[NukeNet] Radioactive Contamination by KAPL of Hudson and Mohawk Rivers

[The Roy Process]

Spread this far and wide. The DOE, Navy, NY State Department of Health, and the NY State Department of Environmental Conservative have been sitting on this for over fifty years.
Jack Shannon

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                                                              Daily Gazette  
                                                             March 11, 2007


                                                     River spreads contamination
                       Study claims KAPL waste carried more than 120 miles downstream

                                             Author(s): MICHAEL LAMENDOLA 

                           Gazette Reporter Date: March 11, 2007 Section: A: Front 

A new scientific study shows that some plutonium and other radioactive metals released decades ago by Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory into the Mohawk River have traveled hundreds of miles downstream and have not remained locked in river sediment near the facility. The soon-to-be-published study is the first to look beyond existing studies of the contamination generated specifically by KAPL and confirm that the downstream radioactive contamination is from KAPL. 

The study found small amounts of plutonium-239, plutonium-240 and cesium-137, attributed to activities at KAPL, more than 124 miles away, a result of sediment transport processes. 
Although toxic and known to cause cancer, the plutonium and cesium in the river sediment pose no health hazards to humans and the environment due to their low levels of concentration, said state, federal and local officials. 

If left buried in the sediment, however, the long half-lives of Pu-239 and Pu-240 ensure that it will take at a minimum of tens of thousands of years to disintegrate completely by radioactive decay. Cs-137, on the other hand, has a much shorter half-life and does not pose such a long-term problem. 

"The Mohawk River delivers about two-thirds of the sediment to the Hudson River Estuary. It's not surprising that some of the sediments contaminated by activities at KAPL get deposited and removed, deposited and removed. They can get resuspended with flooding events," said Timothy Kenna, the study's lead author. 

Kenna is an associate research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in Palisades. Two of the seven authors are professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. 

The study ruled out the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in Buchanan, Westchester County, as a source for the plutonium. Indian Point is the only other site in the Hudson River basin associated with nuclear materials.

"There are two sources of plutonium in the river: fallout and this other source," Kenna said. 
Understanding process 

The scientific study is titled: "Sources of nuclear contamination in Hudson River sediments as revealed by plutonium, neptunium, and cesium isotope" and was funded under a $150,000 grant from the Hudson River Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit organization that funds scientific research on the river through an endowment. 
Kenna plans to submit his study for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. He said the study's purpose was to "understand the process of sediment transport in the Mohawk River. That's an open research question about how sediment moves." 

Dennis Suszkowski, science director for the Hudson River Foundation, said, "Our interest was originally to figure out where sediments were coming from. We are looking at how sediments and water contaminants move through the system. What we are finding is not just plutonium but PCBs move great distances through these river systems." 

The study examined five sediment core samples collected in 1993 by the state and federal governments and used Pu-239, Pu-240 and Cs-137 to track sediment transport. They are ideal because Pu-239 and Pu-240 adhere tightly to soil particles and sediments and can be traced by their unique radioactive signatures, according to Kenna. By studying areas where sediments accumulate, scientists can obtain a history of contamination. 

The study compared isotopic ratios in the sediment to identify and resolve different sources of non-fallout contamination, Kenna said. 

"Ratios tell you the source of nuclear contamination. Global fallout was deposited worldwide in a homogenized manner, so it has one type of signature. These others sources have different signatures, which have been categorized," Kenna said. 

He said Mohawk River sediments downstream of KAPL show signatures of Pu-239, Pu-240 and Cs-137 that are seven to 20 times higher than levels expected from global fallout in Northeastern soils. The data indicate these metals were not deposited in the Mohawk River sediment through atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. 

