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GOVERNMENT LAB WANTS TO TRIPLE SIZE OF TEST
BLASTS
USING DEPLETED URANIUM AND TRITIUM --
Government
says: "There's no danger to the public from
those tests."
Background on these tests here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfAPR07/nf042207-5.htm
Story here...
http://www.recordnet.
com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2
0070607/A_NEWS/706070329
Story below:
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Lab wants to triple blast size
Critics say that will complicate cleanup
efforts
By Jake Armstrong
Record Staff Writer
TRACY - The U.S. Department of Energy is accepting public opinion on a
proposal to continue cleansing toxic and cancer-causing chemicals from a
high-explosives test range southwest of Tracy.
Meanwhile, the range's operator is pursuing permission to triple the
size of blasts containing the very same radioactive compounds the plan
targets for removal.
Critics contend the bigger detonations will only complicate efforts to
remove the contaminants.
Lab and government representatives will discuss the proposed Site 300
cleanup plan and answer questions at 6 p.m. June 20 at the Tracy
Community Center, 300 E. 10th St., Tracy.
The public can review the plan at the Tracy Branch Library, 20 E. Eaton
Ave., and comment on the plan through June 25.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which runs explosives tests on
the Department of Energy-owned land known as Site 300, has applied with
air quality regulators to more than triple to 350 pounds the amount of
explosives used in detonations on the land. Those detonations will
include depleted uranium and tritium, two radioactive compounds that the
U.S. Department of Energy has paid roughly $100 million over 10 years to
have the lab remove from the soil.
"Any activity that could increase the contamination should not be
undertaken," said Marylia Kelley, executive director of laboratory
watchdog group Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment.
Disposal of waste from bigger blasts will follow state and federal
environmental laws, said Lauren Martinez, spokeswoman for the National
Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department.
"We know experiments are designed with a much better understanding of
environmental protection and safety to ensure that any future harmful
release does not occur," Martinez said.
Experts have said existing natural radiation levels can cause cancer.
Kelley said that doesn't justify adding to radiation levels.
Martinez added particle emissions from the tests, some of it
radioactive, will be well below standards established by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
"There's no danger to the public from those tests," Martinez said.
Site 300 doesn't present a health hazard to residents near the site,
since the contaminants are contained to the site, the proposed plan
states.
Noting that the cleanup has made gains since it began in 1982, the plan
leaves unchanged or reduces work at most areas polluted with solvents,
high explosives, tritium and depleted uranium, nitrate and other toxins.
Methods to treat perchlorate, a chemical used in high explosives and
solid-fuel rockets and recently discovered in groundwater there, would
be the subject of a study under the proposed plan.
One formerly polluted area would be reopened to lab workers since
chemical hazards to humans and animals have been removed, the plan
purports. A final decision on the plan is not expected until 2008.
Pollution at Site 300 dates back decades.
The U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the nation's nuclear
weapons program, began experiments in 1955 at Site 300, a former cattle
grazing area. Spills on the surface, disposal of waste in unlined pits
and explosions released radioactive and potentially cancer-causing
contaminants into the environment at site.
The cleanup began in 1982, and eight years later, the test range was
added to the Superfund list as one of the nation's most polluted sites.
The cleanup has cost about $10 million per year since 1997, Martinez
said. That cost is expected to fall to roughly $8 million around 2013,
when some polluted areas reach environmental quality standards, she
said. It is not yet known when the cleanup will be complete.
Contact reporter Jake Armstrong at (209) 239-3368 or
jarmstrong@recordnet.com.
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Larry Scott --
