Six month study of radiation concentrations and transport mechanisms at the Maxey Flats area of Fleming County, Kentucky. (1974). Louisville, KY: Kentucky Department for Human Resources, Bureau for Health Services, Office of Consumer Health Protection, Radiation and Product Safety Branch.

• "All Test Well gross alpha analysis showed readily detectable alpha concentrations in the suspended portion of the sample." (p.5)

Moab, Utah is a typical uranium mill tailings plume source point, one of hundreds of sites like this. It has been in the news because of possible leaking into groundwater.

"This uranium mill, which operated from 1956 until 1984, was purchased by Atlas [Corp.] in 1962. Atlas completed demolition and disposal of the mill facilities in 1996. Under Atlas's proposed plan to cap the mill tailings pile in place, the pile will be recontoured and covered with earthen material and rock to control radon emanations and prevent erosion." (PRNewswire, Denver, March 11, from Yahoo on the World Wide Web).

"In a draft environmental impact statement released in January [1997], the federal agency [NRC] says reclaiming the tailings mountain on site - as the mining company has proposed - is the best option. But simply capping 130 acres of radioactive debris with earth and rock doesn't sit well with Grand County Councilman Bill Hedden. He, along with the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and the state of Utah, wants the sandy tailings moved away from the river. 'It's 11 million tons of really nasty junk and it's going right in the groundwater,' Hedden says. The nuclear agency says moving the pile will cost up to 10 times more than capping it." (High Country News, March 18, 1996).

Clifford, F. (April 20, 1997). Leaking nuclear waste imperils Colorado River; pollution: U.S. Agency plans to cap 130-acre mound that lies near popular wilderness recreation area. Los Angeles Times. Part A, pg. 1.

• "The owner of the mill site, Denver Atlas Corp., concedes that the plan to cap the tailings pile in place won't entirely stop nuclear waste and other hazardous material from seeping into the river."

Alberts, J.J., Bobula III, C.M. and Farrar, D.T. A comparison of the distribution of industrially released ²³⁸Pu and fallout ^239,240Pu in temperate, Northern United States soils. Journal of Environmental Quality, 9, 4, 592-596.

• "Studies of ²³⁸Pu dispersed from the stack of a nuclear fabrication facility in southwestern Ohio indicate that the predominant deposition occurs within 8 km of the site." (p. 592)

More information is sought about this fuel reprocessing facility.
 

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada Test Site (NTS) is located approximately 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, and it, along with the Tonopah Test Range, are situated approximately 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, California. It was the scene of 100 atmospheric and 828 underground nuclear tests lasting from 1951 to 1992 (United States Nuclear Tests [DOE/NV-209 (Rev. 14) December 1994, pg. viii]). In August 1996 a final Environmental Impact Statement was completed for the NTS (NTS/EIS) and on December 13, 1996 the Record of Decision (ROD) for the NTS/EIS was published in the Federal Register (61 FR 65551). The decision allowed for the expanded use of the test site and leaves the option open to resume underground nuclear testing. The sites' primary mission continues to be associated with nuclear weapons issues.

• Radioactive surface contamination is an issue that is briefly covered in the BEMR report. The BEMR report indicates a total of 27,000 acres have been contaminated as a result of weapons tests, "safety shots and plutonium dispersion tests" (BEMR: Nevada 5). Total life cycle remediation costs are estimated at $3,644,434,000.
• In 1994, the DOE announced the declassification of certain data categories which appeared in RDD-3. Presently these items are listed in:

• A public request was made for certain items (presently listed at RDD-4, VI.C.3.i. through n). Over two months later the following document was generated and provided to the requester:

• Later it was determined, through a Freedom of Information Request Response (FOIA Request NV96061702), that the data in the Benjamin memo was a selected subset of information extracted from the following, still classified, document:

Goishi, W., Esser, B.K., Meadows, J.W., Naboodiri, N., Smith, D.K., Wild, J.F., Bowen, S.M., Baca, P.L., Olivas, L.F., Geoffrion, C.G., Thompson, J.L. and Miller, C.M. (1995). Total radionuclide inventory associated with underground nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site, 1955-1992 (U). LA-CP-94-0222. Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Honeyman, B.D. (January 7, 1999). Geochemistry: Colloidal culprits in contamination. Nature. 397(6714). pg. 23.

