Last year, the Union of Concerned Scientists, joined by environmental
organizations and members of the public (including the author), filed a
petition with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The
petition requested that the NRC take a single action: that it utilize its
enforcement authority to demand information from its licensees concerning
the nature and extent of tritium contamination of groundwater. The scope
of this request was extremely narrow, considering the ubiquity of tritium
contamination at every link in the nuclear fuel chain. Tritium
contamination has become a marker for the varieties of radioactive
contamination left in the wake of producing what the nuclear industry
likes to call “safe and clean” energy. Yet mining, milling,
processing, enrichment, fuel fabrication, fuel utilization and storage at
nuclear reactors, disposal of radioactive waste, and attempted
reprocessing of nuclear fuel have resulted in massive amounts of tritium-
(and other radionuclide) contaminated groundwater.