Local
• ■ IL. K-ri % i at . ,
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1981
Nuclear waste disposal may become problem in June
Texas A&M University Nuclear Science Gen
ii fer does research and development with
|| radioactive materials. The center is expected
thing Gree'c to be left with a disposal problem when the
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Photo by Mary Anne Snowden
company that picks up the waste goes out of
business in June. Radioactive solids may be
stored in the area.
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Club organizer, 83, dies
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My soroat
proud of®
Funeral services for John Ches
ter Mayfield, who helped organize
Texas A&M University’s Associa-
chmoreS|)f| tion of Former Students and the
Aggie Club, were held in Houston
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Mayfield, who died Saturday at
83, was cadet colonel of the Corps
of Cadets from 1922 to 1923 and
was instrumental in helping orga
nize the Association of Former
Students in 1925 — the group that
grew out of an earlier graduate
organization.
The class of ’23 graduate also
helped establish the Aggie Club of
which he was a former president
and lifetime director. The club
contributed more than $2 million
to the University’s athletic prog
ram last year.
For his services, Mayfield was
inducted into the Texas A&M Hall
of Honor.
At the time of his death,
Mayfield was director of R.M.
Mayfield Constructors, Inc., of
Houston. Earlier in his career he
worked for Kirby Lumber Co. and
Anderson, Clayton and Co. In
1955 he founded a general con
tracting firm bearing his name, re
tiring 10 years later.
Mayfield served as an officer in
the Army Air Corps during World
War I and subsequently enrolled
at Texas A&M.
The Texas native was bom in
Dodge in Walker County but
lived in Houston for about 50 years
before moving to Conroe seven
years ago.
OF DANCE ARTS
REGISTER NOW! MON.-THURS. 5-7 P.M.
CLASS STARTS TUBS. MARCH 24TH
693-0352
By TRACEY BUCHANAN
Battalion Reporter
Texas A&M University may be
left with accumulating barrels of
low- level nuclear waste when
Nuclear Sources and Services Inc.
goes out of business in June, says
Dr. Richard Neff, director of the
campus Radiological Safety
Office.
The company is the only one in
Texas that picks up nuclear waste
and transports it to disposal sites.
Robert Gallagher, president of
the Houston company, told Neff
last week his company couldn’t
stay in business if it had to meet
regulations proposed in a bill be
fore the Texas Legislature.
Rules that would allow nuclear
waste disposal sites in the state for
“Texas only” were approved by
the Texas Senate last week. There
are no disposal sites in Texas and
only three in the nation.
“Until a site in Texas could be
opened up, or unless someone
else went into the business, we
would have to be doing something
with it (nuclear waste) ourselves,”
Neff said.
The disposal site in Washington
is the only one of the three sites
currently available for deliveries
of nuclear waste from Texas A&M,
Neff said, and they have strict reg
ulations.
Nuclear Sources and Services
proposed a waste management
site in Leon County, but the Leg
islature has directed the Texas
Department of Health not to
approve new sites until June or
until new licensing laws are
written.
Radioactive material is col
lected in 55-gallon drums from ab
out 200 labs on campus, Neff said.
Two hundred to 250 of these bar
rels are collected in a year, he said.
Disposal of each drum costs the
University $150 to $175, he said.
Texas A&M stores the barrels in
an area near the Nuclear Science
Center close to Easterwood Air
port. A metal building is under
construction to accommodate the
overflow of barrels, Neff said. A
portable building is all the storage
space the University has now.
Neff estimated that 800 people
at Texas A&M jjre actively in
volved in work with radioactive
materials, including faculty and
graduate students.
Todd Research and Technical
Division, which had the Universi
ty’s contract last year, closed its
waste reprocessing in February
1980. The Battalion reported in
June 1980 that Texas A&M “tem
porarily curtailed the handling of
radioactive waste from research
labs.”
Neff said a decision about cut
ting Texas A&M research using
radioactive material has not been
made.
The low-level waste Texas
A&M generates are paper, glass
and gloves used in work with
radioactive material; organic scin
tillator fluid, used as a tracer in
chemical reactions and in animal
bodies; and the bodies of animals,
used in research and experiments.
The two most common types of
radioactive material used on cam
pus are tritium, which has a half
life of 10-12 years, and carbon 14,
which has a half life of 1,620 years,
Neff said. The half life is the time it
cakes for one unit of radioactive
material to decay to half of its ori
ginal amount.
Neff said tritium and carbon 14
c*
\
Another one
of the
professionals
found at
jfur air eiLAjfjf
209 E. University
846-4771
are among the least toxic radioac
tive materials.
“We can store it longer here (at
the University), and we can try to
gather enough of it up to make our
own shipment to the disposal site,
which is not something we really
want to do,” Neff said.
The University would have to
use a large truck to take radioac
tive material to the diposal site, he
said. It is inspected at the site and
“the least little thing wrong and
they send the whole truckload
back,” Neff said.
We're tooting
our own horn . .
Battalion
Classifieds
Call 845-2611
Spring for an
Alvarez
Guitars by:
YAIRI
ALVAREZ
YAMAHA
and others.
\
Most Models
Specially Priced
through Spring
Break.
(New models arriving.)
KEyboARd
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Visa
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Saturday March 7, 1981
G. Rollie White Coliseum
Tickets: $8.50, $8.00, $6.50
Tickets and Information
MSC Box Office 845-2916
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