• "Contaminant transport in ground water is a contentious issue -- especially when it comes to possible movement of radionuclides from nuclear test sites or storage facilities. Analyses carried out in Nevada now implicate colloids in the movement of plutonium from a nuclear detonation site. The case, however, has yet to be clinched, and the broader interest in this example lies in the questions it raises about identifying colloid-associated transport in general." (abstract).
• "Trace amounts of plutonium were discovered in a well drilled four-fifths of a mile from the site of an underground nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site." (Keay Davidson, January 6, 1999, San Francisco Examiner, pg. A-1).

U.S. Department of Energy. (August 1996). Final environmental impact statement for the Nevada Test Site and off-site locations in the state of Nevada. (DOE/EIS-0243). Environmental Management, Nevada Operations Office, U.S. DOE, North Las Vegas, NV 89030-4134. Vol. 1. Chapters 1-9.

Discussions in the NTS/EIS, regarding the Benjamin memo, indicate that the data is a list of the "...remaining radionuclide inventory in, or within, 100 m (328 ft) of the water table (as of January 1994..." It goes on to explain that this subset of tests represents approximately 38% of the underground nuclear tests that were performed at the NTS (pg. 4-84 and 4-85).

By assuming the data in this subset was representative of the radionuclides deposited by the full set of underground nuclear tests, a rough estimate was calculated for the total radionuclides remaining as of January 1, 1994. The results follow.
 

The NTS/EIS contains an estimate of the total NTS inventory as of January 1, 1994. This figure is 3.0E+08 Ci. This figure compares favorably with the independently derived value for tritium, shown above.

The above inventory resides in millions of tons of buried rock and water. None of it appears in the DOE's Waste Management Integrated Data Base Report--1995, nor is this material scheduled for removal or treatment within the DOE's Environmental Restoration program.

The figures shown in the above table were scaled from the radionuclide data provided in the Benjamin memo. An independent NTS researcher requested the recently declassified data and then utilized it to estimate the total source term of buried nuclear test debris at the Nevada Test Site. The researcher, Vernon Brechin, can be contacted at vbrechin@igc.apc.org.

U.S. Department of Energy. Final programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for stockpile stewardship and management-September 1996. DOE-EIS-0236. Reconfiguration Group, Office of Technical and Environmental Support, Defense Programs, DP-45, U.S. DOE, Washington, DC.

• This is among the first reports to come to the attention of RADNET which attempt to estimate inventories of weapons testing derived isotopes at the Nevada Test Site.

The Oak Ridge site is one of the most contaminated locations among the many weapons production sites being remediated by the Dept. of Energy. The 1996 DOE Baseline Environmental Management Report (BEMR) subdivides the Oak Ridge site into six sections including reservation off site sources, the laboratory grounds themselves, the K-25 site (this facility produced enriched uranium for weapons production, 1945-1987), and the Y12 plant (site of an electromagnetic process to separate uranium isotopes). The BEMR summary of Oak Ridge remediation sites runs to 130 pages of descriptions of contaminated buildings and waste disposal areas; a lifetime of research could be spent on this one military source point without a complete understanding of the impact of the activities carried out at this location. ORNL was the site of the controversial deep well injection of radioactive waste at the hydrofracturing facility at this location. Life cycle remediation costs are estimated in excess of 25 billion dollars in the BEMR, (Vol. 3, pg. Tennessee 2) excluding geological disposal and any future costs resulting from waste disposed in a manner that "no feasible remediation approach [is] available." (BEMR, Vol. 1, pg. 3.9). A recent report issued by the Dept. of Energy (Jan. 15, 1997) as a component of current declassification efforts, indicates the Oak Ridge complex is one of 22 sites where the storage of highly enriched uranium "could result in the exposure of workers or the public to radiation." Out of 250 tons of highly enriched uranium, three fourths of it is at the Oak Ridge Complex (Associated Press, Jan. 15, 1997). Very little additional information is available about the on site inventories of radioactive wastes at the Oak Ridge facilities, which remain, along with Los Alamos, SRP, and Pantex, among the most active weapons production and research facilities in the United States. Important source points at Oak Ridge include the K25 plant which was constructed beginning in 1943 and was the first diffusion facility for large scale separation of ²³⁵U for nuclear weapons production, and the Y12 plant which used an electro-magnetic process to separate uranium isotopes. Extensive contamination at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory grounds, which are separated from these two plants, has also occurred since its establishment in 1943. Environmental restoration activities at the Oak Ridge facilities are so complicated that the description of these activities in the BEMR report takes up a total of 128 pages. Total life cycle environmental remediation for the entire complex of facilities at Oak Ridge are $25,137,392,000 including over 6 billion for the Y12 plant and over 7 billion for the K25 site as well as over 9 billion for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory itself. ORNL is also the site of a recently constructed TSCA (Toxic Substances Control Act) incinerator which is now accepting mixed wastes for incineration from a variety of DOE facilities. The mixed wastes being burned in this controversial incinerator include some ORNL wastes contaminated by a huge mercury spill at ORNL which began in the 1950's and continued for over a decade, as well as wastes from off-site facilities also contaminated with mercury and heavy metals. The Oak Ridge Reservation is another example of a plume source point where the effluents include not only radioactive wastes, but also VOC's and heavy metals. The following descriptions and quotations pertaining to ORNL facilities are taken from the 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report (BEMR) unless otherwise indicated.