"The elevated levels, the non-fallout isotopic signatures and the core locations are all consistent with KAPL being a source of plutonium and cesium isotopes," Kenna said. 
Pu-239, Pu-240 and Cs-137 do not occur naturally and are products of nuclear reactions. They also are present in spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive wastes resulting from the processing of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive wastes associated with the operation of reactors, fuel-processing plants and weapons-production plants. 
Spurring debate 

The new study should renew debate about the nature and amount of nuclear contamination in the river, local environmental advocates said. 

Indeed, the federal Department of Energy announced two weeks ago that it will review Mohawk River surveys of sediment and biological sampling KAPL performed in 1981, 1992 and 2002 dealing with nuclear contamination. 

"The DOE's Environmental Management Program is reviewing available data -- principally the three reports noted -- to familiarize ourselves and determine that the conclusions remain sound," said DOE spokeswoman Anne Wickham. 

KAPL has long acknowledged it released 153 curies of liquid radioactive waste into the Mohawk River between 1955 and 1964, although some critics allege the amount is higher. A curie is approximately the amount of radioactivity emitted by one gram of radium-226, or 37,000,000,000 disintegrations per second. 

The waste was generated by the Separations Process Research Unit, an experimental nuclear weapons processing plant that General Electric Co. operated under contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission between 1950 and 1954. SPRU was decommissioned in 1954; Lockheed Martin Co. now owns KAPL. 

KAPL still discharges radioactive material into the river, but the amount is minuscule and in full compliance with federal Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency standards, according to KAPL officials. 

KAPL has conducted extensive sediment and biological sampling on the Mohawk River in the vicinity of the facility every 10 years between 1981 and 2002. The reports are available to the public. 

The most recent KAPL report in 2002 found the majority of radioactive contamination from the SPRU era remains confined to sediment along the south side of the Mohawk River within 1,000 feet of the Niskayuna facility. 

According to the 2002 KAPL study, "Elevated concentrations were also detectable further down river; however the concentrations were lower and the radioactivity was located even deeper into the sediment," indicating it was being buried. 

What if .. 

The 2002 report discussed a what-if scenario involving the scouring away of all radioactive material above Lock 7 during a three-month period by spring floods and ice flows. It said even if this were to happen, the amount of radioactivity released would still fall far below danger levels. 

That study did not look at areas beyond 8 miles from KAPL for radioactive material, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation relied on KAPL data for its own determination that the radioactivity does not pose a serious health hazard. 
Claire Pospisil of the state Department of Health said the sediment "in its present state does not present an immediate threat to human health." 

She said a DOH review of core sediments provided by KAPL shows that "the plutonium is contained in the sediment and has not changed significantly over the years. Fish and other biological sampling show no detectable radioactivity. We also conduct radiological samples of water samples near the inlet to the Latham water district and have found no unusual results." 

The DOE decision to examine the studies was prompted by public comments in January about DOE's proposed $217 million cleanup of three areas on KAPL grounds contaminated by radioactive materials and chemicals from SPRU. Some at the public hearing said the DOE is not going far enough to clean up KAPL and the river, a former dumping ground for KAPL nuclear wastes. 

Unfettered dumping 

A once-classified 1959 report by General Electric, titled "Evaluation of potential hazards associated with the release of laboratory waste into the Mohawk River," showed that SPRU was capable of generating 3,000 gallons of radioactive waste per day. 

The report contains a chart indicating that SPRU was discharging more than 1,000 mico-curies and up to nearly 10,000 mico-curies of gamma-emitting waste per quarter between 1951 and 1953 and up to 100,000 mico-curies during 1954. This type of waste could represent strontium, cesium and cobalt. 

At the same time, SPRU was discharging 10 micro-curies of alpha particle-emitting waste, such as plutonium, between 1951 to 1954 and up to 500 mico-curies in late 1954. A mico-curie is a unit of radioactivity equal to one millionth of a curie.

At the time, SPRU officials, backed by federal, state and local advisory boards, believed the river would dilute and dissipate the radioactivity to harmless levels. 

