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Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. The context: Characteristics of nuclear accidents-in-progress
3. Accidents having a world wide impact

A. Nuclear weapons test explosions
B. Chernobyl
C. Satellite accidents: SNAP 9A (1964)

4. Major accidents within the US
A. Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board overview
B. Rocky Flats, Colorado: ²³⁹Pu
C. Savannah River, South Carolina: liquid high-level waste
D. Hanford Reservation, Washington: liquid high-level waste
E. Oak Ridge Reservation
F. Idaho National Engineering Laboratory
G. Other Accidents-in-progress, Continental USA: to be posted
1. Fernald, Ohio (Feed Materials Production Center)
2. Los Alamos National Laboratory
5. Major accidents outside the US
A. Russian plume source points
B. Sellafield (United Kingdom)
C. Dounreay (Scotland)
6. Future nuclear accidents?

7. Nuclear accident updates

A. Tokai Uranium Processing Plant (Japan)
B.  Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Company

This section of RADNET is a brief summary of the principal source points of anthropogenic radioactivity and a supplemental guide to the labyrinth of nuclear information within RADNET. The biosphere is the site of several thousand nuclear accidents-in-progress ranging from small releases of a few curies to the uncontained release of tens of millions of curies or more of anthropogenic radioactivity at American, British, French and Russian weapons production and fuel reprocessing facilities. The following list of nuclear accidents-in-progress in this section of RADNET is only a sampling of some of the most important source points of radioactive contamination of the environment; this list is incomplete, in progress and subject to revision. It is not the intention of RADNET to slight the significance of Russian and European source points, many of which are not listed below, but our focus is on the most important domestic source points of anthropogenic radioactivity.

• For a direct link to the documentation of the 19 largest nuclear accidents-in-progress in the continental United States, click on the following link to FPIMS (Facility Profile Information Management System). This comprehensive DOE site documents or references the radioactive plumes originating from important weapons production facilities, many of which are listed in RADNET's compilation of accidents-in-progress as well as in RAD 11: Major Plume Source Points.
• For an update on the most urgent DOE facility safety issues, click on Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board. An overview of the DNFSB publications on these issues is printed below in Part 4-A.
• The most detailed descriptions of DOE environmental remediation site locations (109) is contained in the DOE's 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report (BEMR). RADNET refers to these facilities as "nuclear accidents-in-progress" to emphasize the past, present, and future radiological effluents which derive from these locations or which may originate from these facilities in the future if DOE remediation efforts are not successful. Even if DOE remediation efforts are successful in preventing any further significant release of radioactive contamination, the total economic and social impact of these source points (nuclear accidents-in-progress) is beyond calculation. RADNET will update and revise our list of nuclear accidents-in-progress to include any links which assist in the documentation of these anthropogenic plume source points.

• A nuclear accident-in-progress has two fundamental time components: the release duration and the dose effect duration of the longer-lived radionuclides in the plume pulse. Isotopes with long radioactive half-lives are a component of most release plumes, ensuring the endurance of the plume movement long after the decay of the short-lived isotopes. Nuclear weapons tests are an example of a nuclear plume pulse with a very short source term release duration but with a very long-term health physics impact. Other types of nuclear accident plumes listed below are much less obvious as accidents-in-progress due, in part, to the lack of a spectacular, concise source term release, as exhibited by weapons testing or the Chernobyl accident. The slow chronic release of radioactivity at Rocky Flats, Hanford, Savannah River and other nuclear weapons production facilities will occur over periods of several hundreds of years; source term releases occur not only behind a curtain of secrecy but also as difficult to detect windblown dispersion of plutonium or relatively slow moving sub-surface pulses of liquid wastes. The health physics impact of these chronic releases, spread over millennia, is nearly invisible.
• Chronic accidents-in-progress with long release durations are unlikely to be characterized by plumes which exceed derived concentration radiation protection guidelines. Plume pulse movement in most chronic release situations is difficult as well as costly to monitor. Accurate data characterizing the size and constituents of uncontained releases of radioactivity to the natural environment is usually not available, especially for weapons-production-derived pulses. In the early days of the operation of U.S. weapons production facilities, the federal government was particularly careful to destroy all records pertaining to the hundreds of millions of curies of spent-fuel-derived wastes which were released to the natural environment. The result of the deliberate destruction of these records is that not only is plume characterization difficult but also the information needed to assess dose effect in specific population groups is unavailable. When it is available, dose assessment is often made for large population groups, effectively masking the risk for individuals most exposed to a plume pulse.
• Many nuclear accidents-in-progress are bioregional in their impact; plume movement is characterized by a lack of public awareness. A shortage of public resources as well as ideological, political and commercial considerations lead to public unawareness of the presence of nuclear accident plumes.
• Some chronic source points have sufficient fissile material to achieve criticality and the rapid release of radioactivity. In situations where this is the case, usually weapons production waste accumulations, the resulting plumes could exceed the derived concentration guides for radiation protection, and would have much greater public visibility than the chronic release plumes which have no criticality potential.
• TWO CERTAINTIES CHARACTERIZE ALL NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS-IN-PROGRESS (THE OFFICIAL VIEW):
1. "The dose and subsequent health risk are minimal" (EML, 1986).
2. The health physics impact of a source term release will not have a significant impact on the overall cancer rate (Goldman, 1987).