OAK RIDGE K-25 SITE:

• "Most of the K-25 Site's process facilities were constructed in the 1940s and 1950s. ... Environmental pollution resulted from accidental leaks, spills, and discharges of radionuclides or chemicals into the environment. It also resulted from the migration or deposition of contaminants from the K-25 Site during gaseous diffusion operations or from storage and burial grounds once deemed acceptable under standards in existence at that time. ... Some areas, such as old waste disposal grounds, will not be available for other uses in the future." (pg. T-15, T-16).
• "Major remedial action projects in the Main Plant are the K-1407 B and C Ponds, the K-1070 C/D Burial Grounds, and the SW-31 Seep." These include "... several ponds, waste accumulation areas, cooling towers, acid pits, and burial grounds." (pg. T-17). The former ponds at K-1407 are considered inactive "underground radioactive contamination areas. ... The assumed remedial action for the remaining trenches and pits is capping, ground-water monitoring, and institutional controls." (pg. T-18).
• "The external plant area" includes two complex remediation sites, K-901 and K-770. These include burial grounds, disposal areas, holding ponds, sludge beds, tanks, waste storage buildings, and other contaminated areas.
• The pond waste management project includes dewatering, repacking and disposing more than 70,000 drums of partially solidified sludge ... "remediation of soil contamination around the K-1417 and K-1419 facilities is deferred to future [C.E.R.C.L.A.] action." (pg. T-21). A summary of decommissioning activities including an extensive description of non-radiological contaminants is included on page T-23.
• "In general order of priority, the wastestreams at the K-25 Site are (1) mixed waste liquids to be treated in the Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator; (2) combustible solids also to be treated in the Incinerator; (3) compressed gases; (4) aqueous liquids to be treated in existing facilities; (5) unstabilized Pond Waste Management Project sludges ..." as well as other wastes and toxic substance residues. (pg. T-29).
• It is rather disconcerting to note that total life cycle remediation costs for this component of the Oak Ridge Reservation drop from over 20 billion dollars in 1995 to just over 7 billion dollars in 1996. The BEMR report alleges that this saving is a result of accelerating the decommissioning activities in an era when virtually all other DOE remediation efforts are being delayed, either due to reduced funding or the political and scientific difficulties of implementing a final geological repository for waste disposal.

