Dec. 1, 2009
At Least We Do Not Have Issues Like the Portsmouth Plant and Others
Low Waste Shipment From Ohio Avoided Vegas Yet Still Created a Leaking Controversy
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- During the past several days HNN has written --- mainly from public documents --- about the River City’s equivalent of the Greenbrier Bunker i.e. the Huntington Pilot Plant on the International Nickel (a.k.a. INCO, Nickel Plant, etc.) property. Remediation work on the Huntington site was completed long ago. But we asked some questions to which we have not gotten answers.
For instance, we are led to believe that no further meeting occurred with Local 40 USW, despite the questions of ongoing contamination and compensation issues for survivors. At the time of the 2006 meeting, of 73 claims only ten had been recommended for compensation.
However, the disposition (burial) of the radioactive sections of the plant potentially remain concerns, depending upon your level of anxiety tolerance.
Decommissioning in the United States (http://www.nea.fr/html/rwm/wpdd/usa.pdf) grants some insight into how the former Cold War facilities built before environmental consciousness and nuclear energy power plants are retired. The waste will linger for sometime though, no matter where it is. Some will be dangerous for thousands of years.
The federal government’s environmental mission is to clean up the legacy left by nuclear weapon production and R & D. There are over 10,000 facilities; 3,000 are slated for decommissioning.
This premier on clean up lists two options:
- Immediate decontamination and dismantlement [where] all components and structures that are radioactive are cleaned or dismantled, packaged and shipped to an appropriate waste disposal site. (The Pilot Plant remains were shipped to Piketon and buried.)
- Under a ‘safe storage’ procedure, the facility is left intact in protective storage which locks off the portion of the plant containing radioactive materials and provides an on-site security force for monitoring. Radioactive items decay over time; once a facility sits idle it can ultimately be dismantled.
Transuranic Waste (TRU) will either be stored at the waste generating facility or a designated DOE facility where it may be place buried so it can be later retrieved, placed in below ground bunkers, concrete caissons, above ground concrete pads or inside buildings. The DOE has a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlbad, New Mexico, which is licensed as an underground repository to safety and permanently dispose of TRU waste generated by nuclear weapon production.
(Note: The Huntington plant based on AEC records indicate that scrap nickel was contaminated with uranium and trace elements of transuranic elements that are associated with recycled uranium from having been used as a barrier in the gaseous diffusion process.)
The L.A. Times on October 20, 2009 wrote an article concerning radioactive byproducts entombed at places like Fernald [Preserve], Ohio. Fernald contains materials so dangerous that the best that can be done is to contain the dangers. (The site produced nuclear grade uranium during the Cold War.)
Quoting Victor Gilinsky, a nuclear waste expert and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory commission, he told the Times, “We’re faced with a mess and you have to find some sort of balance. There are no easy decisions.”
But even for “low level waste shipments” from Fernald to the Nevada Test Site for disposal. A 2000 email suggests the sensitivity of road safety, flash flooding, avoiding “tourist traffic,” and avoiding major facilities (such as Hoover Dam or Las Vegas) for the travel of motor carriers equipped with satellite tracking devices.
What did they determine as “low level waste?” “The waste will generally be trash, rubble, and debris from environmental cleanup activities with some process residues (wastes leftover from process materials and wastes from production operations) contaminated with uranium and thorium. The maximum estimated dose rate from uranium will be 1-2 millirem per hour on contact with the truck….”
However, due to leaks in Nevada, Sen. Richard Bryan “blasted the DOE for shoddy, dangerous shipments of low-level radioactive waste following DOE announcement of leaking transportation canisters.” (Note: Although an internet page contains references to documents, the document contents are not currently available. http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/nts/ohio05.htm )
In fact, the shuffle to Nevada may have occurred after reported deficiencies at the Ohio plant, where 13,000 metal drums quickly corroded along with another 200,000 of radioactive waste stored on site. The 1979 corrosion was not public until 1984 but then the plant contractor stated “we do not believe it to be a health hazard.” Along with air emissions, radioactive uranium ore dust discharged into the Miami River , up to 63 pounds a day during 1964.
With that type of perspective, we know that the Huntington Pilot Plant was demolished and buried in a high radioactive “classified” site in Piketon. Though “unknown” contaminants are buried south of Portsmouth, a 406 page book has been written to determine “Site Specific Earthquake Analysis for Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.” (http://www.stormingmedia.us/74/7499/A749962.html?searchTerms=Portsmouth~Gaseous , download $56.95)
According to Buried Radioactive Weapons Maintenance Waste Fact Sheet, the “radiation emitted by depleted cannot penetrate the skin. It can enter the body through breathing, drinking and eating, but only if it is dispersed into the environment.”
HNN would like to receive oral histories or other documents (that are NOT classified) pertaining to the life of workers at the Pilot Plant. Email: trutherford@huntingtonnews.net. We would like to hear from any “expert” who could evaluate on a common sense level any remaining questions that require and deserve answers so that citizens are comfortable with the handling of waste from Huntington and what remains in Piketon, Ohio.
