This is the largest U.S. facility for recycling plutonium from obsolete nuclear weapons; the DOD reports that the Pantex facility, as well as nuclear weapons in the field, have an inventory of 66 metric tons of ²³⁹Pu, but does not otherwise differentiate between the exact amount of plutonium at Pantex and the amount of plutonium in nuclear weapons at U.S. military bases throughout the world.

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. (November 25, 1997). Review of the safety of storing plutonium pits at the Pantex Plant. DNFSB, Washington, D.C.

• "DOE is currently using a new container design for some pits, developing another, less expensive container for the remaining pits, and making preparations to move thousands of pits to different storage facilities at Pantex. These efforts are not well integrated." (pg. iv).
• "The lack of authorization basis controls for the storage of these pits renders at least three temperature-sensitive designs vulnerable to cladding failure" (pg. iv).
• "The relatively new surveillance program for pits stored at Pantex does not appear to be sampling the pits at a rapid enough rate to characterize in a timely manner the real potential for corrosion of the stored pits. Only about 30 pits per year are inspected, even though more than 10,000 pits of various designs are stored at Pantex. the resolution of corrosion and packaging issues is hindered further by the lack of a formal project to improve understanding of pit cladding corrosion and identify corrective actions that may be required." (pg. iv).

The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology site was built in 1951; it's primary commission was to build nuclear weapons components. Additional plant missions included plutonium recovering and reprocessing and waste management. Production activities included metal fabrication and assembly and chemical recovery and purification of transuranic radionuclides. As a result of weapons production activities, large quantities of ²³⁹Pu were released to the environment not only from normal operating activities (stack releases), but also from chronic releases from leaking drums of contaminated cutting oil (1958-1968), as well as from a series of fires that occurred at the plant during the late 1960's. Additional significant quantities of plutonium have accumulated within a variety of buildings in air ducts (+500 kg ²³⁹Pu) and other locations which were formerly used to fabricate nuclear weapons. The DOE BEMR lists the current inventory of plutonium at 12.9 metric tons in nearly 15,000 items, and 6.7 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in nuclear weapons parts, materials, processed residues and wastes. "Much of this material has been stored in temporary packaging since 1989 when production operations involving radioactive materials were suspended. Approximately 30,000 liters of plutonium solutions and 2,700 liters of highly enriched uranium acid solution are stored in tanks that were not designed for long term storage." (BEMR, Vol. 2, pg. Colorado 21). Total life cycle remediation costs are estimated at $17,319,000,000 in the BEMR. RADNET considers this estimate extremely liberal (i.e. low). Due to the location of this facility adjacent to a rapidly growing population area (Denver), unfavorable climatic characteristics of this site (desiccated, subject to very high wind; most population is downwind from the site), and because of the chronic release of plutonium to the environment during the years of operation of this facility, this site is probably the most dangerous among all the DOE weapons production facilities (accidents-in-progress). An extensive series environmental compliance reports and assessments can be accessed via RAD 13: 2-D: see Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, as well as BEMR links. The Radiation Control Division of the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and the Environment also has extensive information about this source point and may be accessed through either of these links.

An April 14, 1994, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report Plutonium storage safety at major department of Energy facilities cited and reviewed in the General Bibliography at the beginning of this section (5) includes the following description of the situation at RFETS.

"Not counting encapsulated weapon components, Rocky Flats has several thousand containers of plutonium metal, compounds, and mixtures. They have a significant quantity of plutonium solution stored in tanks and bottles. They have thousands of containers of scrap of various kinds (called 'residue' at Rocky Flats). The great majority of the inventory is either not in forms suitable for long-term storage or is not packaged correctly for long-term storage."

"Plutonium metal corrodes fairly rapidly in the presence of air or water vapor. It corrodes very rapidly in the presence of hydrogen to form pyrophoric plutonium hydride.3,4 Some metal items stored at Rocky Flats may be in direct contact with plastic bags, an unsafe situation for storage periods extending beyond a few weeks or months. A plastic bag in direct contact with plutonium is subject to rapid radiolysis, which generates hydrogen gas and weakens the bag at the same time. Hydrogen gas will react rapidly with the plutonium metal to generate plutonium hydride. As long as there is free oxygen in the container, hydride will react with it to form oxides. When the free oxygen is depleted, hydride will start to accumulate. The weakened bag is likely to eventually break open and admit air; it is particularly likely to do so when it is handled, but it may do so spontaneously. Either way, there will be an exothermic reaction as the hydride oxidizes, possibly sparking and flaming, and the risk of a larger fire if combustibles are nearby. Other possible adverse chemical evolutions involving plutonium metal and plastic are discussed in Appendix B.

