Regulatory reclassification of radioactive waste allowed unregulated disposal that contaminated groundwater

Evidence

About a third of it was classified as BRC, “below regulatory concerns.” This allowed the nuclear power industry to dispose of it any way they wished. A uranium processing plant was called the “Feed Materials Processing Center,” suggestive of an animal feed processing plant. Its radioactive waste contaminated the ground water for almost four decades (Associated Press, 1988). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2690

Categorization

• QUESTION: How much of the US nuclear waste stream was classified BRC ‘below regulatory concerns,’ and was the classification ever formally challenged?
• SEED: A regulatory-doublespeak piece: how ‘below regulatory concerns’ classifications in nuclear, chemical, and now AI contexts quietly deregulate lethal material.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2690
• XREF: connects to: Strict 1970s waste-disposal laws perversely multiplied abandoned hazardous-waste sites — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 484