I served as one of South Carolina's commissioners and chairman of the Atlantic Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, and I am concerned about a move in the General Assembly that could undermine the state's nuclear waste disposal program.

The budget recently approved by the House would allow another 100,000 cubic feet of nuclear waste into the landfill in Barnwell County in 2005. This would be in addition to the 50,000 feet already authorized for next year by the Atlantic Compact Act.

The Senate needs to stop this bad deal. This proposal would undermine the Atlantic Compact Act, which was a real public policy achievement. Further, the deal with Chem-Nuclear to dispose of its waste at the Barnwell site is a poor business bargain for the state.

South Carolina's nuclear waste disposal program successfully serves a number of important objectives, including:

Preserving disposal capacity for the state's own nuclear plants;

Phasing out importation of waste from outside the region on an orderly schedule, with such shipments ending by 2008;

Maximizing current market pricing to help meet South Carolina's general revenue needs.

This program was the result of 18 months of study and hearings. It was cemented by permanent law in the Atlantic Compact Act passed in 2000. But now, it may be significantly altered by last minute, ad hoc budget amendments.

Chem-Nuclear's proposal raises three basic questions, the answers to which could have an enormous impact on the state's future:

1. Should South Carolina allow more nuclear waste from across the nation to come into the state?

The Atlantic Compact Act preserved capacity for South Carolina's future needs and signaled to the rest of the nation that other states must become more involved in solving the country's nuclear waste disposal problems. If South Carolina signals a weakness in its resolve to close the door on the nation's nuclear waste, other states will have no incentive to create new disposal solutions. And South Carolina would continue to be the nuclear waste dumping ground for the rest of the nation.

2. Is the Chem-Nuclear proposal a good deal for South Carolina? Instead of a revenue gain of $6 million, the agreement with Chem-Nuclear is expected to net the state as little as $1 million. This low-cost arrangement with Chem-Nuclear would have the added detriment of driving down the prices the Budget and Control Board can charge its customers for waste disposal and lowering projected revenues by as much as $3 million in 2005. Adding insult to injury, the cost of handling the extra waste from Chem-Nuclear could cost the state an additional $2 million.

3. Is South Carolina getting a fair return for this valuable asset?

South Carolina's disposal capacity is worth well over $500 per cubic foot. The state now is poised to sell this space to Chem-Nuclear at an unreasonably low price of $60 per cubic foot.

When the Compact Act was passed in 2000, Barnwell's remaining disposal capacity was almost gone. South Carolina needed to join a congressionally approved compact to lawfully preserve disposal space for its own waste needs when its seven nuclear reactors are decommissioned beginning around 2040. Under the act, 1.8 million cubic feet have been reserved for the future needs of the compact states - South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut. Under the act, unused capacity may not be sold.

As South Carolina's import limits have taken effect, the price for disposing of waste at Barnwell has increased from 80 cents per cubic foot in 1971 to today's prices of more than $500 per cubic foot.

Chem-Nuclear now proposes to buy 100,000 feet of the remaining capacity at Barnwell for $6 million. This is $60 per cubic foot and a fraction of its real value.

A poor business deal that could not stand on its own, this proposal was craftily paired by Chem-Nuclear's friends in the House with a measure to raise pay for law enforcement officers. The Senate should reject this cynical ploy.

In 1987, Gov. Carroll Campbell wrote the nuclear waste industry and warned, "Any suggestion that South Carolina inevitably will amend its laws to allow continued operation of the disposal facility is speculation and should not be used as the basis for any state's plans to fulfill its disposal responsibilities."

Our state's legislative leaders thus would be in good company when they announce that South Carolina's nuclear waste limits will not be reversed.