A great deal of plutonium scrap, some containing high concentrations of both plutonium and americium, was also packaged without adequate consideration of long-term chemical and radiological effects. Some scrap was packaged directly in plastic bags or cartons, creating the possibility of high hydrogen generation rates, with the same adverse implications as apply to plutonium metal. (A considerable fraction of the plutonium in the scrap is in the form of metal, so some of the chemical issues are similar.) Many scrap packages are poorly vented. Hydrogen generation in poorly vented containers can create a fire hazard from the hydrogen itself, and can lead to the accumulation of pyrophoric forms of plutonium. Any mishap that results in the sudden introduction of air into such a container (a handling accident, for example, or corrosion of a container wall) could cause a fire or small explosion. the scrap situation is complicated by the fact that the exact chemical composition and packaging arrangements are not known in many cases. there are thousands of scrap containers, mostly 55-gallon and 10-gallon drums, stored in several different buildings. They are generally located in operating areas.

There are approximately 11,000 liters of plutonium solutions stored at Rocky Flats. There are twenty-four tanks of solution in Building 771 alone, with plutonium concentrations as high as 140 grams/liter. There are additional tanks in Building 371, plus several hundred plastic bottles of plutonium solution stored in six different buildings, plus an estimated 9,000 liters of plutonium-contaminated liquid in process piping and tank heels. There have been dozens of leaks from the tanks since the 1989 shutdown. One of the most serious was the July 1993 rupture of an overhead oxalic acid line, which sprayed plutonium-contaminated liquid over a radius of 6-7 meters. Most of the tanks and process piping are in routinely occupied areas, although no one was injured by the July pipe rupture. The solutions are not well characterized. No samples have been taken from any of the tanks since 1989. Some of the tanks are not geometrically safe, and their Raschig rings have not been inspected since 1989. The accumulation of plutonium polymer, the extent of plutonium precipitation, and the severity of tank wall corrosion are all essentially unknown. The DNFSB staff considers DOE's plans for dealing with these problems greatly inadequate." (Section II-A).

"The continuing storage of plutonium solutions in tanks and piping is one of the most severe hazards at Rocky Flats or anywhere in the Complex. The connections in the tanks and piping are already leaking. Criticality safety is increasingly difficult to guarantee. The Raschig rings in the non-geometrically favorable tanks, which are supposed to be inspected every year, have not been inspected for several years. The systems required for moving liquids have not been operational for several years and thus mixing of the liquids for proper sampling or concentration control can not be carried out. The tanks are in occupied areas; a criticality incident could cause fatalities. These liquids should be processed to a stable solid form as a very high priority item.

There are so many types of solid materials that might not be stable in their present storage form or packaging that it is difficult to choose the single most hazardous category. Salt residues are a major concern and should be repackaged to eliminate as much plastic material as possible. A second category of materials that should receive attention are the combustibles that may be nitrated." (Section III-A).

Arthur, W.J. and Alldredge, A.W. (1982). Importance of plutonium contamination on vegetation surfaces at Rocky flats, Colorado. Environ. Exp. Bot. 22. 33-38.

Boyns, P.K. and Stuart, T.P. (September 1, 1982). An aerial radiological survey of the United States Department of Energy's Rocky Flats plant date of survey: August 1981. Doc. No. EGG11831771. Accession No. NV0039776. Never classified. Opennet entry date: 08/26/1994. EG&G - Las Vegas Area Operations. pp. 27.

Cobb, J.C., et. al. (1982). Plutonium burdens in people living around the Rocky Flats Plant. EPA-600/4-82-069. National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA.

Colorado Committee for Environmental Information Subcommittee on Rocky Flats. (1970). Report on the Dow Rocky Flats fire: Implications of plutonium releases to the public health and safety. Colorado Committee for Environmental Information Subcommittee on Rocky Flats, Boulder, CO.
 

August 1969

Rocky Flats, CO

Offsite soil

239Pu

13,500 d.p.m./kg (225 Bq/kg)

• Global fallout: range of five samples from the Colorado Eastern Slope: 0.434-0.903 Bq/kg (26-56 d.p.m./kg).
• The plutonium fire of May 11, 1969 released a significant amount of ²³⁹Pu to the environment (plus 10 Ci?); this enhanced deposition levels from previous airborne releases from Rocky Flats.

Crump, K.S., Ng, T-H. and Cuddihy, R.G. (1987). Cancer incidence patterns in the Denver metropolitan area in relation to the Rocky Flats plant. American J. of Epidemiology. 126(1). pg. 127-135.

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. (April 28, 1994). Trip report on ventilation/filtration systems in Buildings 559 and 707 at the Rocky Flats Plant. Memorandum for G.W. Cunningham, Technical Director.

• "The scope of this review included the ventilation/filtration systems at Buildings 559 and 707."
• "Recent failures to meet operational safety requirements (OSR) at Buildings 559 and 707 were reviewed. These failures are more important considering the unreviewed safety question determination for other buildings at Rocky Flats where all stages of filtration are not required to be periodically ascertained."

