June 16, 2005
By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Radioactive dust in a Tri-Cities attic and plutonium-tainted clams in the Columbia River are red flags signaling that contamination from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in the environment and moving into the food chain, a watchdog group says.
After finding radiation in river mud, mulberry bushes and deer and mouse scat, the Government Accountability Project says better testing is needed to determine how widespread the potentially dangerous material is and where it's going.
The Seattle-based non-profit group, which is releasing its findings today, says it has measured radiation in lichen that is twice as high as previously believed.
"It's not just staying in place," said Tom Carpenter, director of the group's nuclear oversight campaign. "It's getting to areas where there are people."
The U.S. Department of Energy spends $2.8 million a year monitoring radiation in water, soil, plants and animals on and around the multibillion-dollar Hanford cleanup project.
DOE officials and their contractors said the watchdog group's results were not surprising and that they encourage outside scrutiny.
"The levels that they're dealing with really aren't out of line with what we've been dealing with for years," said Ted Poston, an environmental manager with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the company tracking environmental pollution for DOE.
"The Department of Energy encourages environmental groups ... to do independent sampling and take us to task," said Dana Ward, DOE project manager for the public safety and resource-protection program.
Ward and Poston said they needed more time to carefully review the report to determine its validity. Regardless, the government is protecting the public through its monitoring, Ward said.
Key findings from the GAP report include finding traces of plutonium in pike minnows and clams pulled from the Columbia near Hanford, in south-central Washington. Tests are still being performed on a sturgeon recently caught offshore. Other specimens analyzed in the $50,000 study were collected last year.
Contamination was also found upstream of Hanford, leading to speculation that fish could be spreading the radioactivity, though there could also be non-Hanford sources for the contamination.
Land across the river from the cleanup is part of the Hanford Reach National Monument and accessible to the public. The segment of river wrapping around Hanford is renowned as part of the last free-flowing stretch of the extensively dammed river.
"People are out there fishing and eating the fish," Carpenter said. If the government is finding plutonium in the pike minnow and clams, "they sure haven't reported it."
It's well known that radioactive material escaped from Hanford, home of the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor and source of atomic bomb fuel. Since its creation during World War II, billions of gallons of waste were dumped into the soil and radiation released into the air.
Back in the 1960s -- Hanford's heyday -- radiation from the site was measured as far as the coasts of California and Canada, said Dirk Dunning, a Hanford nuclear specialist with the Oregon Department of Energy. "Was there stuff released? Unquestionably," he said.
Government officials know that radioactive groundwater is still flowing to the river tainted with radiation. It's still in the soil at the 586-square-mile reservation and has been detected in tumbleweeds that roll across the desert site.
What concerns Carpenter is the presence of the radioactive and other dangerous chemicals moving from the soil and water and into plants and animals offsite that can spread the contamination, increasing the risk of exposure for people.
None of the radiation detected presented an immediate risk to human health, according to the report.
Even so, the results worry Tim Jarvis, a former toxicologist with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Jarvis, who reviewed the report, said the detection of radiation in the attic dust of a Richland home was "shocking."
"I'm sitting here in Richland. I've got a 25-year-old home," Jarvis said. "I don't know how much radiation's in my attic."
The researchers did not determine what type of radiation was in the attic, but know it's not plutonium and does not pose a risk to people living there.
Dunning said that he had not studied the report. Other researchers with his department had read an earlier draft and noted in a written response concerns with its limited scope. The response stated that it "lacks scientific rigor."
Carpenter and Marco Kaltofen, president of Boston Chemical Data Corp., which did the sampling for the report, agree that their research is not definitive.
They want more testing done, preferably by an independent source outside of DOE or their contractor. Federal officials said they'd be willing to discuss the research with the watchdog group.
A better assessment of regional contamination is essential, critics said, if the cleanup -- which could cost $60 billion and continue until 2035 -- is going to be successful.
"This study says, 'We're a third party. We're citizens. And where we look, we find (radioactivity).' " Jarvis said. "So DOE, where in the hell did it go? How much, and where is it?
"If DOE knows it has escaped, why isn't it out getting it?" he asked. "It's their job."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228573_hanford15.html