• "...the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Isotopes project, includes 19 former isotope production facilities that contain contaminated hot cells, lab hoods, radioactive isotope inventories, radioactive waste, and active instrumentation and utilities systems. ... the Oak Ridge National Laboratory 'High Rankers' project, includes 31 facilities that received a high threat score in the Surplus Facilities Inventory Assessment. Major facilities include the Tower Shielding Facility and Reactor; the Bulk Shielding Reactor; the Integrated Processing Demonstration Facility; and the High Radiation Level Analytical Facility. The other 27 facilities are associated ancillary facilities." (PG. t-44).
• "...the Environmental Restoration Program has identified approximately 350 sites contaminated with radioactivity or hazardous chemicals. Because of the large number of contaminated sites and the complexity of the hydrologic conditions at Oak Ridge, these sites have been combined into 20 waste area groupings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ... waste area groupings at the Laboratory are consolidated according to geographical location." (pg. T-46). A site map on page T-42 in the BEMR provides a graphic of the interconnected waste area groupings south of the main laboratory site and adjacent to or upstream from White Oak Lake.
• "Although additional facilities may transfer to the Environmental Management program over time, the [BEMR] report only makes estimates for those facilities that are now or are projected to be surpluses over the next five years." (pg. T-43).
• Waste area grouping 1 for example includes "gunite and associated tanks, surface impoundments, core hole 8 and liquid low-level radioactive waste tanks... including landfills and spill and leak sites ... contaminated groundwater from some of these sites reaches White Oak Creek and its tributaries through seeps" (pg. T-47).
• "Waste Area Grouping 3 includes Solid Waste Storage Area 3, a closed scrap-metal yard, and an active landfill. Solid Waste Storage Area 3 and the closed scrap-metal yard are inactive landfills known to contain radioactive solid waste and surplus materials generated at Oak Ridge from 1946 to 1979. ... The Surface Impoundments Operable Unit consists of four surface impoundments located in the south central portion of the Bethel Valley Oak Ridge National Laboratory facilities complex. ... Principal radionuclide contaminants are strontium-90, cesium-137, and tritium. ... The Core Hole 8 plume of contaminated ground water was discovered during Phase I ground-water investigations." (pg. T-48, T-49).
• "Contaminants of concern identified to date within Waste Area Grouping 2 are strontium-90; cesium-137; cobalt-60; thorium; uranium; transuranics; metals (mercury, zinc, and chromium); and some organic compounds (including polychlorinated biphenyls) located primarily in bottom sediments. These contaminants have migrated from sources within Waste Area groupings 1 and 3 through 9. Consequently, Waste Area Grouping 2 is considered both an 'integrator' and conduit for contaminants moving through the surface-water system to White Oak Creek and to offsite areas." (pg. T-51).
• "Waste Area Grouping 5 consists of Solid Waste Storage Area 5 and the surrounding land. Solid Waste Storage Area 5 opened in 1959, when Solid Waste Storage Area 4 neared capacity, and closed in 1973. Although both the Old Hydrofracture Facility and the New Hydrofracture Facility are within this waste area grouping's boundaries, they are not included in its scope of work. Solid Waste Storage Area 5 includes two distinct areas: Storage Area 5 North and Storage Area 5 South. Storage Area 5 North is used mainly for long-term storage of legacy transuranic waste and is currently an active waste management facility operated by the Waste Management program. Before 1970, transuranic waste was buried in unlined trenches and auger holes. After 1970, retrievable storage was required." (pg. T-52).
• "Waste burials started at Solid Waste Storage Area 6 in 1969, and were expanded to full-scale operation in 1973 when Solid Waste Storage Area 5 was closed. ... The major sites in Waste Area Grouping 7 are seven pits and trenches used from 1951 to 1966 to dispose of liquid low-level waste. ... Waste Area Grouping 8 consists of the inactive Molten-Salt Reactor (included in the Decontamination Section of this report) and the operating High Flux Isotope Reactor with associated tank and piping systems, six pipeline leak sites and an old transfer line, five surface impoundments, a spoils area, and waste storage facilities operated with a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit." (pg. T-52, T-53).
• "Waste Area Grouping 9 is composed of four primary contaminated sites: the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment settling pond impoundment, two buried liquid low-level waste collection and evaporator tanks, a septic tank, and the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment parking lot." (pg. T-53, T-54).
• "Waste Area Grouping 10 consists of injection wells and subsurface grout sheets constructed for hydrofracturing experiments conducted in the late 1950s and 1960s, followed by waste disposal operations until 1984. Although the facilities built for these experiments, the Old Hydrofracture Facility and the New Hydrofracture Facility, are located in Waste Area Grouping 5, they are included in the scope of this waste area grouping. In 1959, grout consisting of diatomaceous earth and cement was experimentally injected into an underground shale formation to observe the fracture pattern created in the shale and to identify potential operating problems. The site of the second hydrofracture experiment is in Waste Area Grouping 8. This experiment was designed to duplicate and to scale actual disposal operation; however, radioactive tracers were used instead of actual waste. Bentonite, cement, and water tagged with cesium-137 were used in formulating the grout. ... Preliminary data indicate that three of these wells are under artesian pressure and may be providing a pathway for contaminated deep ground water to reach zones overlying the waste injection zone, approximately 275 meters (900 feet) below ground surface." (pg. T-54). The Integrated DataBase (IDB), 1994 indicates that 1.5 million curies of radioactive waste were injected into the underground shale deposits as grout during the years of operation of the Old Hydrofracture Facility. There is currently no way to verify the accuracy of this estimate. Additional description of the Old Hydrofracture Facility is contained on page T-59.
• A number of additional Oak Ridge facilities are the object of DOE remediation efforts. The X-10 site was the location of a graphite pilot reactor which produced large quantities of lanthanum-140. Accidents involving the rupture of radioactive slugs and associated chemical processing effluents resulted in the release of substantial but unknown quantities of radioactive contamination; the X-10 facility may be the only reactor where a contractor has overestimated the reactor releases during the 1940's and 1950's (see comments in Nuclear Wastelands, 1995, p. 232-233 by Makhijani et. al.). Other facilities undergoing decommissioning at ORNL are the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment Facility, the Homogeneous Reactor Experiment, the Shielded Transfer Tanks Facility, the Oak Ridge Research Reactor, the Metal Recovery Facility "Building 3505", the Fission Product Development Laboratory "Building 3517", the Graphite Reactor "Building 3001", three buildings at the Low-intensity Test Reactor, the Fission Product Pilot Plant (currently entombed), and the High-level Chemical Development Laboratory "Building 4505".
• A component of ORNL remediation includes in situ vitrification involving "melting the entire mass of contaminated soil into a chemically homogeneous and durable glass microcrystalline waste form. The melt dissolves and incorporates radionuclides and nonvolatile hazardous elements such as heavy metals and destroys organic components. Most semivolatile organics are retained in the melt, and the small quantity of material escaping from the melt is captured and treated. In situ vitrification could be applied to other pits in Waste Area Grouping 7 and 'hot spots' in other burial areas on the Oak Ridge Reservation and across the Department of Energy complex to destroy organics and incorporate other components into the chemically homogeneous and durable glassy product." (pg. T-53).
• "Spent nuclear fuel ... Currently, spent nuclear fuel is stored in underground retrievable dry storage units, above-grade buildings, hot cells, and wet storage basins." (pg. T-69). The Integrated DataBase lists current inventories of DOE spent fuel at ORNL as 21,988 kg located in a total of 10 buildings or reactors; the BEMR lists 13 facilities as being used to store spent fuel. No final repository is yet available for the disposal of this spent fuel nor are any costs for this disposal included in the $9,351,000,000 remediation estimate for the ORNL laboratory component of the Oak Ridge Reservation.
• Transuranic mixed and transuranic wastes is divided into 3 categories in the BEMR: remote handled transuranic sludges; contact handled transuranic solids; and remote handled transuranic solids. No estimate of the radioactivity of these transuranic wastes is provided in this report.
• Other Oak Ridge Reservation remediation sites include the downtown Oak Ridge Operations Office (total life cycle costs estimated at 2 billion dollars) and the Oak Ridge Reservation Offsite Program involving the Clinch River and Watts Bar Reservoir system encompassing 120 river miles which has been contaminated by effluents from the White Oak Creek (life cycle costs estimated at 267 million dollars). Radionuclides of interest in the Clinch River included ⁶⁰Co,¹³⁷Cs, tritium, and ⁹⁰Str.

