Radioactive Waste and the Discourse of Sustainability

After more than six decades of false starts, technical failures, public protests, and broken promises, the United States has no workable solution to the question of what to do with its growing supply of radioactive waste. This paper explores the history of the search for a radioactive waste repository site, arguing the radioactive waste dilemma has increasingly come to be understood not just as a technical problem, but as an issue of justice, risk, and sustainability. The primary focus of the paper will be a failed attempt by the Atomic Energy Commission to locate a geological repository in central Kansas in the 1970s—a time before current patterns of anti-nuclear thought and NIMBYism had become entrenched. Discourse about this proposal followed two distinct tracks. One conversation pit local stakeholders who favored the repository for its economic opportunities against citizens from elsewhere in the state who feared that they would face environmental risk but gain little reward. At the same time, state politicians opposed the repository on technical grounds, while federal scientist and bureaucrats supported it. In analyzing these conversations, we can trace the evolution of a sustainability discourse—that is, we can evaluate how and why people balanced the competing demands of economic opportunity, public and environmental health, and social justice.