At some point in the 1950s, KAPL officials realized that radioactive metals, principally Cs-137, were building up in the sediment, according to a 1970 KAPL report on radioactive contamination of river sediment. This report makes no mention of plutonium, but a 1995 report analyzed core samples for plutonium, determining they were below concentrations that would be environmentally harmful. 

In 1963, KAPL was ordered by the Navy to comply with federal regulations dealing with the discharge of radioactive material in populated areas, according to a KAPL memo dated June 27, 1963. KAPL at the time was working with the Navy to develop power reactors for ships and submarines 

>From this point until 1969, KAPL discharged less than 1 curie per year into the river. During the period 1955 to 1969, KAPL discharged a total of 150.871 curies into the river, according to the 1970 report. 

Suspect data 

A gram of radioactive material, equivalent to a curie, may appear harmless, but it is not, according to Glenn Paulson, associate dean for research with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Public Health. 

Paulson has researched hazardous and radioactive materials and wastes and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee to review worker and public health activities programs administered by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

"You wouldn't want to hold a curie of anything in your hand; it would burn your hand," he said. 

Paulson said he would view as suspect data collected in the early KAPL reports, specifically in the 1950s. "The measurements years ago were poor, and wastes were not measured accurately," he said. 

He said the most accurately kept measurements would have dealt with SPRU's plutonium production. "That is what they were after, and they wouldn't want to waste it," Paulson said. "They would keep records to see if they were getting every last ounce they could." 

Plutonium production was a multimillion-dollar enterprise for the government, involving a huge investment in personnel and material. Plutonium was needed for bombs, and a "nice amount was 7 1/2 pounds," Paulson said. 

To generate that amount of plutonium would require tons of uranium. "Plutonium is man-made from uranium. You zap uranium with another source of radiation and turn it into plutonium. The rate of conversion is not very high," Paulson said. 
Cross-country disposal 

The government in the 1950s used nuclear reactors at Hanford in Benton, Wash., to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. The reactors would create a solid lump of uranium and plutonium sodium, which had to be separated. The lump was sent to SPRU, which was testing a new chemical extraction process. 

The irradiated fuel was placed into one of five, 25-foot-tall hot cells lined with stainless steel. The cells were located in an underground building called G2 on the Knolls campus. 
Acid inside the tanks would dissolve the plutonium and leave behind uranium and other byproducts. Scientists would treat the liquid and extract plutonium, Paulson said. 

"The acid treatment won't give you 100 percent perfect separation; you could get 99.99999 percent, but you would have a smidge of plutonium left in the liquid layer," which would end up in the river, he said. 

Other byproducts of the acid treatment were Cs-137, strontium and cobalt-60. 
The waste was pumped into seven large stainless steel tanks located within underground concrete vaults in Building H, adjacent to G2. The waste was not treated but did undergo evaporation. After a point, it would be mixed with waste from KAPL's laundry facility and then discharged into a storm sewer that emptied into the river. 

KAPL later put the waste in barrels and stored it on-site or sent it elsewhere. 
Leftover contamination 

When the Atomic Energy Commission closed SPRU in the mid-1950s, it removed most but not all of the radioactive material. Approximately 300 cubic feet of semisolid radioactive sludge remains in several stainless steel tanks, including cesium and strontium and a small amount of plutonium. Radioisotopes also contaminated the walls, floors and equipment within most of H2 and portions of G2, an adjacent three-story, 22,000-square-foot building. G2 contains higher levels of radiation than H2. 

In 1990, the DOE began ongoing radiological surveillance of the former SPRU buildings. The contaminated areas are sealed and monitored. Water that percolates up through the ground near the buildings is collected and treated. KAPL workers are not exposed to radiation. 

In 1999, Lockheed-Martin told the Department of Energy it no longer had any use for the buildings. It had been using portions of G2 as office space until 1999; it still uses portions of H2. 

Reach Gazette reporter Michael Lamendola at 395-3114 or lamend at dailygazette.com. 


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