 
• It is not now possible, nor may it ever be possible, to accurately assess which of the following nuclear accidents contained or contains the largest inventory of radioactivity or poses the greatest threat to human health. Based on limited data and preliminary estimates of missing military high-level waste, the plume pulses described in this section constitute the largest nuclear accidents-in-progress.
• Accident plume pulses are grouped into three categories: releases having a world-wide impact; major releases within the US; and major regional releases outside of the US (excluding the huge Russian source points discussed in RAD 11: 6). Limited information about the source terms is available for weapons testing, Chernobyl, and Sellafield plumes.  Other plume rankings are based on an interpretation of the significance of activities at U.S. weapons production facilities and the information contained in the DOE's Integrated Database. See RAD 11: 5.
• The IAEA has published the following scale for rating accidents-in-progress. This is reprinted from the Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (HSK) website at URL: http://www.hsk.psi.ch/pub_eng/jabe95-t13e.html

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Is the sum total of all nuclear weapons test explosions one large accident or a whole series of small accidents? The nearly instantaneous source term release durations of these explosions are now in the distant past; yet, the invisible recycling of the long-lived isotopes in the stratospheric fallout plumes continue today. As a current component of "background radiation," we do not usually differentiate weapons testing-derived contamination from natural background radiation levels. Nonetheless, weapons testing-derived radiocesium contamination still exists in significant quantities. The cumulative deposition from weapons-testing-derived plutonium exists in bands of ground deposition with the greatest accumulation in mid-latitude locations. What are the cumulative ground deposition and isotopic profiles of the long-lived radionuclides which are the legacy of these tests? What are their pathways, and what population groups are most susceptible to exposure from these pathways? See RAD 5, RAD 7, RAD 8, and RAD 11: Sections 1-2.
 

B. Chernobyl

Which Chernobyl-derived long-lived radionuclides remain in pathways to human exposure after the decay of the short-lived isotopes released from this accident? What are their elemental forms, their biogeochemical pathways, and what population groups are most susceptible to exposure from these pathways? The Chernobyl source term release occurred during just a few weeks. Will the remaining inventory of radionuclides in the Chernobyl sarcophagus constitute the basis for a second nuclear accident or just a footnote to the first? See RAD 10: all sections; also see RAD 9: Sections 3-4.
 

C. Satellite accidents: SNAP 9A (1964)

This satellite failure occurred over the Indian Ocean; 16,000 curies of ²³⁸Pu were efficiently spread throughout the southern and then the northern hemispheres. The entire human race bears traces of this accident in their biological tissues. What other satellite accidents have occurred that we don't know about? Is this the precursor of a much larger disaster in the future (the Cassini mission to Saturn)? See RAD 11: 10.
 

4. Major accidents within the US

The uncontained and undocumented release of liquid spent fuel-derived wastes at locations now under remediation management by the Dept. of Energy exceed 4 billion curies. The following DNFSB overview summarizes the most important safety concerns pertaining to DOE facilities which continue to release anthropogenic radioactivity into the environment. There are 109 plume source points undergoing environmental remediation by the Dept. of Energy and several hundred other small nuclear accidents-in-progress (including commercial nuclear reactors as well as formerly utilized sites) all having the potential for continued or future release of anthropogenic radioactivity. The DOE's FPIMS (Facility Profile Information Management System) database provides a window of opportunity for evaluating the 19 most important DOE environmental remediation management locations. FPIMS does not provide any data about the source term releases which originate from these facilities, but the existence of plumes of anthropogenic radioactivity are continually referenced and are, in fact, a principal (but not the only) reason why this Facility Information Profile Management System exists. The FPIMS database includes the "Tiger Team Assessments (Analysis of Findings From the First Sixteen Tiger Team Assessments, Tiger Team Assessments Seventeen through Thirty-Five: A Summary and Analysis)" about these source points. The FPIMS includes both non-site and site-specific documents, ranging from summaries and appraisals to corrective action plans, site environmental reports, trend analyses, and evaluations of the applicability of the National Environmental Policy Act and other statutes. FPIMS represents the work of thousands of DOE employees spending millions of tax dollars documenting the nuclear accidents-in-progress which RADNET can only reference in brief and inadequate listings. Needless to say, nowhere in FPIMS are any DOE facilities described as a nuclear accident-in-progress, nor is any data provided that document uncontained releases of radioactivity at these locations.
 

A. Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board overview

The Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board which is in charge of oversight of all DOE weapon production facilities is an excellent source of site-specific information about the most important nuclear accidents-in-progress which have occurred or are occurring in the continental United States.

The first of the following DNFSB reports comments on high-level waste issues; the second report addresses low-level waste issues. Other DNFSB reports are referenced in RAD 11. All DNFSB reports cited in RADNET are electronically accessible.

Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board. (May 26, 1994). Improved Schedule for Remediation in Defense Nuclear Facilities Complex. Recommendation 94-1 to the Secretary of Energy pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2286a(5) Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.

• "We are especially concerned about specific liquids and solids containing fissile materials and other radioactive substances in spent fuel storage pools, reactor basins, reprocessing canyons, processing lines, and various buildings once used for processing and weapons manufacture."
• "Several large tanks in the F-Canyon at the Savannah River Site contain tens of thousands of gallons of solutions of plutonium and trans-plutonium isotopes. The trans-plutonium solutions remain from californium-252 production; they include highly radioactive isotopes of americium and curium. These tanks, their appendages, and vital support systems are old, subject to deterioration, prone to leakage, and are not seismically qualified. If an earthquake or other accident were to breach the tanks, F-Canyon would become so contaminated that cleanup would be practically impossible. Containment of the radioactive material under such circumstances would be highly uncertain."
• "The K-East Basin at the Hanford Site contains hundreds of tons of deteriorating irradiated nuclear fuel from the N-Reactor. This fuel has been heavily corroded during its long period of storage under water, and the bottom of the basin is now covered by a thick deposit of sludge containing actinide compounds and fission products. The basin is near the Columbia River. It has leaked on several occasions, is likely to leak again, and has design and construction defects that make it seismically unsafe"
• "The 603 Basin at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) contains deteriorating irradiated reactor fuel from a number of sources. This basin also contains sludge from corrosion of the reactor fuel. The seismic competence of the 603 Basin is not established."
• "Processing canyons and reactor basins at the Savannah River Site contain large amounts of deteriorating irradiated reactor fuel stored under conditions similar to those at the 603 Basin at INEL."
• "There are thousands of containers of plutonium-bearing liquids and solids at the Rocky Flats Plant, the Hanford Site, the Savannah River Site, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. These materials were in the nuclear-weapons-manufacturing pipeline when manufacturing ended. Large quantities of plutonium solutions are stored in deteriorating tanks, piping, and plastic bottles. Thousands of containers at the Rocky Flats Plant hold miscellaneous plutonium-bearing materials classed as 'residuals', some of which are chemically unstable. Many of the containers of plutonium metal also contain plastic and , in some at the Rocky Flats Plant, the plastic is believed to be in intimate contact with the plutonium. It is well known that plutonium in contact with plastic can cause formation of hydrogen gas and pyrophoric plutonium compounds leading to a high probability of plutonium fires."