• The Y-12 plant operated between 1943 and 1993 producing uranium isotopes for weapons fabrication using an electromagnetic process which resulted in the contamination of 23 facilities. Since this facility is still in active use, the BEMR only estimates remediation costs in those buildings which have been declared surplus; this includes 3 buildings with 1 million sq. feet of floor space which were used for weapons production functions. "Altogether over 200 areas of concern have been identified ... consolidated into three hydrologic, geographic units." (pg. T-105).
• Access and use of the sites in the Chestnut Ridge Hydrologic Region "will remain restricted for the life cycle of this estimate ... The Bear Creek Valley Watershed includes the following potential contaminant sources: the S-3 Ponds (four unlined surface impoundments used for disposal of process effluent), oil-retention ponds, an oil landfarm, waste burial grounds, a site used for a boneyard and burnyard, two spoil areas, and a storage yard. ... Numerous primary and secondary sources of contamination have been identified within the Upper East Fork Poplar Creek Characterization Area. Infiltration from the S-3 Area dominates contamination in the western end of the area. The salvage yard, the S-2 Area, and the 81-10 Area have also been identified as potentially significant sources. In addition, over 200 areas of concern have been identified as low-priority contaminant sources." (pg. T-106, T-107, T-109).
• "Low-level waste generated and managed at the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant is predominantly contaminated with uranium isotopes ... This baseline report assumes that a total of 390,000 cubic meters (510,900 cubic yards) of solid low-level waste will transfer to the waste management program over the life cycle of this program." (pg. T-119).
• An excellent summary of hazardous substances released to the environment at the Oak Ridge Reservation is contained in Nuclear Wastelands p. 230-231, Table 6.6, (Makhijani et. al. 1995). These substances include groundwater contamination by a variety of radionuclides, heavy metals, and the numerous volatile organic compounds (VOC's) used in weapons production and fuel reprocessing and other activities at ORNL.

