Editor:

On March 1 you had a "staff editorial," and a seemingly corroborative front-page story, to the effect it was somewhere between ill-advised and absolutely outrageous that plans for storage of radioactive waste should proceed in Ward Valley, Calif. Interesting.

But let us now talk about risks, especially public risks, in deliberate rather than terrifying terms. Every act carries some risk, of course, and a sensible person constantly (if not unconsciously) performs risk analysis. For example, the risk I take driving off campus for lunch is greater than if I walk to the Student Union. It really is! But I think this slight risk is worth taking if I really want that off-campus adventure. And speaking of driving, let's look at the public risk of moving tanks of gasoline around in our cars. Half a tankful has the explosive power of a half ton of dynamite, and I would guess that we have some 100,000 cars and trucks in operation during any working day. THAT MEANS WE HAVE THE EXPLOSIVE POWER OF 50,000 TONS OF DYNAMITE ON OUR STREETS; A DESTRUCTIVE ENERGY OF MORE THAN TWICE THAT WHICH DESTROYED HIROSHIMA IN 1945! Should we panic? Of course not, because the risk of all that gas going up explosively is really very small. But it is not zero!

I have not looked at any of the site documents for the proposed Ward Valley dump. But I have had experience with the California EPA, and approval of that site would not be granted if the local (i.e. California) hazards were not considered negligible. As a scientist, I know that the risk to the Tucson community would be vanishingly small compared to the minute hazard presented to Californians by an EPA-approved facility. But all this "risk assessment" needs to be compared with the risks of not moving this material out of Tucson. Enough said.

Let me close by commenting on your implication that Tucson would be better off if this radioactive stuff were not going on at the university. It is true that the risks of radioactive contamination would be thereby reduced, but it is also true that the Cancer Center and treatment facilities around town would vanish as well.

I have tried to make two points: 1) We need to estimate actual risks with realism and disciplined calculations; and 2) we always need to do risk comparison as well as assessment.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Franken
optical sciences professor