• "The results of our review are summarized as follows: As of 1993, the DOE and its predecessor agencies have buried approximately 2.8 million cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste. This waste has largely been disposed of at six sites through the use of shallow land burial -- Savannah River Site, Hanford, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Nevada Test Site, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Low-level waste disposal as practiced by DOE contractors has not kept pace with the evolution of commercial practices. For example, DOE disposal programs are generally characterized by minimal barriers to infiltration and biologic intrusion, no requirements to protect inadvertent human intruders, and operational practices not geared toward maintaining integrity of the waste form and the cover. In 1988, DOE issued Order 5820.2A, Radioactive Waste Management, which adopted the basic performance objectives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 10 CFR 61. A key feature of the Order is the requirement to prepare a Performance Assessment (PA). This Performance Assessment is intended to demonstrate that the buried waste will remain sufficiently confined to pose no undue risk to public health and safety. Although the Order was issued six years ago, no defense nuclear facilities site has to date completed the performance assessment process."
• "The high-level radioactive wastes that are a result of weapons material production have been the strong focus of waste management activities of the Department of Energy (DOE). Considerably less attention has been placed upon the large volumes of low-level radioactive waste that have been generated to date and that are projected for the future. Operation of waste management facilities and the maintenance of the defense nuclear complex will continue to generate considerable low-level waste and the need for adequate waste storage and disposal facilities. This volume is likely to increase dramatically with the decommissioning and decontamination of excess facilities."

RADNET Links:

• Rocky Flats, Colorado (RAD 11: 4)
• U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory Servers (RAD 13: RADLINKS II: D-2)

• ROCKY FLATS ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY SITE
• Integrated Data Base Report -- 1994

The DOE Integrated Database (1994) lists the Savannah River facility as having the largest inventory of contained high-level wastes of any DOE weapons production facility, 534,500,000 curies of liquid high-level wastes. These wastes derive from the production of spent fuel at this location and its reprocessing for the purpose of extracting the plutonium for weapons fabrication. During the period of weapons production, huge additional uncontained quantities of liquid high-level and low-level wastes were released to the natural environment. The curic inventory of these uncontained releases probably exceeded 1 billion curies. The Savannah River plume constitutes what is one of the two largest releases of anthropogenic radioactivity occurring in the United States during the Cold War. Only the uncontained releases at the Hanford, Washington Reservation, an isolated and desiccated environment, have the potential to exceed the size of the Savannah River plume. The Savannah River release is also that plume likely to have the second largest health physics impact during the next few millennium. Of particular concern are the plutonium storage tanks in the F-canyon of Savannah River, as well as the extensive uncontained releases of spent-fuel-derived wastes which have historically occurred at the other fuel processing canyons and reactor basins at this facility. How will the humid climate, high rainfall, and numerous wetlands assist the transport of the long-lived radionuclides in this plume? How far afield from the lagoons and holding ponds of the Savannah River reservation will this contamination travel? What natural processes will make the plutonium in this plume, now predominantly in a biologically inert form, more available for uptake in pathways to humans? How will continuing activities at SRP as well as the possibility of additional spent fuel reprocessing affect the size and duration of this plume? See RAD 11: Section 5.
 

D. Hanford Reservation, Washington: liquid high-level waste

The Hanford Reservation in Washington State, and the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina were the principal plutonium production facilities operated by the DOE for the purpose of fabricating nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The plutonium produced at Hanford Reservation was shipped to other weapons production facilities for refining and final fabrication into usable weapons. During this process, large quantities of spent fuel were created and then reprocessed to extract the plutonium, creating huge quantities of liquid high-level and low-level wastes. The DOE Integrated Database report (1994) lists a current inventory of 348 million curies of contained high-level waste as well as additional quantities of stored or buried transuranic wastes at this site. As at the Savannah River facilities, huge additional quantities of uncontained liquid high-level and low-level wastes were produced and released to the natural environment. Not enough information is available to determine whether the uncontained releases at this location exceeded those at the Savannah River site which is closer to populated suburban and urban population centers.

The plutonium production facilities at Hanford lie alongside the Columbia River which was the recipient of significant, but unknown, quantities of reactor-derived liquid wastes. Aside from the large quantities of liquid high-level wastes now residing in leaking steel tanks, significant uncontained quantities of liquid wastes were released in shallow holding ponds which later dried out, in pits, and via shallow well and deepwell injection. The total uncontained release of weapons-production-derived wastes may exceed the total release at the Savannah River facility. In view of the total amount of missing military high-level wastes, the uncontained release of radioactivity to the natural environment at this location may exceed 1 billion curies of reprocessed spent-fuel-derived wastes and hundreds of millions of curies of low-level wastes. The location of these huge releases in a desiccated environment with low rainfall, little surface water other than the Columbia River, the low water table, and the lack of nearby population centers may serve to mitigate the health physics impact of what is likely the largest uncontained release of weapons-production-derived contamination in the United States. Unfortunately, unlike the Rocky Flats plutonium plume, there are very few environmental remediation solutions available to mitigate previous uncontained releases of radioactivity at this location. If the DOE fails to secure the contained tank wastes at this location or if criticality is reached in these vulnerable tanks, this release plume, which will continue to spread for hundreds of years, will be greatly enhanced. See RAD 11: Sections 5 and 12, for more information on this plume source point.
 

