Waste Not, Want Not

Just when Harvard officials though they had the radioactive waste problem licked this week, another governor shot holes in their latest plan.

The University, which contracts with the Interex Corporation to dispose of the low-level radioactive wastes produced by Harvard labs and affiliated hospitals, began shipping its sludge out to Galveston, Tex., this week.

In Galveston, the Todd Shipping Corporation plans to take the wastes, evaporate the liquid and then ship the solid residue out to one of the nation's three waste dumping grounds in Beattie, Nevada. At least that was the plan.

But Nevada Gov. Robert List this week closed down the Beatty burial ground, and Todd officials said they would just have to store the waste in Texas until the site opens again.

Meanwhile, the Cambridge City Council this week began to draft an ordinance to control storage and transportation of radioactive wastes produced by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Back at Harvard, officials are worried that their new solution wouldn't last. Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of the University Health Services (UHS), said yesterday the University, via Interex, will keep shipping its wastes out Texas way for "as long as Todd will accept it."

The future is less than rosy. With Harvard's old Hanford outlet in Washington state shut since October 4, and Beatty now gone, officials were talking more and more this week about establishing local dumping sites. And, as one state official said, that is one decision that nobody wants to make.