Unusual warmth at South Pole delays removal of a ton of hazardous waste materials

Fri, 2013-07-26 02:49 PM By: Jacob Goodwin

A ton of hazardous
material is sitting
at South Pole Station
The folks at the National Science Foundation who help run the South Pole Station in Antarctica have been forced to acknowledge that about a ton of “hazardous waste” -- namely batteries, regulated medical waste, laboratory chemical waste, contaminated laboratory glassware, gas cylinders, paint cans and light bulbs -- have been sitting at the South Pole for more than 15 months, waiting to flown out to McMurdo Station, about a thousand miles away.

About 2,000 pounds of this waste was supposed to be removed last February, but the unexpected melting of the ice runway at McMurdo -- and the reduction in the number of flights leaving the South Pole Station – made that nearly impossible. “Compatibility issues related to flying hazardous cargo and passengers further reduced the available flights to removing the hazardous waste material,” said a notice published by the National Science Foundation in the Federal Register on July 26.

The austral summer season runs from approximately October to the following February. The hazardous waste was supposed to be removed at the tail end of the last austral summer season, in February 2013, but it now appears it will have to sit at the South Pole for another three months or so. “During the early part of the 2013-2014 austral summer season,” said the NSF notice, “the priority will be to remove the South Pole hazardous waste to McMurdo Station, where it will be removed from the continent.”

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/31001?c=cbrne_detection