• A general overview of the principal buildings, their present condition and possible future use.
• "EG&G presented a long list of obstacles to processing of plutonium residues including: National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) documentation, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), safety assessments, procedures, training, waste disposal limits, need for substantial line item funding, administrative dose guidance of 750 mrem/year, plutonium in the ducts, shrinking access zones, and seeking DNFSB approvals."
• "The staff believes that the only substantive issues that need to be resolved are: plutonium in the ducts, need for dose reduction/ALARA for salt processing, building seismic capability for longer term operation, waste minimization, and working smarter to develop criticality limits for each evolution. This latter issue was identified by EG&G as a real time restraint, whereby the nuclear safety group needs to re-review all of the criticality limits for all evolutions. Initially, EG&G needed 980 manhours of work to develop each critically limit; LANL support has reduced these to about 300 manhours."

• "This report consolidates the technical issues related to faulting near Building 371 at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS). These issues [are] (location of trench, mapping and dating, interpretations, etc.)..."
• "It has not been conclusively demonstrated that the inferred fault at Building 371, with a dislocation of about 40-50 ft., does in fact extend to within the trench located 1.3 km north of Building 371."

• "Stabilization of the combustible residues at Rocky Flats is a critical path meeting the requirements of Board Recommendation 94-1 for processing of high residues."
• "Incineration requires an Environmental Impact Statement and a Clean Air Act permit, which DOE said would require several years to obtain. Hence, the purpose of the workshop was to select an alternative to incineration. DOE RFFO informally favors only venting and repacking for most combustible residues; this alternative does not, however, satisfy Recommendations."

• "Purpose: This trip report documents the review conducted by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's (Board) technical staff and outside expert of concerns regarding the integrity of Buildings 776/777 and 771."

• "The Board has identified B771 as one of the highest-priority facilities in the DOE nuclear weapons complex to be deactivated and decommissioned, because of significant fissile material holdup and contamination from plutonium processing and research and development activities during a period of nearly 40 years. Many of the processes in B771 involved weapons-grade plutonium dissolved in strong acid solutions that have leaked from equipment during the years and contaminated numerous areas of the building. There is a significant amount of holdup in the production equipment including gloveboxes, ventilation ducting, and filters, as well as in inaccessible areas. Plutonium holdup in B771 ductwork alone is estimated to be more than 10 kg. with unknown quantities in equipment, tanks, and piping." (from cover letter and recommendation enclosed with report).
• "Thousands of containers of waste chemicals are presently being stored in B771 (more than 5000) and B779 (about 4200). Many of these chemicals are flammable, explosive, corrosive, and/or toxic. They exist in open or degraded containers that are inconsistent with safe storage of hazardous materials as specified in RCRA 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 265 and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 231 standards. Numerous excess waste chemicals have been identified, but little effort appears to have been expended on their disposition; only 300 of 1000 chemicals in B779 alone have been disposed. Several large tanks of excess nitric acid and chemical makeup are stored on the second floor of B771. Most chemicals are managed as radioactive liquids and disposed as mixed waste, unless laboratory analysis and characterization prove otherwise. Disposition of the excess chemicals would reduce the clutter and remove the hazards they pose to workers."

• "A significant number of transuranic (TRU) waste drums are stored in plutonium buildings and waste storage facilities at RFETS. An attendant safety issue for such storage is the potential for generation of flammable gases as a result of radiolytic decomposition of the waste forms. The site had scheduled all these drums to be vented by the end of fiscal year 1995 as part of the site risk reduction program. Although more than 500 drums remain unvented, venting of the drums was discontinued last year. The Board believes that venting of TRU waste drums, especially those containing ion exchange resins or cemented sludge, warrants a priority higher than the one currently assigned by the Department of Energy."

• "All the operations in Building 771 and operations involving more than 200 grams of plutonium in other buildings at RFETS have been suspended following the criticality infraction in Building 771 in September 1994."
• "The detailed hazard analysis of Building 371 has identified 12.9 metric tons of plutonium as the material at risk. Five metric tons of plutonium is in the form of dispersible powder with the rest as massive metals with significantly lower respirable release fractions."
• "Following the criticality infraction in Building 771 in September 1994, a root cause analysis, prepared by EG&G, identified several issues which contributed to the incident. Conduct of operation, training, supervision, and controls and barriers were identified as contributing factors which led to the incident. Consequently, all operations in Building 771 and activities involving more than 200 grams of Pu in other buildings have been curtailed pending corrective actions."
• "...hydrogen generation resulting from radiolysis of acidic solutions in the tanks was a safety issue. According to LATO calculations, sufficient hydrogen could be generated in high plutonium concentration tanks to reach the lower explosive limit (LEL) in about 12 hours if the hydrogen was not vented. Due to significant consequences of a hydrogen explosion, LATO recommended that it was 'extremely important that ventilation be maintained on all solutions in tanks.'"
• "Preliminary staff calculation shows that if the tanks were properly vented, there should have been 1 to 3 percent annual reductions in the tank level due to evaporation. The tanks levels, however, have been steady according to the measurements over the last 5 years."
• "Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC) has identified similar conditions in solution tanks at FB Line. WSRC, however, has implemented procedures to purge the tanks on a frequent basis (at least once a day) in order to prevent hydrogen generation from reaching the LEL."

