Harvard Works to Change Radioactive Waste Law

Lobbyists from Harvard and other Massachusetts universities are scrambling to meet a Wednesday deadline to file amendments to a recently passed law restricting the storage of low-level radioactive waste.

Officials, fearing that the act may curtail scientific research, which often produces such waste, will try to clarify language in the act exempting bio-medical work and expand the exemptions to other scientific research.

Mandate

The law, which will take effect on January 1, passed in referendum form in the November general election. More than 60 percent of the state's voters supported the provision calling for tighter environmental standards and stricter approval for storage sites in the Commonwealth.

A significant portion of contemporary scientific study, including genetics, immunology, and cancer-related experimentation, produces the low-level material. Currently, Harvard and other state waste producers ship the radioactive by-product to the state of Washington.

But recently enacted federal law requires waste producers to find regional disposal sites by 1986

The new Massachusetts law not only limits storage in the Commonwealth, but also restricts the terms by which it may enter agreements to store waste in the New England region

Those regional restrictions have sparked such concern among researchers that Parker L. Coddington, Harvard's director of governmental relations, recently remarked "As it stands [the law] does not make it possible to continue doing research at current levels."

The current strategy university lobbyists are pursuing calls for filing proposals for amendments to the law. For such proposals to be considered in the next legislative session, which starts in January, amendments must be filed by Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts (AICUM) said yesterday that his group has yet to decide what specific changes it will propose, but that they will try to file it by the middle of the week.

A member of AICUM, who asked not to be identified, said it would focus on changing the wording of the bill--which currently exempts bio-medical research--to include bio-organic work in the exemption.

Even if such wording changes pass researchers are concerned that any Massachusetts waste producer will be prevented from disposing outside of the state.

A recent meeting of the Coalition of North Eastern Governors (CONEG) has asked the state to explain "on what basis can Massachusetts justify its continued membership in compact negotiations."

If state delegates do not provide a satisfactory answer at the December 20 meeting of the delegates from the 11 participating states Massachusetts may be kicked out of the regional organization.