E. Oak Ridge Reservation

The Oak Ridge Reservation includes a multiplicity of important plume source points, including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, The K-25 Plant and the Y-12 Plant. The primary function of the latter two sites was the production of enriched uranium for the purpose of nuclear weapons production. The Oak Ridge Reservation may be the most complex plume source point among all the DOE weapons production laboratories. Plume source points include the X-10 Graphite Reactor which operated in the early years of the Cold War, as well as uranium contamination deriving from the K-25 Plant and the Y-12 Plant. Two buildings at the Y-12 Plant are currently considered among the top ten most dangerous DOE sites for processing or storing uranium due to inadequately designed vaults containing bomb grade uranium. The Oak Ridge Reservation is the location of the infamous hydrofracture facility which was designed specifically for the injection of highly radioactive reprocessed spent fuel wastes into underlying shale deposits in the form of a grout containing the unwanted wastes. At least 1 1/2 million curies of waste, and possibly much more, are contained in this component of the Oak Ridge plume. Other undocumented injections of liquid wastes occurred in the early years of operation of this facility. Maps contained in the DOE BEMR provide a graphic illustration of a series of interconnected "waste area groups" (WAG) which resulted in so much radioactive contamination being released to surface water supplies (White Oak Creek, White Oak Lake, etc.) that not only have special dams been constructed to slow the movement of surface contamination, but the Clinch River Basin has been declared a superfund site and is listed in the BEMR publication as a subject of DOE remediation efforts. The total curic content of uncontained releases of radioactive effluents to the environment at this location may never be known but could easily be in excess of 200 million curies of uranium processing-derived wastes as well as of "low-level" and mixed low-level wastes originating from reprocessed spent fuel and other weapons production facilities. Contamination of underground aquifers in the relatively highly populated areas of this section of Tennessee could result in a plume which equals or exceeds the size and the significance of the other major underground plumes at Hanford, SRP and INEL. See RAD 11: Sections 5 and 12, for more information on this plume source point.
 

F. Idaho National Engineering Laboratory

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) covers 890 sq. miles in southern Idaho along the edge of the Snake River Plain. The INEL is an important nuclear accident-in-progress with a variety of constituents including ten major operating areas in addition to the Argonne National Laboratory West and the Naval Reactor Facility, which are, in themselves, important plume source points. Of particular concern is the presence of large quantities of deteriorating irradiated reactor fuel and related corrosion products (sludge) in the 603 basin which is a component of the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (ICPP). While removal of some of this deteriorating fuel has begun, this facility still remains the most dangerous of above ground plume source points among all the 98 operable units which are subject to environmental remediation at this facility. Numerous other storage tanks, pits, trenches, evaporation ponds, "French drains," waste sumps, storage tanks, chemical wash out areas, and other surface facilities and waste sites contribute to INEL as a plume source point with many constituents. The single largest component of INEL as a plume source point results, however, from shallow well and deep well injection of high-level as well as low-level mixed wastes which began with the establishment of this facility in the late 1940's.

Evaluation of the INEL site is complicated by continuing operations; a high level of secrecy and lack of documentation of disposal techniques in its early years of operation; and the multiplicity of source points of radiological contamination. These include an experimental breeder reactor, the power burst facility reactor, three or more test reactor areas, the ICPP and related tank farm, the waste calcine facility, the test area north including a manufacturing assembly and hot shop, and a radioactive waste management complex. Not enough information is available to determine which of these facilities contributed the largest quantities of radioactive wastes to the injection wells and "French drains" which were formerly utilized at this location. The Baseline Environmental Management Report (BEMR) divides the ICPP into 14 units consisting of 93 potential release sites and then makes the following comment: "...most of the known contamination at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant is below the surface of the soil..." (pg. Idaho-29). The assessment of contamination in the Snake River Plain Aquifer, which has just begun, has detected volatile organic compounds in the aquifer 600 feet below the surface of the ground. The INEL site environmental report for 1995 limits discussion of the extensive shallow and deep well injections that occurred at INEL in the past to a few disposal wells. The complex ground water monitoring program activities, illustrated in Figure 5.1, page 5.4 of this report, which were implemented by the United States Geological Survey, reference the extensive undocumented disposal of liquid radioactive wastes of the past. While some components of the INEL facility may be the subject of successful remediation efforts with respect to the transfer of transuranic wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, the huge INEL-derived Snake River aquifer plume will likely rate among the top ten most significant source points of radioactive contamination in the US in the next millennium. A variety of reports and studies that discuss this inscrutable DOE plume source point are cited in RAD 11: Section 5: INEL.
 

G. Other Accidents-in-progress, Continental USA: to be posted

1. Fernald, Ohio (Feed Materials Production Center)
2. Los Alamos National Laboratory
3. Other sites: The Baseline Environmental Monitoring Report (BEMR) and other DOE radiological surveillance reports will be reviewed for the purpose of locating other sites which may contain missing military high-level waste. All of the BEMR sites constitute nuclear accidents-in-progress of one size or another; BEMR sites not discussed above will be listed at the end of this sub-section of RAD 3. For RADNET comments on the topic of missing military high-level waste, see RAD 11: Sections 5 and 12. Your comments and criticisms of our observations would be welcomed.

