BANGOR — Citizens for Nuclear Education, the Bangor area group organized to oppose the shipment of low-level radioactive waste to Russia through Bangor International Airport met Monday with members of the state agency that regulates nuclear waste within Maine.

The group was organized to monitor the Westinghouse Electric Corp.’s proposal to ship low-level radioactive waste through Bangor for disposal in the Russian republic of Daghestan, but in November the company withdrew from the project. As much as $2 billion could have been received for shipping the waste.

The local group decided to continue meeting, and its members agreed to educate themselves and the public on the dangers of the use, storage, shipment and disposal of nuclear waste within the state.

Nine men and two women from the local group listened Monday night as Dale Randall of the Maine State Radioactive Waste Advisory Commission, Radiation Control Program, explained how the state regulates radioactive materials and traffic.

He was joined by Rep. Catherine L. Damren, R-Belgrade, Dr. Joesph Blinick, safety coordinator at Maine Medical Center in Portland and Dr. John T. Chen, a retired radiologist who used to work at Mid Maine Medical Center in Waterville. Michael Cushman, a member of the local committee who also helped arrange the meeting, and Debbie Skinner, who served as chairman of the meeting, said the group decided to remain intact and continue to address the issues of radioactive waste.

Randall told the assembly that radioactive materials were closely regulated by the Department of Human Services. He said there were 130 generators of nuclear waste within the state, the major one being Maine Yankee, which provided the bulk of the state’s waste. Other major contributors are Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, nearly all of the hospitals within the state, and numerous medical research laboratories.

Maine exports no more than 2 1/2 boxcars of radioactive waste a year, and most of that is considered low-level.

At present, most radioactive waste is going to a facility in South Carolina, but soon Maine and Vermont will be shipping all of their radioactive waste materials to Texas. This agreement was reached after it was determined that a majority of Maine residents did not want a nuclear waste dump in Maine because of possible aquifer contamination. Also, the federal government decided that 50 nuclear waste sites were not needed.

Texas provides an above-ground storage area that is more than 100 feet above the water table in a desert atmosphere. It is considered a safer storage area than anything that could be found in Maine.

Randall said Maine is able to keep track of radioactive materials because no one can handle such materials without acquiring a state license. All incoming and outgoing materials are recorded.

He said the state would not have been able to regulate radioactive traffic at Bangor International Airport because it would have been governed by Interstate Transportation or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Much of the radioactive material in Maine, Randall said, consists of medical isotopes that have a short half-life, some as short as 24 or 48 hours. Other medical radioactive materials can be recycled.

Materials that are shipped, he said, are in canisters designed to take the impact of a tractor-trailer crash and not rupture.

Shipments are inspected when they leave Maine and again when they arrive at the depository site. Shipping and disposal costs are paid by the generators of the waste, not the taxpayers.

Randall, Chen, Blinick, and Darmen were questioned extensively by the members of the local group.

Committee members were concerned with long-term cumultive effects of radioactive gas emissions and other exposures and possible storage problems. There was disagreement between the groups on the issues of whether certain kinds of cancer were on the increase in Maine, with committee members maintaining there was, and state officials saying the opposite was true.

Members of the local committee were invited to attend the state advisory commission’s meetings.