• "Tank Sampling: As of May 23, 1995, EG&G had sampled nine tanks in Building 771 out of ten identified as potentially containing high hydrogen concentrations. Three of the tanks sampled, D550, D931, and D933, contained approximately 50, 50, and 40 volume percent hydrogen, respectively. These concentrations are well within the explosive range and 40-50 times higher than the hydrogen level allowed by Code 69 of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA 69)."

• "Rocky Flats has a total of 106 metric tons of plutonium bearing residues which [fall] into five major categories: 1) salts, 2) combustibles, 3) ash, 4) wet/miscella [, 5)] inorganics. These residues contain about 3 weight percent of plutonium and app. one-half of the total residues are classified as high risk. ... The status of each of these residue categories (call by EG&G) are presented below."

• "Building 371. Activities in building 371 were terminated on March 16, 1995, based on numerous deficiencies with the ventilation systems. As of May 24, 1995, activities have not resumed. The contractor has stated that 'this termination is necessary because the impact of these deficiencies on the facility's authorization basis in unknown.' The major physical cause of the termination of operations can be traced to the malfunctioning of the instrument air system."
• "Another important manifestation of the unacceptable level of material condition of Building 371 is the frequency of alarms received in the Building. Prior to April 1990 this was running at approximately 500 per day and it is currently in excess of 2400. An acceptable level has not been established. At the 500 level, an adequate response to each alarm is beyond the resources and staffing for the facility."
• "In its present configuration, the vast majority (several hundred) of the instrumentation and controls in the Building 776 control room are out of service."

• "Procedures for draining tanks which have solutions with unconfirmed plutonium concentrations allow the solution to be drained into three 4-liter bottles for sampling. A 12-liter volume in a single spherical unit with moderate reflection could possibly pose a criticality concern when the plutonium concentration is 100 g/liter. Highly concentrated solutions do exist in Building 771 and could accidentally be drained through valve misalignment. Limiting the sample volume to 10 liters or requiring physical separation of the bottles could eliminate any criticality concern even with solutions at 500 g/liter Pu concentration and fully reflected."
• "The observations made by the staff during this trip and the one on November 28 through December 2, 1994 identify some concerns with the safety culture of the RFFO and EG&G Safety Engineering groups. It appears that the safety engineers are more willing to support the activities than questioning the safety issues related to the activities."

• "Analysis shows that even though vent lines to the actinide solution tanks are open, hydrogen and oxygen will accumulate in tank headspaces. Without headspace sampling, all tanks may be assumed to contain explosive mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen. ... Even if the tank wall remains intact, fittings and sight glasses may likely fail, breaching containment. The analysis indicates that within relatively short times hydrogen gas can build up to explosive concentrations. Due to the relatively long stagnant storage of these solutions, a hydrogen detonation in a tank is believed to be a credible hazard."
• "This analysis assesses hydrogen generation in a total of 14 actinide solution tanks in buildings 371 and 771."

• "Summary: The RFETS is having a difficult time shipping radioactive waste off site because many of its waste containers cannot meet certification requirements for shipment to the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Because its waste generation rate exceeds its disposal rate, on-site storage capacity remains a serious issue. The increase in waste volumes resulting from decommissioning and environmental restoration activities, combined with a weak waste minimization program, will only worsen the situation in the next few years."
• "Background: Low-level waste (LLW) and low-level mixed waste (LLMW) at the RFETS are stored in buildings and under tents on the 750 and 904 pads. Currently, 80% of the on-site LLW storage capacity of 8000 yd³ is in use, while 98% of the 14,800 yd³ of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permitted LLMW storage capacity is in use."
• "During FY94, RFETS only made ten LLW shipments to NTS (a shipment can contain up to 57 yd³ of waste). This is contrasted to Fernald's 600 shipments. In FY95, RFETS anticipate shipping 395 yd³ to NTS and 168 yd³ to Hanford. However, this is only about half of their current generation rate of 1065 yd³ per year."
• "Transuranic Waste Management: ... As with LLW, there is a lack of storage space in both operating and long-term storage facilities. In particular, there is a lack of vacant floor space as well as a potential conflict of activities in Building 776. This is the building in which venting and gas sampling of TRU and TRU-M waste drums takes place; 1150 drums are left to be vented."
• "It should be noted that current cost of disposal at the Nevada Test Site of low-level waste generated by the RFETS is $10 per ft³ (as compared with an estimated commercial low-level waste disposal cost of $300 per ft³. This is not much of an incentive to minimize the waste generation rate."