A note on very small nuclear accidents-in-progress: The Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station at Wiscasset, Maine, is an example of a very small nuclear accident-in-progress. Mandatory radiological effluent reports filed with the NRC indicate a total discharge of less than four curies of 137Cs into the environment in the vicinity of MYAPC since the beginning of plant operation in 1972. This contrasts with an onsite inventory of +/-20 million curies of 137Cs in the spent fuel pool and in the fuel rods in the reactor vessel. Total onsite inventories of spent fuel exceed 200 million curies; GTCC reactor vessel components exceed 4 million curies at 2 years cooling, and low-level wastes exceed one hundred thousand curies. If the licensee and the NRC are successful in ensuring that no significant additional discharges of radioactivity occur at this location, the primary impact of the MYAPC will be on the pocketbooks of the ratepayers and taxpayers who will have to fund this effort. This impact will include the high costs of safe decommissioning, monitored retrievable storage of GTCC and spent fuel wastes, and administrative and transportation costs prior to waste disposal in a final geological depository. In short, it will be a very high price to pay for assurance that a very small nuclear accident-in-progress doesn't grow larger.  For an analysis of MYAPC as a small nuclear accident -in-progress see RAD 6:  Radiation Protection Guidelines:  Section 1B-5:  Nuclear power plants as small nuclear accidents-in-progress.

There are thousands of other regional source points of anthropogenic radioactivity; this is an attempt to list a few of the major source points which are ongoing accidents-in-progress.
 

A. Russian plume source points

The largest uncontained releases of weapons-production-derived high-level wastes have occurred within the boundaries of the former USSR. RADNET does not include information on the size and significance of these releases other than that contained in RAD 11: Sections 5, 7, 8. The size and the health physics impact of Russian releases are likely to exceed those in the United States; a fundamental lack of public resources will maximize the impact of Russian plume source points.
 

B. Sellafield (United Kingdom)

Sellafield is the largest nuclear accident-in-progress outside of Russia and the continental United States. Total source term releases to date may be extrapolated from the records of British Nuclear Fuels, the site operator and other information sources such as MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries). Source term releases are now increasing with the recent inauguration of a new thermal oxide fuel reprocessing plant (THORP). The proposal to dispose of high-level wastes generated at this facility in underlying rock formations as uncontained releases may further exacerbate the size of the Sellafield plume. This disposal plan is reminiscent of the antiquated policies of uncontained release of high-level wastes at various US weapons productions facilities which now have been discontinued.
 

Recent news stories reveal the presence of a waste shaft at Dounreay, which has been cut through bedrock and projects under the ocean. Substantial amounts of uncontained plutonium-bearing wastes have been discarded in this waste tunnel. In May of 1977, the combination of radionuclides, toxic chemicals, and odd components of plant equipment dumped in this shaft resulted in an explosion which spread contamination not only at the shaft entrance but also on local beaches. Plutonium contamination resulting from this explosion has now been documented on area beaches. The fuel reprocessing facilities at Dounreay are thus the source of a much larger plume of plutonium-bearing contamination than had previously been anticipated. Future fuel reprocessing activities at this location have the potential to greatly enlarge the Dounreay plume. MAFF reports documenting the Dounreay pulse have been requested and will be posted in RAD 11: 7 when they become available.
 

In the following list, RADNET estimates the types of uncontained releases of anthropogenic radioactivity that are most likely to occur in the future and the locations where they might occur. Unfortunately, there is the possibility that many ongoing releases of anthropogenic radioactivity are nuclear accidents-in-progress which are only in their initial stages. Additional suggestions, comments or criticisms of this preliminary listing are solicited.

The most likely locations of the nuclear accidents of the future are:

1. A quick release accident(QRA) or a LORCA at an RBMK-type nuclear reactor in Russia or Eastern Europe due to degradation of aging equipment or terrorism/sabotage.
2. A quick release accident(QRA) or a LORCA at other nuclear reactors located in areas of political unrest and/or economic chaos due to degradation of aging equipment or terrorism/sabotage.
3. Russia: any number of accident scenarios are possible at existing weapons production facilities and unsecured waste storage sites (Kola peninsula, Vladivostok, etc.).
4. Sellafield, United Kingdom: fuel reprocessing facility accident.
5. Major release of ²³⁸Pu resulting from an accident involving the upcoming Cassini mission to Saturn.
6. Rocky Flats, Colorado, Technology Site: a serious fire event at one or more weapons production plutonium contaminated buildings or criticality event due to the accumulation of fissile plutonium.
7. Hanford Reservation: an accident at a storage tank containing high-level waste or at the N-reactor fuel storage site in the K-East Basin.
8. United States: a major LORCA at any of the 109 NRC licensed commercial nuclear power plants due to micro-degradation of aging equipment.
9. United States: an accident at a DOE weapons production facility (Pantex, Savannah River Plant, Los Alamos National Laboratory, or Oak Ridge National Laboratory) due to the mishandling of fissile material.

(Small nuclear accidents which get wide publicity - why only in Japan?)
 

A. Tokai Uranium Processing Plant (Japan)

September 30, 1999, 10:35 AM Japanese standard time: Criticality accident at a Japanese Uranium Processing Plant.

For other information on this small accident, see RAD 15: Alerts.

French, Howard W. (October 1, 1999). Japanese fuel plant spews radiation after accident. New York Times.

