Aug. 18, 2010
PART ONE OF A SERIES: What Lies Buried Not Far from Morehead, Ky.?
4.8 Million Curies of Mixed Fission Products
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Near Morehead, KY (HNN) – A classic television series hyped the beauty of rural areas and the stereotypical low education levels of those residing there. Before, during and after the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic weapon that ended the Second World War, the ideal venue for nuclear fuel processing and development plans were away from populated areas.
Maxey Flats Nuclear Disposal is located nine miles from Morehead, Ky. Occupying 45-acreas, the area is designated as “restricted.” About 4.8 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste is buried there. About 27 areas of the Restricted Area have been used for 52 disposal trenches. The area contains storage and warehouse buildings, liquid storage tank buildings, gravel driveways and parking. There is a polyvinylchloride (PVC) cover over the trench area.
The area is remote. About 152 persons live within one mile of the disposal facility. Rural in character due to topographic restrictions that limit access, the closest major cities are Lexington to the west and Huntington, WV to the east. Both cities are about 65 miles from the Maxey Flats Disposal Site (MFDS).
As the Cold War ended, the need for waste disposal continued. Guess where scientists and government officials chose to discard “hot” reactor waste? In rural areas where it could be buried and forgotten. Cutting away all the inter-agency and extinct agency acronyms, the Atomic Energy Commission in 1962 retained authority to license the burial of waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
The first radioactive material was disposed at the Maxey Flats Disposal Site in May 1963. From May 1963 to December 1977, NECO managed and operated the disposal of an estimated 4,750,000 cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at the MFDS.
In order to protect public health and the environment from exposure, low level radioactive waste must be isolated during the time that its radioactivity is decaying. To achieve this isolation at the MFDS, low level radioactive waste was disposed at the site using shallow land burial. The waste was disposed of in 46 large, unlined trenches (some up to 680 feet long, 70 feet wide and 30 feet deep) which cover approximately 27 acres of land within a 45-acre fenced portion of the site known as the Restricted Area. However, "hot wells" were also used at the MFDS for the burial of small-volume wastes with high specific activity. Most of the "hot wells" are 10 to 15 feet deep, constructed of concrete, coated steel pipe or tile, and capped with a large slab of concrete.
Buried and forgotten. A nuclear perpetual care cemetery?
Unfortunately, environmental monitoring in 1972 revealed radionuclides (radioactive chemicals) from the restricted area were seeping out of the trenches through water. By 1974, tritium and other radioactive contaminants were flowing into unrestricted areas. By 1977, environmental studies showed that leachate was migrating through the subsurface geology (25 feet underground).
The site was closed to further burial of radioactive waste.
From 1973-1986 an evaporator managed some 6,000,000 gallons of liquids. The concentrates left behind were stored in on-site above-ground tanks. By 1986, MFDS was placed on the National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites for clean up under the Superfund program.
CRITICAL
By November 1988, EPA had found an “imminent threat to public health, welfare and the environment” from the “potential release of liquids store in the on-site storage tanks.” In the words of a report from 1988, “the threat arose from the presence of eleven 20,000 gallon tanks in the tank farm building that had been present on-site for 10 to 15 years and … the structural integrity of the filled to capacity tanks posed an immediate threat…”
SCORECARD
Although we will continue the cleanup story in a future issue, you can click on a PDF download to see what chemicals were found in ten miles from Morehead --- Plutonium 238 and Plutonium 239 --- had flowed into both ground and surface water. Toluene was in the air. Listed as a “carcinogen,” the latest EPA findings on it state: Information on whether basic tests to identify chemical hazards have been conducted on this chemical is NOT available in US EPA’s 1998 hazard data availability study.
CLICK to download PDF of contaminants that were at Maxey Flats, Ky.
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PART ONE OF A SERIES: What Lies Buried Not Far from Morehead, Ky.?
4.8 Million Curies of Mixed Fission Products
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Near Morehead, KY (HNN) – A classic television series hyped the beauty of rural areas and the stereotypical low education levels of those residing there. Before, during and after the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic weapon that ended the Second World War, the ideal venue for nuclear fuel processing and development plans were away from populated areas.
Maxey Flats Nuclear Disposal is located nine miles from Morehead, Ky. Occupying 45-acreas, the area is designated as “restricted.” About 4.8 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste is buried there. About 27 areas of the Restricted Area have been used for 52 disposal trenches. The area contains storage and warehouse buildings, liquid storage tank buildings, gravel driveways and parking. There is a polyvinylchloride (PVC) cover over the trench area.
The area is remote. About 152 persons live within one mile of the disposal facility. Rural in character due to topographic restrictions that limit access, the closest major cities are Lexington to the west and Huntington, WV to the east. Both cities are about 65 miles from the Maxey Flats Disposal Site (MFDS).
As the Cold War ended, the need for waste disposal continued. Guess where scientists and government officials chose to discard “hot” reactor waste? In rural areas where it could be buried and forgotten. Cutting away all the inter-agency and extinct agency acronyms, the Atomic Energy Commission in 1962 retained authority to license the burial of waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
The first radioactive material was disposed at the Maxey Flats Disposal Site in May 1963. From May 1963 to December 1977, NECO managed and operated the disposal of an estimated 4,750,000 cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at the MFDS.
In order to protect public health and the environment from exposure, low level radioactive waste must be isolated during the time that its radioactivity is decaying. To achieve this isolation at the MFDS, low level radioactive waste was disposed at the site using shallow land burial. The waste was disposed of in 46 large, unlined trenches (some up to 680 feet long, 70 feet wide and 30 feet deep) which cover approximately 27 acres of land within a 45-acre fenced portion of the site known as the Restricted Area. However, "hot wells" were also used at the MFDS for the burial of small-volume wastes with high specific activity. Most of the "hot wells" are 10 to 15 feet deep, constructed of concrete, coated steel pipe or tile, and capped with a large slab of concrete.
Buried and forgotten. A nuclear perpetual care cemetery?
Unfortunately, environmental monitoring in 1972 revealed radionuclides (radioactive chemicals) from the restricted area were seeping out of the trenches through water. By 1974, tritium and other radioactive contaminants were flowing into unrestricted areas. By 1977, environmental studies showed that leachate was migrating through the subsurface geology (25 feet underground).
The site was closed to further burial of radioactive waste.
From 1973-1986 an evaporator managed some 6,000,000 gallons of liquids. The concentrates left behind were stored in on-site above-ground tanks. By 1986, MFDS was placed on the National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites for clean up under the Superfund program.
CRITICAL
By November 1988, EPA had found an “imminent threat to public health, welfare and the environment” from the “potential release of liquids store in the on-site storage tanks.” In the words of a report from 1988, “the threat arose from the presence of eleven 20,000 gallon tanks in the tank farm building that had been present on-site for 10 to 15 years and … the structural integrity of the filled to capacity tanks posed an immediate threat…”
SCORECARD
Although we will continue the cleanup story in a future issue, you can click on a PDF download to see what chemicals were found in ten miles from Morehead --- Plutonium 238 and Plutonium 239 --- had flowed into both ground and surface water. Toluene was in the air. Listed as a “carcinogen,” the latest EPA findings on it state: Information on whether basic tests to identify chemical hazards have been conducted on this chemical is NOT available in US EPA’s 1998 hazard data availability study.
CLICK to download PDF of contaminants that were at Maxey Flats, Ky.
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