• "The Board has been informed in briefings by the Department of Energy (DOE) that Building 371 is considered to be structurally the best on-site facility for the storage of plutonium, and that steps are therefore scheduled that in time will move the major part of the Site's plutonium inventory into storage in this building. As a result, Building 371 will assume a unique role as the storehouse which contains the largest single accumulation of plutonium in the DOE complex. It follows that potential health and safety issues associated with this proposed use of the building also assume very high importance."

• "...that fissile materials have accumulated in certain portions of these systems. In addition, other more recent physical studies have confirmed fissile and other undefined debris exist in the ducts."
• "As of this time, full characterization of the situation by DOE and its contractors has not been completed; hence, all specific remediation measures have not yet been determined."

Hardy, E. and Krey, (1995). P. Comments on "Spatial analysis of plutonium-239+240 and americium-241 in soils around Rocky Flats, Colorado," by M.I. Litaor. J. Environ. Qual. 24:506-516. J. Environ. Qual. 24(6), 1229.

• "He then extends this conclusion to say that if his assessment of the Pu and Am dispersal patterns is true, there was less public exposure to these actinides than previously suggested by Johnson in 1981. Since Litaor did not sample east of Indiana Avenue, this has no validity whatsoever." (pg. 1229).

• "The 18 nCi ^239,240Pu per m² (665 Bq/m²) from the Plant that had accumulated in the sediment is reasonable when compared to soil analyses." (p. 21)
• Additional deposition of 8000 pCi/m² (296 Bq/m²) attributed to weapons fallout.
• Is this is a gross overestimation of actual weapons fallout plutonium ground deposition, the worldwide cumulative average of which is 50-60 Bq/m², or does this reflect the impact of upwind weapons testing in Nevada?

• "Total ^239,240Pu and the ²⁴⁰Pu:²³⁹Pu atom ratio were measured in soil samples from around the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) during 1992-1994." (abstract).
• "Concentrations of ^239,240Pu within this sample set ranged from 1.1 Bq kg^-1 offsite to 57 Bq kg^-1 onsite..." (abstract).

Johnson, C.J. (1988). Rocky Flats: Death Inc. New York Times, Dec. 18, 1988.

• Local health inspector found 44 times more plutonium in soil near plant than had been reported earlier by the government.

• An overview of this report is available at Internet URL: http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/cdphe_dir/rc/rchom.html
• This report is an attempt to reformat previously reported data collected not only by the Radiation Control Division, but also contained in other reports, to update contour mapping of the Rocky Flat's plutonium plume. The introduction to this report references not only the Krey and Hardy contour map of 1970 but "other surveys of contamination around Rocky Flats have also used contour maps, one of the most recent of which was published in 1993 by M. I. Litaor."
• "From 1970 to 1991, the Radiation Control Division performed several surveys of plutonium contamination in surface soil. The purpose of the surveys was to find the extent and degree of plutonium contamination in the vicinity of the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site [RFETS], formerly the Rocky Flats Plant." (Introduction and overview, pg. 1).
• This report is the reformatting of this data into contour maps due to numerous requests from public interest groups etc.
• "Radiation Control Division staff have observed over the years that the highest measured concentrations were from samples that were taken in the first few years of the survey." (Introduction and overview, pg. 2).
• "The postulated decrease in concentration over time was suggested to have been due to any number of removal mechanisms, including erosion and migration to greater depth from the surface." (Introduction and overview, pg. 2).
• "The Jones and Zhang study, however, indicates that in fact the concentrations have not decreased over time, but rather that the measured concentrations have decreased in successive surveys because the contamination that had fallen on the surface was being diluted in samples that were collected to greater depth as the survey technique evolved." (Introduction and overview, pg. 2).
• "...THE MAIN REPORT SHOW THE INVESTIGATORS' ESTIMATES OF SURFACE SOIL CONCENTRATIONS TO A DEPTH OF 1/8"." (Introduction and overview, pg. 2).
• Deposition contours of ²³⁹Pu deposits ranged from 20 dpm/gm on the southeasterly side of RFETS to .02 in outlying areas.
• Close in sectors (1.5 mi.) exhibited a decrease of plutonium concentrations over time; e.g. sector 2: 66.84 dpm/gm (66,840 dpm/kg) gradually declining to 6.57 dpm/gm.
• The CDPHE website contains links to a whole series of reports on the Rocky Flats site, the most important of which will be reviewed and added to this section of RADNET during 1997.