• "In an indication that the accident was being brought under control, Japanese television said that at 6:30 AM  today, the Science and Technology Agency reported that no radiation could be detected at 14 monitoring sites around the plant."
• One of many articles in the Washington Post and New York Times, this relatively small accident has received a huge amount of publicity.  The Washington Post indicates that approximately two dozen similar criticality accidents have taken place in the United States between 1945 and 1964.  Estimates of fuel reprocessing accidents range up to at least 60 on a world-wide basis since the beginning of the nuclear age.  Most of these accidents are too small to be included in RADNET's postings.  A shortage of funding also impacts our ability to maintain detailed record keeping about these incidents, many of which have been kept secret by various government agencies.
• The wide publicity surrounding this accident has allowed the following information to emerge:
• Tokai is "a re-conversion plant, where they process enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to uranium dioxide (UO2) through various steps of chemical refinement.  The criticality accident occurred in the process of converting uranyl nitrate solution (with 18.8% concentration of fissile ²³⁵U) to ammonium diranate (ADU) sediment." (personal communication, Dr. Hosokawa Komei, Dept of Resource Management & Society, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Saga, 840-8502 Saga City, Japan).
• The fissile mass was 16 kg of highly enriched uranium destined for a fast breeder research reactor somewhere in Japan.
• The accident occurred when too much ²³⁵U was poured into a settling basin designed for 2.4 kg -- a typical human error accident.
• The accident lasted 17 hours before a water shield was drained which had served to keep the accident going by directing neutrons back into the fissile material.  Workers were unable to drain the water by remote control, so they broke the pipes open and stopped the accident.
• An intense radiation field resulting from shine from the fissile material in the settling basin surrounded the facility.  The fact that significant civilian population lives close to the facility complicated the accident response and insured wide publicity.
• The accident occurred during a rainfall event which would serve to localize fallout from the plume which was produced by the accident.  No information is yet available differentiating plume-derived shine from source point shine from the fissile material itself.
• The accident raises a number of questions despite the small quantity of fissile material involved:
• Is the Science and Technology Agency quoted in the New York Times being truthful asserting that no radiation could be detected at 14 monitoring sites?
• Granted that most of the high ambient radiation levels near the plant was shine from the uranium in the settling basin, a radioactive plume of significant size moved offsite and included quantities of ¹³¹I as well as volatile isotopes such as ¹³⁷Cs.  How does the isotropic profile of this plume compare to the isotopic profile of the Chernobyl plume as it passed through Nurmijarvi, Finland, and what was the quantitative air concentrations of these plume constituents as measured in standard reporting units of microbecquerels / cubic meter (mBq/m³)?
• Do the 14 monitoring sites surrounding the complex of nuclear facilities at Tokai include high volume air filter monitors, or are these monitoring stations limited to TLD stations (thermoluminescent dosimeters) which only monitor ambient radiation levels averaged over weeks or more of time?
• Why were there not more high volume air concentration monitors around this huge facility?  Are the Japanese authorities being truthful about the number of monitoring facilities they have, and why is there no data available providing this nearly routine data?
• How far away from the source point of the plume have elevated air concentrations of accident-derived isotopes been observed?
• What is the ground deposition, particularly in areas where rainfall occurred, which resulted from the plume passage of indicator nuclides such as ¹³⁷Cs, as measured in standard reporting units of Bq/m²?  Why was this information not available within 24 - 48 hours of the accident?
• Doesn't the Science and Technology Agency maintain onsite laboratories capable of quick spectroanalyses (e.g. 20 minutes to one hour for sample scanning versus 24 hours for long counting time for microcontamination)?
• Will the Science and Technology Agency provide a summary of this accident by collecting enough ground deposition data to provide a radiometric (isocuric) description of ground contamination, as was done after the Chernobyl accident in many locations?  This is standard procedure; will it be used at this accident site and will it be reported by a media eager to report a nuclear accident that's not located in its own backyard, unlike some nuclear accidents in the United States and elsewhere, which the media are much more reluctant to report on?
• In the area of plume passage, especially that impacted by rainfall events, what are the concentrations of indicator isotopes (¹³¹I, ¹³⁷Cs, etc.) in gutter dust, flock, rain puddle sediment and other abiotic media as measured in Bq/kg?
• In the area of plume passage what is the concentrations of indicator isotopes on leafy vegetable surfaces and within grass - grazing pathways as measured in Bq/kg?
• How do the above air concentrations, ground depositions and biotic media concentrations compare with nearby areas not impacted by the plume passage from the accident?  Why is this information not yet available considering the high population densities of the area and the size and complexity of the nuclear facilities at this location?
• Does the Japanese government have access to United States National Image Management Agency (NIMA) satellite imagery of plume passage and dissipation, the collection of which is a routine daily event over all populated areas of the world?  Does the Japanese government maintain similar image technology, or does it (or will it) share equipment and data with the United States?
• Why are environmental organizations, news media or other interested parties not requesting the public disclosure of the sophisticated satellite imagery now so widely discussed in the press (e.g. National Public Broadcasting)?
• At the time of the accident did the Japanese government implement low flying aircraft utilizing the same sophisticated imaging technology to track the plume passage and, if so, where is the data collected by this now ubiquitous technology?
• If low flying aircraft were not immediately utilized to track the plume passage, why not?
• If the media, which were so anxious to report this accident, are not going to follow through and ask questions about the availability of routine air sample, ground deposition and contaminated media concentrations in standard reporting units then who will ask these questions?
• The wide publicity surrounding the accident included many shots of officials using hand held detectors to measure surface contamination (ground, buildings, clothing, skin, etc.)  Such surface contamination measurements are the first step in the complete pathway analysis of the source term of this or any accident.  Will the authorities broaden their reporting of the source term (release inventories, pathways and destinations) to go beyond the one-dimensional analysis of ambient radiation, and execute a holistic (all pathways) analysis of the plume passage and impact from this accident?
• To what extent did rainfall events concentrate plume washout, especially in populated areas, and will the authorities be truthful about the extent of this impact in the relatively small but highly populated areas impacted?
• Scientific reports providing information about the radiological impact of this accident will be posted on this page as they are received during the next few weeks, months and years.  This small accident provides an excellent opportunity to look at all pathways contaminated during accident plume passage.  Will this opportunity be used by government officials, environmental organizations as well as the general public to come to a greater understanding of the complexity of the biogeochemical cycles which transport radioactive contamination from the source point of a nuclear accident through pathways to human exposure?  If not, why not?  Or will the sponsors of the lucrative traffic in nuclear waste continue to hoodwink the public by providing misleading information about the impact of the accident by describing only the dose received (e.g. microsieverts or mrem) by an average member of the public rather than media-specific, nuclide-specific data essential to accurate accident documentation?
• RADNET readers are urged to email us comments, corrections and especially additional information and scientific citations which document the impact of this small accident in the standard reporting units of Bq/m³, Bq/m², and Bq/kg.