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At Least We Do Not Have Issues Like the Portsmouth Plant and Others
Low Waste Shipment From Ohio Avoided Vegas Yet Still Created a Leaking Controversy
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- During the past several days HNN has written --- mainly from public documents --- about the River City’s equivalent of the Greenbrier Bunker i.e. the Huntington Pilot Plant on the International Nickel (a.k.a. INCO, Nickel Plant, etc.) property. Remediation work on the Huntington site was completed long ago. But we asked some questions to which we have not gotten answers.
For instance, we are led to believe that no further meeting occurred with Local 40 USW, despite the questions of ongoing contamination and compensation issues for survivors. At the time of the 2006 meeting, of 73 claims only ten had been recommended for compensation.
However, the disposition (burial) of the radioactive sections of the plant potentially remain concerns, depending upon your level of anxiety tolerance.
Decommissioning in the United States (http://www.nea.fr/html/rwm/wpdd/usa.pdf) grants some insight into how the former Cold War facilities built before environmental consciousness and nuclear energy power plants are retired. The waste will linger for sometime though, no matter where it is. Some will be dangerous for thousands of years.
The federal government’s environmental mission is to clean up the legacy left by nuclear weapon production and R & D. There are over 10,000 facilities; 3,000 are slated for decommissioning.
This premier on clean up lists two options:
- Immediate decontamination and dismantlement [where] all components and structures that are radioactive are cleaned or dismantled, packaged and shipped to an appropriate waste disposal site. (The Pilot Plant remains were shipped to Piketon and buried.)
- Under a ‘safe storage’ procedure, the facility is left intact in protective storage which locks off the portion of the plant containing radioactive materials and provides an on-site security force for monitoring. Radioactive items decay over time; once a facility sits idle it can ultimately be dismantled.
Transuranic Waste (TRU) will either be stored at the waste generating facility or a designated DOE facility where it may be place buried so it can be later retrieved, placed in below ground bunkers, concrete caissons, above ground concrete pads or inside buildings. The DOE has a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlbad, New Mexico, which is licensed as an underground repository to safety and permanently dispose of TRU waste generated by nuclear weapon production.
(Note: The Huntington plant based on AEC records indicate that scrap nickel was contaminated with uranium and trace elements of transuranic elements that are associated with recycled uranium from having been used as a barrier in the gaseous diffusion process.)
The L.A. Times on October 20, 2009 wrote an article concerning radioactive byproducts entombed at places like Fernald [Preserve], Ohio. Fernald contains materials so dangerous that the best that can be done is to contain the dangers. (The site produced nuclear grade uranium during the Cold War.)
Quoting Victor Gilinsky, a nuclear waste expert and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory commission, he told the Times, “We’re faced with a mess and you have to find some sort of balance. There are no easy decisions.”
But even for “low level waste shipments” from Fernald to the Nevada Test Site for disposal. A 2000 email suggests the sensitivity of road safety, flash flooding, avoiding “tourist traffic,” and avoiding major facilities (such as Hoover Dam or Las Vegas) for the travel of motor carriers equipped with satellite tracking devices.
What did they determine as “low level waste?” “The waste will generally be trash, rubble, and debris from environmental cleanup activities with some process residues (wastes leftover from process materials and wastes from production operations) contaminated with uranium and thorium. The maximum estimated dose rate from uranium will be 1-2 millirem per hour on contact with the truck….”
However, due to leaks in Nevada, Sen. Richard Bryan “blasted the DOE for shoddy, dangerous shipments of low-level radioactive waste following DOE announcement of leaking transportation canisters.” (Note: Although an internet page contains references to documents, the document contents are not currently available. http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/nts/ohio05.htm )
In fact, the shuffle to Nevada may have occurred after reported deficiencies at the Ohio plant, where 13,000 metal drums quickly corroded along with another 200,000 of radioactive waste stored on site. The 1979 corrosion was not public until 1984 but then the plant contractor stated “we do not believe it to be a health hazard.” Along with air emissions, radioactive uranium ore dust discharged into the Miami River , up to 63 pounds a day during 1964.
With that type of perspective, we know that the Huntington Pilot Plant was demolished and buried in a high radioactive “classified” site in Piketon. Though “unknown” contaminants are buried south of Portsmouth, a 406 page book has been written to determine “Site Specific Earthquake Analysis for Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.” (http://www.stormingmedia.us/74/7499/A749962.html?searchTerms=Portsmouth~Gaseous , download $56.95)
According to Buried Radioactive Weapons Maintenance Waste Fact Sheet, the “radiation emitted by depleted cannot penetrate the skin. It can enter the body through breathing, drinking and eating, but only if it is dispersed into the environment.”
HNN would like to receive oral histories or other documents (that are NOT classified) pertaining to the life of workers at the Pilot Plant. Email: trutherford@huntingtonnews.net. We would like to hear from any “expert” who could evaluate on a common sense level any remaining questions that require and deserve answers so that citizens are comfortable with the handling of waste from Huntington and what remains in Piketon, Ohio.
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Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
