Abstract
Earlier this month, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its long‐awaited report on Ward Valley in California's eastern Mojave Desert. The report probably did as little to settle the dispute over the scientific and technical safety issues related to the low‐level radioactive waste site as it did to settle the debate over whether NAS panels are biased. The NAS committee found that groundwater contamination at the proposed site “appears to be highly unlikely,” but pointed out the shortcomings of several currently available data sets, explains Scott W. Tyler, a hydrologist at the Desert Research Institute at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a member the NRC's Ward panel. The panel determined that even if plutonium expected at the waste site reached the Colorado River at the same rate that it was disposed of, effects on river water quality would be “insignficant” relative to background radiation levels now in the river.
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