Confusion and mis-information at a small nuclear accident:

The following information documenting the March 11, 1997, fire and explosion at the Tokai Nuclear Reprocessing Plant is entirely derived from quotes taken from Lexis-Nexis news service reports in the days following the Tokai accident. The quotations are ordered by date and include quotations from Japan Economic News Wire, Associated Press, New York Times, Agence France Presse, Kyodo News Service, Mainichi Daily News, etc. Each bullet contains quotations from one or more news sources.

• "Located at Tokaimura, 100 km (65 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the reprocessing plant produces plutonium by recycling spent nuclear fuel." "Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is solidified by mixing with asphalt by remote control" "It handles 12 percent of Japan's total spent fuel, with the rest reprocessed at plants in France. An explosion at the plant's bituminisation facility, where low-level waste is mixed with asphalt for permanent storage, on March 11 exposed 37 workers to small doses of radiation." "The explosion occurred 10 hours after a fire broke out in the asphalt mixing cell Tuesday morning. ... Smoke went up for hours, and a small amount of radioactive leak was detected on the premises."
• March 11: "An explosion was heard Tuesday night at a nuclear reprocessing plant in the village of Tokai ... but details were not immediately known ... A total of nine window panes were seen broken in the four-story building and white smoke was seen coming out from the roof of the plant's vitrification facility for liquid nuclear waste ... One of the radioactivity monitoring posts near the building showed an abnormal reading at 8:50 p.m. but normal readings after 9:00 p.m. ... The explosion occurred at about 8 p.m., hours after a small fire broke out in the plant and at least 10 workers were exposed to radioactivity, the officials said. ... amount of radioactivity released really poses no problem at all ... constituted just 0.2% of the legally admissible maximum." "At one of 12 radioactivity monitoring stations in the giant Tokaimura nuclear compound, a small abnormality was observed 26 minutes after the fire broke out at 8:14 p.m. ... only radioactivity observed was well within safe limits"
• March 12: "Dozens of alarms shrieked and banks of lights flashed red as Japanese investigators tentatively poked through scraps of twisted metal at a nuclear waste handling facility. ... officials said radiation levels remained well within safe limits around the plant." "Two workers were stuck on the roof of a Japanese nuclear plant for five hours after a fire and the state nuclear company waited two and a half hours to tell the fire brigade..." "Around 8:50p.m., radiation levels on the grounds were about 20% higher than usual..." "...that radioactivity levels had returned to normal following the explosion." "The radioactivity that escaped outside was estimated to total 38% of the permissible daily maximum dose, Donen officials said. Donen set a 60-meter off-limits cordon around the building after they detected a small amount of radioactivity around the facility."
• March 13: "Officials ... said there was no danger of a plutonium radiation leak. ... On Thursday, workers clad in protective suits with breathing filters used duct tape to seal 30 windows and three doors that were damaged by the blast Tuesday night." "Three days after the accident Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. (Donen), the plant operator, has admitted it has been unable to completely seal off the radiation zone where the fire broke out, an asphalt solidification room of the plant. ... According to plant sources, government inspectors had 'overlooked' the possibility of an explosion of the kind that occurred there Tuesday night." "Agency finds no contamination from N-Plant blast. ... No abnormality has been found in the area surrounding the plant... It is unthinkable that local residents are being exposed to radiation..." "35 people who had been exposed to the radiation ... the level of radiation they were exposed to was minimal and posed no danger to their health, ... The workers were exposed to a maximum of 2,700 becquerels of radiation, less than 0.2 percent of the permissible annual maximum, Donen officials said." "...prefectural officials failed to tell them of a radiation leak overnight at a local nuclear plant. ... 'caused no effect to the environment.' ... monitoring posts around the plant registered up to a 20 percent jump in radiation levels, but says the readings have since returned to normal. ... there is 'no need' to inform residents of the leak because radiation levels are 'not high enough to worry about.'" "Smoke and heat sensors in the plant shut off after the first fire and were unable to give a warning that the blaze was still smoldering out of sight, leading to the later explosion."
• March 14: "Air radiation levels soared a hundredfold directly after Tuesday night's explosion at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, 115 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, ... Officials of the state-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. (Donen) said the radiation that leaked outside the plant was nonetheless far below the amount triggering alarms and 'for the most part did not affect the environment.'" "Japan's Science and Technology Agency admitted yesterday that it was not sure how much radiation had actually leaked from a building at a nuclear-fuel reprocessing facility where a fire and explosion had taken place earlier this week." "The state agency for science and technology has said there are no radioactive threat to the environment outside the reprocessing plant."
• March 15: "Radioactive particles collected after an explosion at Japan's nuclear reprocessing plant indicate that plutonium may have been released into the air, officials at the plant said on Saturday. However, the level of radioactive particles found was below the limit set for areas outside the plant and did not pose any risk to the environment or to living beings..." "...no risk to the environment or people, because the recorded level of radiation was slightly below the limit set for areas surrounding nuclear facilities." "Highly toxic plutonium is also suspected to have leaked and spread following the accident. ...there appeared to be no risks of further radioactive leakage. 'The nuclear substance in the facility has been cooled down and is in a stable condition'" "Radiation emitted after an explosion at a nuclear facility has turned out to be about 70 times greater than first reported. ...Donen said radioactive substances at the ventilator on the east side of the bituminization facility during the seven-day period leading up to Wednesday were far below the levels of such materials usually present in the air. But the corporation recalculated and found that, for example the density of the type of cesium that emits beta nuclide was 0.45-millionths of a becquerel per cubic meter, or about 70 times higher than the average for the past three months."