• Soil Samples were collected to a depth of 20 cm at 33 sites extending as far as 40 miles from the plant site.
• Deposition concentrations of ²³⁹Pu as high as 2,000 mCi/km² were found off the plant site: concentrations decreased rapidly with distance (pg. 1). (weapons testing fallout baseline is 1.5 mCi/km² )
• This report contains a graphic contour map; "the contamination pattern extends eastward from the plant in the direction of the resultant wind vector and has virtually no westward component. The pattern is incompatible with the wind direction on the day of the May 11, 1969 fire. Leaking barrels of plutonium laden cutting oil stored in the southeast corner of the plant are the likely source of the contaminant." (pg. 1).
• The May 11, 1969 fire as well as several others (Sept. 11, 1957; 1967) also released substantial quantities of plutonium in the resulting smoke plume; while this report does not comment on the smoke plume's source term, it is likely this component of the Rocky Flat's release plume was dispersed to far field locations in quantities too small to significantly impact the deposition patterns documented in the contour map in this report which resulted from the leaking drums. The same observation may be made about the stack releases.
• "Three mCi/km² of ²³⁹Pu is the lowest contour readily discernible in the contamination pattern and extends about 8 miles E and SE of the plant." (pg. 1).

Krey, P.W., Hardy, E.P. and Toonkey, L.E. (1976). The distribution of plutonium and americium with depth in soil at Rocky Flats. USERDA Environmental Quarterly Report. HASL-318. U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, Health and Safety Lab. New York.

Krey, P.W., et. al. (1976). Plutonium and Americium contamination in Rocky Flats soils - 1973. HASL-304. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, New York.

Litaor, M. I., Thompson, M.L., Barth, G.R. and Molzer, P.C. (1994). Plutonium-239+240 and Americium-241 in soils east of Rocky Flats, Colorado. J. Environ. Qual. 23(6), 1231-1239.

• "Plutonium 239 + 240 and Am-241 activities in the soils ranged from 164 280 Bq/kg to 0.0037 Bq/kg, decreasing with distance from the source." (pg. 1231, abstract).
• "More than 90% of the Pu-239 + 240 and Am-241 activities were confined to the upper 12 cm of the soil, regardless of the soil characteristics, or distance and direction from the source." (pg. 1231, abstract).
• "Earthworm activity is probably important in the redistribution of actinides in the upper 40 cm of many of the soils investigated." (pg. 1231, abstract).
• "Past cleanup operations have been limited to the upper 10 to 15 cm of the soil (Baker, 1982). Earthworms and other soil fauna, however, may bring Pu-239 + 240 activity that will exceed the 33.3 Bq/kg guideline from depths > 15 cm. Hence, future cleanups to greater soil depth may be cost prohibitive because of the greater volume of contaminated soil." (Pg. 1238).

• "Plutonium activity reported in the exhaustive data set ranged from 0.03 Bq kg^-1 to 407,000 Bq/kg^-1 with a mean of 1,443 Bq kg^-1..." (p. 923).
• Litaor cites several other studies of global fallout plutonium in Colorado which suggest a large range of plutonium activities "probably due to weather patterns, surficial soil processes, and land-use practices in the last 30 years, as well as error associated with the various soil sampling techniques and laboratory methods employed." (pg. 933).
• "In the present study, we selected a threshold of 2.96 Bq kg^-1 as the uppermost representation of global-fallout plutonium and 1.29 Bq kg^-1 as its mean." (p. 933).
• The use of the reporting unit of Bq/kg for denoting plutonium deposition is extremely misleading; plutonium deposition is usually reported in Bq/m², as the depth used for the kg soil samples can vary from researcher to researcher, and the kg soil samples are taken over a smaller area thereby allowing more impact from wind erosion processes. Multiple bioregional plutonium source points further complicate the attempt to pin down the specific contribution of weapons testing derived plutonium fallout.
• It is obvious in this series of reports by Litaor and others that wind dispersion mechanisms are spreading the RFETS derived plutonium over wide areas of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains with the result that some of the deposition levels documented by the contour maps in theses reports are declining. One may then incorrectly conclude that earlier reports of higher levels of plutonium deposition may have been incorrect when in fact these erosion mechanisms are rapidly and efficiently spreading this plutonium over wide areas in quantities which cannot be differentiated from either weapons test derived plutonium or other plume source points such as Los Alamos National Laboratory. In this desiccated environment, the efficiency of wind dispersion mechanisms cannot be underestimated.
• "A PPRG of 126 Bq kg^-1 of ^239+240Pu in soil was computed to meet the stringent requirements of a residential scenario." (p. 933).

Litaor, M. I. (1995). Spatial analysis of plutonium-239+240 and americium-241 in soils around Rocky Flats, Colorado. J. Environ. Qual. 24, 506-516.

