July 25, 2010
RECONSIDERING URANIUM: Scientific Testing Has Advanced Since Huntington Site of Former Uranium and Nickel Atomic Plant Was Evaluated
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) - Most scientific studies have examined the environmental consequences of uranium enrichment and/or processing during the Cold War through effects on soil and water. A scientific journal in 2006 published an analysis that considered appropriate standards for residual contamination upon structural materials, particularly steel and concrete.
By the time this study was published ,. The Department of Energy had determined in 1978 that “cold shut down” status was a too hazardous state for the Huntington nickel and uranium processing /recycling plant, which rested several acres of industrial plant property. Thus, by the time the 2006 study was published, the 79 trainloads of debris from Huntington’s contaminated nickel and uranium processing plant had been buried in Piketon, Ohio at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant for about 17 years
When it stood in Huntington, the classified Huntington Pilot Plant/ Reduction Pilot Plant (HPP/RPP) was a four to five story rusty looking brick and steel structure appeared non-descript to onlookers.
HNN spoke with a retiree from INCO who worked in and around the atomic plant. He described the beginning and end of a working day at the Huntington Pilot Plant: “You went in one gate and out that same gate. It had a guard on. When you did your shift, the clothes you had on, you left them there. You took a shower.”
His memory comes from the cold shut down period, which was in 1962-1963, after it stopped processing and recycling nickel which came from barriers at the three atomic weapons gaseous diffusion plants in Oak Ridge, Paducah, and Piketon.
“I went in there [at a time when] the showers were still there, the pumps, the whole department was still there,” he said, adding, “I have been up there hundreds of times.”
He did have friends who worked at the atomic plant when it was active. “ A lot of guys who worked there died of leukemia,” the retiree said.
Just as the USA Today article (“Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places” 2000-2001) stated regarding other “secret” atomic energy plants, questions about the manufacturing at these site arose, as this retiree stated, “when people started dying.”
Although he considers the site safe today, the retiree said he would not fish or swim in the Guyandotte River which runs past the former site. “No fishing or nothing,” the retiree stated.
The former worker believes that the contamination had been contained to the site itself. Still, he spoke of the “hauling of sludge with nickel in it” three times a day to the landfill. He has also spoken to people who remember , in his words, neighborhood cars covered in the mornings with “real fine dust, like black coal dust.”
However, the scientific journal article demonstrated (at a minimum) that removal and burial of the facility was , at least in part, a good call by removing the classified contaminants from our city.
HUNTINGTON EVALUATED 1979, 1980 & 1987, RELEASED 1994
Despite placing the location of the former Huntington Pilot Plant site on an “unrestricted release” in 1979, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) requested radiological studies and further investigation of the Huntington site on which the plant had operated. A radiological study conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratories in August 1980 showed “several locations of residual uranium in surface soil and elevated gamma radiation in the remains of an elevator shaft and inside the compression building. High concentrations of nickel were noted in some surface soil samples.”
ORNL asked for the follow up study which was done November 17-19 and December 3, 1980 at the facility. The report found:
Exterior locations tested for gamma radiation were not elevated with the exception of three “spots near the edge of the loading pad, and a small area on the outside east wall of the compressor building.”
Maximum levels were 33 u R/hr, 45 u R/hr and 18 uR/HR. Debris from the elevator shaft removed with a backhoe had a maximum reading of 22 u R/hr. “A sample of debris had concentrations of 238U, 235U and 226 Ra, slightly above the baseline ranges.”
An area of “elevated ground surface radiation near the concrete pad is believed to be contamination originating from equipment stored in this location during the 1978-79 demolition activities, the report said. The elevated region then measured up to 25 uR/hr in excavated; gravel under concrete pad 2.5 pCi/gm of radium 226.
For instance, one surface soil sample from a river flood plain about 1.5 km from the plant site contained 1.3 x 1o4 ppm --- substantially higher than many on-site samples. “This suggests that general nickel contamination of surface soil may exist throughout this area as a result of past International Nickel Company operations.”
1994 RADIOLOGICAL SURVEY
In December 1994, DOE performed a radiological survey at the former Reduction Pilot Plant site, and sent a letter to then Huntington Mayor Jean Dean stating, “ we are pleased t,o reaffirm our determination that conditions at this site meet applicable requirements for protection of public health, safety' and the. environment. We have concluded that additional investigations of this site are unnecessary.”
1996 DOE TAKING STOCK REPORT
The 1996 DOE report: -A Report of the Materials in Inventory Initiative. Taking Stock: A Look at the Opportunities and Challenges Posed by Inventories from the Cold War Era (1996 MIN for short) --- lists an approximate breakdown of current inventory of contaminated (and non-contaminated) scrap metals at various sites, including carbon steel, stainless steel, nickel, aluminum, copper, brass, tin and iron .