• March 17: "Nuclear plant explosion catches experts totally off guard. ... Experts suspect vaporized asphalt was the cause of the fire. ... The March 11 explosion was something Donen had never imagined possible." "...the 'luck' was that a fire and, 10 hours later, an explosion, occurred in the least dangerous - he said 'cleanest' - part of the plant." "...significant radiation levels were found in soil samples at two sites in the nuclear complex in Ibaraki Prefecture." "...the radiation that leaked outside the plant was nonetheless far below the amount triggering alarms and 'for the most part did not affect the environment.'" "A tiny amount of cesium was found in the vicinity of Tuesday's explosion site at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant ... the amount of cesium was within a normal range which is seen in the environment and so limited it does not affect human health." "Officials disclosed on March 14 that about 10 times the regular levels of tiny particles of plutonium and uranium probably escaped from the waste-handling facility ... one-twentieth of the environmental safety level, ... A monitor attached to an exhaust pipe detected an average density of plutonium and uranium of 3.8 trillionths of a becquerel per 1 cubic centimeter for three months prior to the accident, ... But the figure jumped to 49 trillionths of a becquerel per cubic centimeter on average for the week including March 11, ...Donen officials on March 14 reversed their earlier statements, admitting two more facilities connected to the bituminization plant by passageways are contaminated." "The amount of radioactivity released into the surrounding area by the March 11 explosion ... was 20 times the amount that Donen officials on March 14 said had been released and nearly equal to the environmental public health safety limit set by the government for residents in the vicinity of the plant. The officials explained that the conflicting figures resulted from a mistake in calculations. ...radioactive substances that escaped outside the plant could be the chemical elements of americium, plutonium, uranium and or other naturally occurring atoms. The officials said they have cleaned up about 90 percent of radioactive substances on the ground in the Tokai compound, but they have yet to clear the outer building surfaces at the plant." "...as the worst nuclear accident that has ever occurred in Japan, ...the International Atomic Energy Agency. ...gave the explosion a rating of 3 on the international scale of 0 to 7..."
• March 18: "An elevated level of radioactive cesium, ...has been detected in Tsukuba, 60 kilometers southwest of the plant, ... The reading in Tsukuba is several tens of times the level of cesium-137 that would typically be measured in the aftermath of a nuclear test conducted abroad, ... The amount of cesium-137 ...was measured at 84-millionths of a becquerel per cubic meter. But that is far smaller than the amount registered in the wake of the disastrous 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the former Soviet Union, which posted a reading of 61,000-millionths of a becquerel per cubic meter [in Japan]." "A jump in radiation has been observed [35 miles] southwest of a damaged nuclear plant, officials said today, suggesting two fires at the plant spread radiation over a larger area than previously thought. ... Cesium levels in the air jumped 10-fold on March 11, compared to the day before the fires and the day after, said Hisato Nishii, a Meteorological Research Institute spokesman. The level, however, is very low and is not harmful to humans, he said. ... 'It is unbelievable that your employees were playing golf at such a critical period of time.' Donen spokesman ... said the company had approved the golf tour and that the fires did not necessarily require all plant workers to be prohibited from playing golf."
• March 19: "The discovery of relatively high levels of radiation is expected to make it difficult to carry out studies on the actual cause of the accident." "A week after the fires yesterday, a jump in radiation was reported southwest of the plant. ...the two fires at the plant March 11 had spread radiation over a larger area than previously thought." "A small amount of cesium-137 was detected in the air at a pollution research centre in the city of Mito..."
• March 24-25: "Donen informed the Science and Technology Agency that the accident has been classified as a third degree accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) seven-degree table of nuclear power plant failures. ... Radioactivity leaked outside the bituminization facility ... but there was no risk to the environment or people as the recorded level of radiation was slightly below the limit set for areas surrounding nuclear facilities..." "Some 37 workers were exposed to radiation, although it was far below levels that would be harmful ... Some radioactive materials, including plutonium, escaped into the atmosphere and were detected as far as 23 miles away, though at levels that the Government insisted posed no danger."
• April 3: "Danger of leaked radiation unclear. ...more than eight times the normal levels of plutonium and other alpha ray-emitting substances had escaped from an exhaust pipe at the accident ... 2,000 times the normal levels of gamma ray-emitting substances including cesium. ...total dose of radioactive emissions at about 60 million becquerel, but Donen described this as 'negligible,' ... As for plutonium, the annual emission level is several thousand times the leakage caused by the March explosion."
• April 7: "...Radioactive emissions from Japan's worst nuclear accident ... were below minimum safety ceilings..."
• April 15: "...at least six people were involved in writing a distorted report about a fire and explosion and in covering up the accident..." "The Japanese government will soon ask prosecutors to file charges against a state-run firm which has admitted a cover-up in its handling of the nation's worst nuclear accident..."

RADNET has used the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company (MYAPC) in Wiscasset, Maine as a case study for analysis of safety, legal, economic and decommissioning issues pertaining to nuclear power plant operation.  This facility may also be used as an example of a nuclear power plant as a small nuclear accident-in-progress.  MYAPC began operation in 1972 and was closed in 1997.

See RAD 6:  Radiation Protection Guidelines:  Section 1B-5: Nuclear power plants as small nuclear accidents-in-progress for further discussion.