Again, the agency's timing wasn't good. Earth Day 1990 heralded a rising public awareness about all types of environmental pollution. VH-1 ran ads, featuring a Massachusetts housewife and activist, talking about the horrors of BRC. NIRS formed an active coalition of groups to defeat the proposal. By the time the idea reached Congress in 1991, 15 states and hundreds of local jurisdic-tions already had passed laws and resolutions against the concept.
BRC's fate was probably sealed for good when then-NRC Chairman Kenneth Carr told Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) that un-der the BRC law a radioactive waste dump could be turned into a Little League field. Replied Miller, "Yeah, I want to be there when the Governor cuts that ribbon."