Gary P. Halada in his 2006 Journal of Electron Spectroscopy article analyzed that the report suggested that about 80% of the contaminated scrap metal was carbon steel.
“This would not be surprising, since structural steel (primarily, carbon steel) represents a large proportion of the building at former processing sites, which has included more than 120 million square feet of building structures, large production reactors with associated support facilities, and eight chemical processing plants.”
The study revealed “information on the actual extent of surface contamination of structures in former weapons processing facilities is scarce pertaining to structural steel, exteriors of process equipment, and support buildings.”
Halada’s 2006 contaminant uranium structural surfaces journal article added that at some locations “most of the substrate metals , including the valuable nickel barrier, have been disposed at the Envirocare of Utah.” However, uranium at some of the decontaminated and/or decommissioned sites “has been found as uranyl fluoride on surfaces where it has migrated into nickel diffusion barriers or into cracks in concrete.” This occurred at enrichment facilities or commercial UF6 processing facilities due to the exposure to a “strongly fluorinating atmosphere.”
The article found “uranium may become deposited in inaccessible locations such as within small diameter piping or tubing” and lead to “difficulties for decontamination.”
UNDER ESTIMATES
In our previously published article, Dr. John Muero, a radioactive materials contamination expert, told the NIOSH/CDC dosage estimate advisory panel in March 2010 that the data for Huntington May have been UNDER estimated. See: http://archives.huntingtonnews.net/local/100721-rutherford-localexposure.html
CONCLUSION
When the City of Huntington received a letter stating that the former uranium/nickel processing site was safe for all uses, it was BEFORE the articles were published concerning uranium on structural members and uranium reacting to concrete. To our knowledge, through informal inquiries, no radiological tests have been done or the former site and surrounding area since receipt of the 1994 letter. Since the majority of the atomic plant was entombed at a classified Piketon, Ohio, burial ground in 1979, can a reasonable person conclude that none of the recent studies of similar facilities and Dr. Muero’s underestimate dose conclusions merit another round of radiological tests in Huntington?
Editor’s Note: The journal article in 2006 quoted is from the Journal of Electron Spectroscopy & Related Phenomena 150 (2006) 185-194. The article’s title’s title is: Complementary spectroscopic techniques to model the association of contaminant uranium with structural surfaces by Gary P. Halada.)
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RECONSIDERING URANIUM: Scientific Testing Has Advanced Since Huntington Site of Former Uranium and Nickel Atomic Plant Was Evaluated
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) - Most scientific studies have examined the environmental consequences of uranium enrichment and/or processing during the Cold War through effects on soil and water. A scientific journal in 2006 published an analysis that considered appropriate standards for residual contamination upon structural materials, particularly steel and concrete.
By the time this study was published ,. The Department of Energy had determined in 1978 that “cold shut down” status was a too hazardous state for the Huntington nickel and uranium processing /recycling plant, which rested several acres of industrial plant property. Thus, by the time the 2006 study was published, the 79 trainloads of debris from Huntington’s contaminated nickel and uranium processing plant had been buried in Piketon, Ohio at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant for about 17 years
When it stood in Huntington, the classified Huntington Pilot Plant/ Reduction Pilot Plant (HPP/RPP) was a four to five story rusty looking brick and steel structure appeared non-descript to onlookers.
HNN spoke with a retiree from INCO who worked in and around the atomic plant. He described the beginning and end of a working day at the Huntington Pilot Plant: “You went in one gate and out that same gate. It had a guard on. When you did your shift, the clothes you had on, you left them there. You took a shower.”
His memory comes from the cold shut down period, which was in 1962-1963, after it stopped processing and recycling nickel which came from barriers at the three atomic weapons gaseous diffusion plants in Oak Ridge, Paducah, and Piketon.
“I went in there [at a time when] the showers were still there, the pumps, the whole department was still there,” he said, adding, “I have been up there hundreds of times.”
He did have friends who worked at the atomic plant when it was active. “ A lot of guys who worked there died of leukemia,” the retiree said.
Just as the USA Today article (“Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places” 2000-2001) stated regarding other “secret” atomic energy plants, questions about the manufacturing at these site arose, as this retiree stated, “when people started dying.”
Although he considers the site safe today, the retiree said he would not fish or swim in the Guyandotte River which runs past the former site. “No fishing or nothing,” the retiree stated.
The former worker believes that the contamination had been contained to the site itself. Still, he spoke of the “hauling of sludge with nickel in it” three times a day to the landfill. He has also spoken to people who remember , in his words, neighborhood cars covered in the mornings with “real fine dust, like black coal dust.”
