Speaker urges students to clean up environment

Charles C. Labenz Arizona Daily Wildcat UA graduate student Darren Dunphy works on optical wave guides for chemical sensors. The chemical sensors can be used to detect concentrations of radioactive material.

Rod K. Quinn, engineering director for tank waste remediation for Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, said one way students can get involved in the program is through the Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

"Our job as a lab is to integrate the multiple funding sources and organizational entities to solve significant environmental problems," Quinn said.

EMSL's research focuses on areas such as:

• waste processing and disposal

• remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater

• human health effects from environmental pollutants

• atmospheric chemistry related to air quality and environmental transport of waste.

Quinn gave a seminar titled "Scientific Challenges of Nuclear Waste Cleanup" Monday in the Chemistry and Biological Sciences building.

Quinn researches long-term solutions in the western region with Pacific Northwest and the Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

Neal Armstrong, a University of Arizona chemistry professor, hosted Quinn's visit.

Armstrong said that he invited Quinn to show students what is happening at Pacific Northwest. Quinn has been visiting several universities to encourage students to get involved in the environmental problem and help find a solution.

"We had 50 years of Cold War where nuclear weapons were deemed essential," Armstrong said.

He said scientists' attitude toward the waste produced was, "We'll figure out what to do with it later." The Cold War ended in 1989.

"Now it's time to deal with it," Armstrong said.

Some of the challenges Quinn discussed in Monday's seminar were long-term solutions such as where to store the nuclear waste and how to reprocess the waste using safe, efficient methods.

"Reprocessing" consists of extracting the nuclear waste, in both its solid and liquid forms, and "packaging" it in glass-like cylinders in an underground facility until the radioactive materials decay away.

"It (nuclear waste management) is a massive problem," Armstrong said. "Something has to be done about it."

The UA is also involved in research to aid the environmental problem.

Armstrong and UA assistant chemistry professor Scott Saavedra are developing new chemical sensors which will be used to monitor the reprocessing of nuclear waste. The sensors will also be used to detect the illegal production of fuels for nuclear weapons.

The UA's research is based on "integrated optics," Armstrong said. Integrated optics are a spin-off from the same fiber-optic technology used in communications.

"The sensors measure the light intensity to determine the presence of a specific analyte," Saavedra said. He said in the case of monitoring nuclear waste, those analytes would be heavy metals.

The chemical sensors are hand-held and can detect concentrations of some toxic, radioactive species that may be present in groundwater and the surrounding environment, Armstrong said.

The UA laboratory has developed the chemical sensors as a short-term solution to chemical waste production. For the future, Armstrong said, "there are no good long-term solutions."

A symposium hosted by Waste Management Symposia Inc., "Working Toward a Cleaner Environment," has been taking place at the Tucson Convention Center since Sunday. The symposia, which ends tomorrow, addresses the same challenges Quinn discussed Monday.