Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER)

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  Shifting Radioactivity Risks: A Case Study of the K-65 Silos and Silo 3 Remediation and Waste Management at the Fernald Nuclear Weapons Site

  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), Annie Makhijani, and Arjun Makhijani

  The Feed Materials Production Center near Cincinnati, Ohio, often called the Fernald Plant or simply Fernald, was the largest producer of uranium metal for the nuclear weapons complex during the Cold War. Its processes for uranium production ranged from ore processing, to conversion of uranium into various chemical forms, to scrap recovery, to machining of uranium metal. Fernald also processed thorium-232, but in much smaller amounts.

  A large volume of radioactive waste was created at Fernald. Fernald also received radioactive wastes dating from the World War II Manhattan Project, which created the bombs that were used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These wastes resulted from the processing of very high grade uranium ore from the Belgian Congo, called pitchblende, at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri. Fernald also processed some Belgian Congo pitchblende. Since pitchblende had very high uranium content, it also had a high concentration of the decay products of uranium-238 and uranium-235. The decay products include thorium-230 and radium-226 from the U-238 decay-chain and protactinium-231 and actinium-227 from the U-235 decay chain. Some other high grade ores were also processed at Fernald.

  The wastes from processing of high grade ores were called K-65 residues and were stored in two silos at Fernald, called Silos 1 and 2. These silos contained most of the radioactivity in the waste at Fernald, at concentrations that far exceed those found at mill tailings sites across the United States.'The waste from processing uranium ore concentrates was known as “cold metal oxide” waste. It was relatively low in radium-226 but had high thorium-230 content. It was stored in Silo 3.

  The wastes in these three silos are very long-lived (thorium-230 has a half life of about 75,000 years). Given the high concentration of thorium-230 in all three silos, as well as the large volume of the wastes, the wastes presented rather unique challenges for processing and off site disposal as well as for the long-term stewardship of the disposal sites.

  This report provides a case study of the emptying of the K-65 silos of their waste, the processing of those wastes for long-term storage or disposal, and the long-term radiological consequences of how the Department of Energy (DOE) has approached those responsibilities.

  This research was completed money allocated during Round 5 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works.

  If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at digitalrepository@clarku.edu

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  Dangerous Discrepancies: Missing Weapons Plutonium in Los Alamos National Laboratory Waste Accounts

  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), Arjun Makhijani, and Brice Smith

  Main findings

  1. There are major discrepancies in the materials accounts for weapons plutonium in Los Alamos Waste. An analysis of official data indicates that the unaccounted for plutonium amounts to about 300 kilograms.1 This estimate takes into account all sources of data for plutonium discharged into waste streams (stored, shallow burial, soil, intermediate depth) as well as the hydronuclear tests that were conducted at the Los Alamos site in 1960-61. Plutonium accounting data in the safeguards account (the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS)) show that discharges from processing areas to waste were particularly high in the 1980s. We have not been able to discover the reason for these high losses to the waste but have provided some indications of possible explanations.

  2. If much or most of the unaccounted for plutonium was disposed of as buried low-level waste and buried transuranic waste on site at Los Alamos, the long term radiation doses would far exceed any allowable limits. Remediation would be necessary but would be very complex due to the unknown disposal patterns. Further, in that case the NMMSS plutonium account would be wrong, since it shows less than 50 kilograms of waste before 1980, the period that accounts for almost all the documented buried waste containing significant amounts of plutonium.

  3. It is possible that significantly more plutonium is going to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) than indicated by DOE documentation. If so, this has major implications for the oversight of the operations of WIPP. The IEER review of waste characterization documents prepared for the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office in 1998 indicated many areas of missing and incomplete waste documentation. If the NMMSS account is deemed as correct in the annual reported totals of plutonium in waste, the possibility that WIPP accounts are incorrect appears to be significant. Over 90 percent of 610 kilograms of plutonium in waste in NMMSS is attributed to the 1980s and 1990s.

  4. Even if only a part of the unaccounted for plutonium is actually missing, this would have major security implications. As a reference point, North Korea’s entire stock of plutonium is only about 15 percent of our estimate for the plutonium unaccounted for at LANL.

  This research was completed money allocated during Round 5 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works.

  If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at digitalrepository@clarku.edu

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  The Environment Transport of Radium and Plutonium: A Review By Brice Smith and Alexandra Amonette

  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), Brice Smith, and Alexandra Amonette

  In this report we will provide a brief review of the environmental transport of two specific radionuclides. In Chapter Two we will consider the mobility of radium. This naturally occurring radionuclide is part of the uranium and thorium decay series, and is thus a potential concern in many areas where these elements have been mined or processed. In addition to the large number of sites with radium bearing waste, we chose to focus on this radionuclide in part due to the high concentrations of radium-226, and its thorium-230 parent, in the raffinate waste from the former Fernald Feed Material Production Plant in Ohio. In Chapter Three we will discuss the mobility of plutonium, and to some extent other transuranic elements. Contamination with these anthropogenic radionuclides has been discovered at a number of DOE sites and, due to the long half lives of many of these elements, they are a potential concern for long-term management.

  This research was completed money allocated during Round 5 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works.

  If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at digitalrepository@clarku.edu

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  Soil Cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory: Sediment Contamination in the South Fork of Acid Canyon

  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and Brice Smith

  Between 1944 and 1964, multiple liquid radioactive waste streams were released into the South Fork of Acid Canyon from Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 1944 to 1951, “untreated radioactive effluent from former Technical Area (TA) 1 was discharged into the head of the South Fork of Acid Canyon” and from 1951 to 1964 a “radioactive liquid waste treatment plant at former TA-45” discharged its effluent into the canyon. Today, this area is located within 1,000 feet of a residential neighborhood and less than a mile from a local high-school.1 We chose to examine the remediation of Acid Canyon because; (1) it is a site that is already accessible to the general public, (2) it has already had remediation efforts undertaken based, in part, on analyses conducted by DOE for site-specific exposure scenarios, and (3) it illustrates some of the general concerns that will arise at Los Alamos and other sites which have actinide contamination (uranium, plutonium, neptunium, americium, etc.) as the main driver of risk.

  This research was completed money allocated during Round 5 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works.

  If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at digitalrepository@clarku.edu