However, the scientific journal article demonstrated (at a minimum) that removal and burial of the facility was , at least in part, a good call by removing the classified contaminants from our city.
HUNTINGTON EVALUATED 1979, 1980 & 1987, RELEASED 1994
Despite placing the location of the former Huntington Pilot Plant site on an “unrestricted release” in 1979, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) requested radiological studies and further investigation of the Huntington site on which the plant had operated. A radiological study conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratories in August 1980 showed “several locations of residual uranium in surface soil and elevated gamma radiation in the remains of an elevator shaft and inside the compression building. High concentrations of nickel were noted in some surface soil samples.”
ORNL asked for the follow up study which was done November 17-19 and December 3, 1980 at the facility. The report found:
Exterior locations tested for gamma radiation were not elevated with the exception of three “spots near the edge of the loading pad, and a small area on the outside east wall of the compressor building.”
Maximum levels were 33 u R/hr, 45 u R/hr and 18 uR/HR. Debris from the elevator shaft removed with a backhoe had a maximum reading of 22 u R/hr. “A sample of debris had concentrations of 238U, 235U and 226 Ra, slightly above the baseline ranges.”
An area of “elevated ground surface radiation near the concrete pad is believed to be contamination originating from equipment stored in this location during the 1978-79 demolition activities, the report said. The elevated region then measured up to 25 uR/hr in excavated; gravel under concrete pad 2.5 pCi/gm of radium 226.
For instance, one surface soil sample from a river flood plain about 1.5 km from the plant site contained 1.3 x 1o4 ppm --- substantially higher than many on-site samples. “This suggests that general nickel contamination of surface soil may exist throughout this area as a result of past International Nickel Company operations.”
1994 RADIOLOGICAL SURVEY
In December 1994, DOE performed a radiological survey at the former Reduction Pilot Plant site, and sent a letter to then Huntington Mayor Jean Dean stating, “ we are pleased t,o reaffirm our determination that conditions at this site meet applicable requirements for protection of public health, safety' and the. environment. We have concluded that additional investigations of this site are unnecessary.”
1996 DOE TAKING STOCK REPORT
The 1996 DOE report: -A Report of the Materials in Inventory Initiative. Taking Stock: A Look at the Opportunities and Challenges Posed by Inventories from the Cold War Era (1996 MIN for short) --- lists an approximate breakdown of current inventory of contaminated (and non-contaminated) scrap metals at various sites, including carbon steel, stainless steel, nickel, aluminum, copper, brass, tin and iron .
Gary P. Halada in his 2006 Journal of Electron Spectroscopy article analyzed that the report suggested that about 80% of the contaminated scrap metal was carbon steel.
“This would not be surprising, since structural steel (primarily, carbon steel) represents a large proportion of the building at former processing sites, which has included more than 120 million square feet of building structures, large production reactors with associated support facilities, and eight chemical processing plants.”
The study revealed “information on the actual extent of surface contamination of structures in former weapons processing facilities is scarce pertaining to structural steel, exteriors of process equipment, and support buildings.”
Halada’s 2006 contaminant uranium structural surfaces journal article added that at some locations “most of the substrate metals , including the valuable nickel barrier, have been disposed at the Envirocare of Utah.” However, uranium at some of the decontaminated and/or decommissioned sites “has been found as uranyl fluoride on surfaces where it has migrated into nickel diffusion barriers or into cracks in concrete.” This occurred at enrichment facilities or commercial UF6 processing facilities due to the exposure to a “strongly fluorinating atmosphere.”
The article found “uranium may become deposited in inaccessible locations such as within small diameter piping or tubing” and lead to “difficulties for decontamination.”
UNDER ESTIMATES
In our previously published article, Dr. John Muero, a radioactive materials contamination expert, told the NIOSH/CDC dosage estimate advisory panel in March 2010 that the data for Huntington May have been UNDER estimated. See: http://archives.huntingtonnews.net/local/100721-rutherford-localexposure.html
CONCLUSION
When the City of Huntington received a letter stating that the former uranium/nickel processing site was safe for all uses, it was BEFORE the articles were published concerning uranium on structural members and uranium reacting to concrete. To our knowledge, through informal inquiries, no radiological tests have been done or the former site and surrounding area since receipt of the 1994 letter. Since the majority of the atomic plant was entombed at a classified Piketon, Ohio, burial ground in 1979, can a reasonable person conclude that none of the recent studies of similar facilities and Dr. Muero’s underestimate dose conclusions merit another round of radiological tests in Huntington?
Editor’s Note: The journal article in 2006 quoted is from the Journal of Electron Spectroscopy & Related Phenomena 150 (2006) 185-194. The article’s title’s title is: Complementary spectroscopic techniques to model the association of contaminant uranium with structural surfaces by Gary P. Halada.)
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