• "Soils were sampled from 118 plots ... by compositing 25 evenly spaced samples..." (pg. 506, abstract).
• "Plutonium-239+240 activity ranged from 1.85 to 53 560 Bq/kg with a mean of 1924 Bq/kg and a standard deviation of 6327 Bq/kg. Americium-241 activity ranged from 0.18 to 9990 Bq/kg with a mean of 321 Bq/kg and a standard deviation of 1143 Bq/kg." (pg. 506, abstract).
• "The isopleth configuration was consistent with the hypothesis that the dominant dispersal mechanism of Pu-239+240 was wind dispersion from west to east." (pg. 506, abstract).
• "In general, Am-241 is more difficult to measure than Pu-239+240 due to the elaborate extraction procedure required to separate Am-241 from lanthanides and Cm. The increase in analytical error resulted in anomaly of the Am-241/Pu-239+240 ratio." (pg. 515).
• "These findings clearly demonstrated that the level of contamination in surface soils near the eastern boundary of Rocky Flats and the exposure risk to Pu-239+240 and Am-241 are negligible." (pg. 515).
• See Hardy and Krey: comments on this conclusion and their response to this paper cited above.

• "Uranium-234 activity ranged from 25.9 to 92.8 Bq kg^-1, U-235 activity ranged from 0.1 to 25.1 Bq kg^-1, whereas U-238 activity ranged from 30.7 kg^-1 to 286 Bq kg^-1." (pg. 1, abstract).
• "Most of the observed activities of U-234 and U-235 were well within the natural range of U isotopes in soils." (pg. 1, abstract).
• "The two soil plots with the highest U-235 activity (Fig. 3) were probably resulted from surface flow and interflow from the east spray field (see Fig. 1). The east spray field received large amount of irrigation water from a series of holding ponds that between 1952 and 1979 received laundry waste water containing actinides." (pg. 3).
• "These results suggest that the impact of RFP on U distribution in surficial soil is limited. Hence, future remedial activities of U-isotopes in soils should focus on the directly impacted areas such as the East Trenches, the former storage site, and the few plots with elevated U activities." (pg. 4).

Litaor, M.I., Barth, G.R. and Zika, E.M. (July-August, 1996). Fate and transport of Plutonium-239+240 and Americium-241 in the soil of Rocky Flats, Colorado. J. Environ. Qual. 25.

• "Approximately 90% of the Pu-239+240 and Am-241 activity in the soils under study was observed in the upper 12 cm, below which a rapid decrease of actinide activity occurred (Fig. 3). However, appreciable Pu-239_240 activities were observed at depths of 24 and 36 cm in Pit 5 (1032 and 895 Bq/kg, respectively), and increases in Pu and Am activities were also observed at 48 and 96 cm in Pit 4 (Fig. 3). These actinide activities are significantly higher than previously reported for soils at the Site. ... This apparent discrepancy can be explained by the edaphic factors observed in the study area. Pit 5 is located on a steep slope (12%) and its upper 48 cm exhibited a very coarse texture (Table 2). Pits 1 through 5 exhibited high hydraulic conductivities in the A horizon, and occasionally, in the B horizons (Table 2)." (pg. 4).
• "Plutonium-239+240 and Am-241 activities in the soil interstitial water collected by the ZTS [Zero-Tension Sampler] showed a clear distribution with depth (Fig. 4). Actinide activities were significantly higher in the upper 20 cm than in the deeper sampling depths (Table 3)." (pg. 4).
• "... Am-241/Pu-239+240 ratios did not increase significantly with depth ... The results indicated that Am-241 does not move faster than Pu-239+240 in the soils of the Site." (pg. 4).
• "The actinide activities in the soil interstitial water were completely uncorrelated with the magnitude of volume flux (r² = 0.006). This profound lack of correlation was consistent under all rain simulations." (pg. 5).
• "This study has also demonstrated that our current understanding of the edaphic [soil related] factors that control the fate and transport of actinides in the soil environs is limited." (pg. 6).

• "Weapons grade plutonium processed at RFETS was reported to have isotopic composition of 0.04% ²³⁸Pu, 93.3% ²³⁹Pu, 6% ²⁴⁰Pu, 0.58% ²⁴¹Pu, and 0.04% ²⁴²Pu (Krey and Krajewski 1972; Martell 1975). The initial ²⁴¹Am activity in the weapons grade plutonium processed at RFETS did not exceed 10^-4% (Krey et al. 1976). Consequently, nearly all the ²⁴¹Am activity in the soil around RFETS resulted from radioactive decay of ²⁴¹Pu (t1/2 = 14.4 y) to ²⁴¹Am." (pg. 347).
• "The physicochemical characteristics of ²⁴¹Am in the environment are markedly different than those of ^239+240Pu. Fowler and Essington (1974) ascertained that americium is more soluble than plutonium and may become the radionuclide of prime concern because it has a faster migration rate in soils. Romney et al. (1985) showed that root uptake of ²⁴¹Am by various plants was consistently greater than that of plutonium. ²⁴¹Am exhibited a higher solubility than did ²³⁸Pu and ^239+240Pu, as observed in rumen contents of cattle grazing on actinide-contaminated desert vegetation (Barth et al. 1985)." (pg. 347).
• "The major finding of this work was that the spatial distribution and dispersal mechanisms of ²⁴¹Am were similar to those of ^239+240Pu. The area adjacent to the former storage site is the most significantly contaminated with ²⁴¹Am in spite of several soil removal operations (Barker 1982)." (pg. 356).
• This report includes interesting contour maps of ²⁴¹Am distribution which illustrate a more easterly rather than southeasterly pattern of RFETS effluent distribution as suggested by Krey and Hardy (1970).