• "This survey was the third for Oak Ridge Reservation, the first two being conducted in 1973 and 1974. Such surveys are part of the routine environmental surveillance program conducted by the Department of Energy."

• For another clincher of a survey, also see Paper 433-G.

Cletcher, J.W. (July-September 1996). Reactor shutdown experience. Nuclear Safety: Technical Progress Journal. 37(3). pg. 234-236.

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. (September 27, 1994). Y-12 Plant Conduct of Operations. Recommendation 94-4 to the Secretary of Energy pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2286a(5) Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.

• "...a number of recent events have led the Board to the conclusion that more aggressive and comprehensive management actions are required to bring the level of conduct of operations at Y-12 to a satisfactory level."
• "Most recently, the Board's staff identified a substantial violation of nuclear criticality safety limits within a special nuclear material storage vault at Y-12."
• "Reviews of compliance with nuclear criticality safety limits at the Y-12 Plant revealed that a widespread level of non-compliance exists."
• "An evaluation of compliance with Operational Safety Requirements and Criticality Safety Approvals (CVAs), including a determination of the root cause of any identified violations. In performing this assessment, DOE should use the experience gained during similar reviews at the Los Alamos plutonium facility and during the recent 'maintenance mode' at the Pantex Plant."
• "A comprehensive review of the nuclear criticality safety program at the Y-12 Plant, including: the adequacy of procedural controls, the utility of the nuclear criticality safety approvals, and a root cause analysis of the extensive level of non-compliance found in recent reviews."

• "U:Pu ratios in small mammal carcasses (shrews, mice, and rats) and bone samples from larger mammals (rabbit, woodchuck, opossum, and raccoon) were significantly greater (P<0.05) than U/Pu ratios in soil... The order of actinide accumulation by biota from the site relative to contaminated soil was U>Th ~/= Pu." (pg. 207).

• "The emigration of frogs and turtles from waste ponds also presents a potential for dispersal of radioactivity but over distances < 5 km." (pg. 137).
• "Radioactively contaminated areas at ORNL include floodplains which received outfalls from past operations, sites of transfer line leaks, pits and trenches used 25 years ago for the disposal of liquid radioactive wastes, burial grounds for solid low-level radioactive wastes, and retired radioactive waste treatment ponds or retention basins." (pg. 139).

King, A.L., Smyre, J.L. and Evers, T.K. (February 1995). Strategic Environmental Research and Development Project FY 1994: Assessing national remote sensing technologies for use in US Department of Energy Environmental Restoration Activities, Oak Ridge Solid Waste Storage Area 4 case study. Report no. ORNL/TM--12926. NTIS order no. DE95008962. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN. 12 pp.

• "During FY 1994, the Oak Ridge Environmental Restoration (ER) Remote Sensing Program [etc.] ... conduct[ed] a test and demonstration of the uses of national remote sensing technologies at DOE hazardous waste sites located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Objectives of the Oak Ridge study were to determine if national remote sensing technologies are useful in conducting prescreening, characterization, and/or monitoring activities to expedite the clean-up process at hazardous waste sites and to cut clean-up costs wherever possible." (abstract).

Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (May 1960). Radioisotopes: Special materials and services: Catalog and price list. 3rd Revision 5-60. ORNL, Oak Ridge, TN.

• "Since August 2, 1946, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been distributing radioisotopes for commercial, educational, research, and medical use. During this time the techniques of manufacturing, handling, packaging, and shipping relatively large amounts of highly purified radioisotopes have been developed to the point where most of the operations are now routine and similar to those of regular industry. At the present time, more than 100 different radioisotope preparations are produced and distributed by the Laboratory to customers licensed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission." (forward).
• "Cesium-137 - Barium-137m gamma sources. ... Chemical form: CsCl ...

Price: 0-20,000 c $2.00/c or fraction
20,000-100,000 c $150/c
Over 100,000 c $ 1.00/c
Source fabrication - Radiographic - $250 - up to 130 curies
Teletherapy - $500 - 500 to 2000 curies" (pg. 160).
• "Cesium-137 is one of the most important long-lived gamma-ray-emitting isotopes found in the by-products of nuclear fission. It is adaptable for use in teletherapy machines and by industry for radiography and various other radiation work where a compact, long-lived source of gamma radiation is required." (pg. 161).

• "Liquid wastes were generated primarily from the separations building (Building 205) where neutron-irradiated slugs of uranium were dissolved to recover plutonium; resulting from this were liquid wastes rich in fission products, organics, uranium, some plutonium, and nitrate. In addition, similar wastes were produced at the research buildings (e.g., Building 706) and elsewhere. Amounts on the order of 30,000 gal/day were generated." (pg. 182).
• "Lower activity wastes were then sent directly to a 1.6-million-gal settling basin; higher activity wastes went to storage in a series of underground (gunite) tanks where radionuclides decayed and further precipitation occurred ... When the activity was low enough, the wastes were sent to retention ponds, held for an average of 3 days, and then sent to the settling basin. Out-flow from the basin was mixed (ratio 1:35) with clean process water and released to White Oak Creek, which flowed into White Oak Lake, an artificial lake specifically created to retain the drainage before controlled release to the Clinch River, where further dilution (about 500 000:1) occurred." (pg. 182-183).
• "This method for disposal was used until the turn of the decade when an evaporator was built to reduce total volume. Then wastes were disposed of directly into seepage pits in shale; in the mid-1960s, these liquids were mixed with cement and injected deep into the ground, a process known as 'hydrofracture.'" (pg. 183).
• An important analysis of radioactive waste treatment policies at only one of the hundreds of U.S. military radioactive waste source points. Great photos, especially of the first graphite reactor ("pile") at this facility.

Tuttle, M. and Pace, P. (1996). The ORNL Basemapping and Imagery Project: data collection, processing and dissemination. Report no. CONF-9603148--1. NTIS order no. DE96008802. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN. 10 pp.

• "Over the past three years, the GIS and Computer Modeling (GCM) Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has been engaged in creating a very comprehensive geospatial data base for Department of Energy (DOE) installations managed by the DOE Oak Ridge Operations Office (DOE-ORO). This effort encompasses topographic, planimetric, land use/land cover, flood plain, digital elevation, and digital imagery data for the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) and surrounding areas. The ORR covers approximately 34,800 acres and includes ORNL, the K-25 Site and the Y-12 Plant." (abstract).

U. S. Department of Energy. (October 1992). Oak Ridge Reservation environmental report for 1991: Volume 1: narrative, summary, and conclusions. ES/ESH-22/V1. U. S. DOE, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

U. S. Department of Energy. (January 15, 1993). Environmental restoration and waste management Site-Specific Plan for the Oak Ridge Reservation; FY 1993. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

"The purpose of this Site-Specific Plan (SSP) is to describe the activities undertaken to implement the FYP goals at the DOE Oak Ridge Field Office (DOE/OR) installations and programs specifically for the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) and surrounding areas." (DOE EM abstract summary).

• "This report is a synopsis of the progress of the well plugging and abandonment program at the Y-12 Plant, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, from October 1993 through August 1994. A total of 57 wells and borings were plugged and abandoned during the period of time covered in this report. All wells and borings were plugged and abandoned in accordance with the Monitoring Well Plugging and Abandonment Plan for the U.S. Department of Energy, Y-12 Plant, Oak Ridge, Tennessee." (abstract).