m e article provides new perspectives on the amounts and types of nuclear and toxic waste produced by the United
THE NATIONS POST COLD WAR SITUATIONEvery war leaves negative legacies for subsequent generations. World War 11 and the Cold War were no different. These wars left behind an aftermath now being dealt with in an immediate and highly technical manner. They also left behind the need for a new type of government institution, a long-term stewardship institution dedicated to protecting public health and the environment for thousands of years into the future. These little-known legacies and their ramifications will have pronounced cultural implications on this and future generations.Historically, the negative legacies of wars are destroyed infrastructures (e.g., roads, bridges, communications, water systems, energy systems), fractured economies, and segregated social structures. However, the Cold War and World War I1 left behind a more obscure, menacing, and long-term legacy. Within the boundaries of the continental United States are vast amounts of radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes-residues of nuclear weapon production. The extreme numbers of these wastes, coupled with their extreme toxicity, create a threat to the nation's health, environment, culture, and natural resources. Only an empowered long-term stewardship organization can control these threats to within acceptable levels of risk.The United States produced nuclear weapons to meet the exigent and imperative national defense requirements of World War I1 and the Cold War. A multitude of industrial, chemical, and radiological processes were required to produce these weapons. These processes had as byproducts several distinct and unique classes of waste including; hazardous waste, high-level waste," transuranic waste," uranium mill tailings,c lowlevel waste,d polychlorinated biphenyl waste, and various combinations of classes generally termed "mixed radioactive waste."e Because of the nature of nuclear weapon production, these byproducts were produced in vast volumetric quantities and tonnage.A majority of Americans are only peripherally aware of the existence of these war-legacy toxic wastes, because of the security surrounding the production and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. Information on this waste was maintained just as securely as information on
