Aug. 19, 2010
NUCLEAR WASTE: Maxey Flats: First Won’t Stay Buried Lessons Learned at 70s Disposal Facility
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – The former Maxey Flats Disposal Site represents only one of many nuclear waste sites whose runoffs eventually flowed into the Ohio River. However, the concrete caps placed on the toxic nuclear waste has contained the leakage of radioactive contaminants.
At the site about ten miles from Morehead, Ky., disposal of contaminated nuclear materials in trenches proved problematic when surveys of offsite groundwater showed radioactive chemicals in the stream. Maxey Flats represents one of six low-level radioactive waste sites licensed in the 1960’s and 70’s. Of those site, three were shut down.
“Maxey Flats Nuclear Disposal Site Contamination Reasons Impacts & Hazards” by Dr. Ahmad Zargari stated that radioactive tritium began “migrating outside of the restricted area… through fractures and bedding planes within bedrock underlying the site.”
The paper concluded the Kentucky site was poorly planned, poorly managed and , finally, was poorly regulated by the government. The flowing of radioactive materials off site came from a so-called “bathtub” effect. Due to poor planning, water flowed into disposal trenches faster than it could be leached into surrounding soil and then the trench filled with water contaminated with radionuclides from the waste materials. “Once the trench is full the water overflows and the radionuclides are carried into the surrounding soil and local water sources.”
Plutonium 239 was one of the waste material stored at Maxey Flats and detected “outside the facility in the surrounding soils.” Plutonium 239 was one of the elements found in contaminants at the Huntington nuclear weapons material processing plant (Huntington Pilot Plant), which was demolished and buried in trenches in Piketon, Ohio, at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Unfortunately, the disposal site is on a ridge 300 feet above stream valleys where rainwater runoff goes first into Rock Lick Creek and eventually the Licking River. These Licking River tributaries feed into the Ohio River.
Since Maxey Flats was established in 1963 before current environmental and regulatory programs originated, the site became one in which active maintenance and remedial activity as contaminants did not stay on site. Due to the nature of disposal at the time, some waste delivered in cardboard and fiberboard boxes for burial and the shallow trenches and covers “did little to prevent surface and groundwater” from intruding the radionuclide packages. (Now, such materials would be first encase in concrete per federal guidelines.)
In addition to the trenches for Low Level Radioactive Waste there were “Hot Wells” that were used to store Special nuclear material (plutonium and enriched uranium). The Hot Wells were typically 10 to 15 feet (4.6 m) deep, constructed of concrete, coated steel pipe or tile, and capped with a slab of concrete. Approximately 950 pounds of Special Nuclear Material is buried at Maxey Flat. (www.articlefield.com, July 31, 2010)
Due to the possible future inappropriate uses of the property, deeds for the Maxey Flats site prohibit groundwater use or any use that could disturb the integrity of the erosion control basins.
Here is the EPA gateway on Maxey Flats: http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/npl/nplky/maxfltky.htm
Of course, the rural Maxey Flats does not represent the only mistake in waste. For instance, St. Louis had Cold War plants such as Huntington and Portsmouth. Most have been cleaned, but the North County dump has been ignored.
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NUCLEAR WASTE: Maxey Flats: First Won’t Stay Buried Lessons Learned at 70s Disposal Facility
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – The former Maxey Flats Disposal Site represents only one of many nuclear waste sites whose runoffs eventually flowed into the Ohio River. However, the concrete caps placed on the toxic nuclear waste has contained the leakage of radioactive contaminants.
At the site about ten miles from Morehead, Ky., disposal of contaminated nuclear materials in trenches proved problematic when surveys of offsite groundwater showed radioactive chemicals in the stream. Maxey Flats represents one of six low-level radioactive waste sites licensed in the 1960’s and 70’s. Of those site, three were shut down.
“Maxey Flats Nuclear Disposal Site Contamination Reasons Impacts & Hazards” by Dr. Ahmad Zargari stated that radioactive tritium began “migrating outside of the restricted area… through fractures and bedding planes within bedrock underlying the site.”
The paper concluded the Kentucky site was poorly planned, poorly managed and , finally, was poorly regulated by the government. The flowing of radioactive materials off site came from a so-called “bathtub” effect. Due to poor planning, water flowed into disposal trenches faster than it could be leached into surrounding soil and then the trench filled with water contaminated with radionuclides from the waste materials. “Once the trench is full the water overflows and the radionuclides are carried into the surrounding soil and local water sources.”
Plutonium 239 was one of the waste material stored at Maxey Flats and detected “outside the facility in the surrounding soils.” Plutonium 239 was one of the elements found in contaminants at the Huntington nuclear weapons material processing plant (Huntington Pilot Plant), which was demolished and buried in trenches in Piketon, Ohio, at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Unfortunately, the disposal site is on a ridge 300 feet above stream valleys where rainwater runoff goes first into Rock Lick Creek and eventually the Licking River. These Licking River tributaries feed into the Ohio River.
Since Maxey Flats was established in 1963 before current environmental and regulatory programs originated, the site became one in which active maintenance and remedial activity as contaminants did not stay on site. Due to the nature of disposal at the time, some waste delivered in cardboard and fiberboard boxes for burial and the shallow trenches and covers “did little to prevent surface and groundwater” from intruding the radionuclide packages. (Now, such materials would be first encase in concrete per federal guidelines.)
In addition to the trenches for Low Level Radioactive Waste there were “Hot Wells” that were used to store Special nuclear material (plutonium and enriched uranium). The Hot Wells were typically 10 to 15 feet (4.6 m) deep, constructed of concrete, coated steel pipe or tile, and capped with a slab of concrete. Approximately 950 pounds of Special Nuclear Material is buried at Maxey Flat. (www.articlefield.com, July 31, 2010)
Due to the possible future inappropriate uses of the property, deeds for the Maxey Flats site prohibit groundwater use or any use that could disturb the integrity of the erosion control basins.
Here is the EPA gateway on Maxey Flats: http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/npl/nplky/maxfltky.htm
Of course, the rural Maxey Flats does not represent the only mistake in waste. For instance, St. Louis had Cold War plants such as Huntington and Portsmouth. Most have been cleaned, but the North County dump has been ignored.
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