• "Prediction of Pu transport in the soil and vadose zone will be significantly improved if the Pu distribution and association with the various solid phases of the soil are well defined." (pg. 1).
• "A sequential extraction experiment was conducted to assess the geochemical association of Pu with selected mineralogical and chemical phases of the soil. In the surface horizons, Pu-239+240 was primarily associated with the organic C (45-65%), sesquioxides (20-40%), and the residual fraction (10-15%). A small portion of Pu-239+240 was associated with soluble (0.09-0.22%), exchangeable (0.04-0.08%), and carbonates (0.57-07.0%) phases. These results suggest that under the observed pH and oxic conditions, relatively little Pu-239+240 is available for geochemically induced transport processes." (abstract).
• "Uncommon hydrogeochemical conditions were observed during the spring of 1995, which may have facilitated a partial dissolution of sesquioxides followed by desorption of Pu resulting in increased Pu mobility." (abstract).
• "... under ... anoxic conditions, certain bacteria may even dissolve the insoluble Pu-oxides (Rusin et al., 1994), and may further enhance its mobility and bioavailability. This hydrogeochemically induced transport mechanism was not envisioned under any environmental condition or hyudrogeochemical modeling scenarios (USDOE, 1991)." (pg. 4).
• "Plutonium-239+240 activity in the top soil horizons ranged from 3920 to 18 200 Bq kg^-1, with mean activity of 8480 Bq kg^-1. The distribution of Pu-239+240 activity in the samples collected from the five pits showed that >90% of the Pu isotopes is residing in the upper 18 cm of the soil (Table 2). The activity of Pu-239+240 at all locations decreased with depth to near background levels (i.e., global fallout ~ 1.5 Bq kg^-1) in the deepest horizons (>1 m)." (pg. 2-3).

• "The distribution of radionuclides during the monitoring period from 1993 to 1995 suggested that Pu-239 + 240 and Am-241 are largely immobile in semi-arid soils." (pg. 17).

Little, C. A., Whicker, F. W. and Winsor, T.F. (1980). Plutonium in a grassland ecosystem at Rocky Flats. J. Environ. Qual. 9, 350-354.

Love, J. (1994). Rocky Flats soil plutonium survey from 1970 to 1991, technical status report. Colorado Department of Health.

Poet, S.E. and Martell, E.A. (1972). Plutonium-239 and americium-241 contamination in the Denver area. Health Physics, 23, 537-548.

• "...the ²³⁹Pu contamination in off site areas just east of the Rocky Flats plant ranges up to hundreds of times that from nuclear tests." (p. 537)
• "Results for soils of known last date disturbance make it evident that most of the off site Pu accumulated between 1966 and 1969." (p. 537)
• "²⁴¹Am, which grows in from ²⁴¹Pu present in the contaminant, now contributes between 3 and 15% as much alpha activity as ²³⁹Pu and ultimately will approach comparable levels." (p. 537)

Seed, J.R., Calkins, K. W., Illsley, C.T., Miner, F.J. and Owen, J.B. (1971). Committee evaluation of Pu levels in soils within the surrounding USAEC Installation at Rocky Flats, Colorado. DOW Chemical Company, RF-INV-1. DOW Chemical Co., Golden, CO.

Terry, R. (1991). Contamination of surface soil in Colorado by plutonium, 1970-1989: summary and comparison of plutonium concentration in soil in the Rocky Flats plant vicinity and eastern Colorado. April 22, 1991, at Annual Technical Meeting, Central Rocky Mountain Chapter/Health Physics Society.

Thomas, R.S. and Ibrahim, S.A. (1995). Plutonium concentrations in lichens of Rocky Flats environs. Health Physics. 68:3, 311-319.
 

1993	Rocky Flats	Soil	239,240Pu	35,600 Bq/kg
1993	Rocky Flats	Lichen median (same plot)	239,240Pu	1,073 Bq/kg

• Correlation of plutonium in lichen showed a direct relationship to soil concentrations.

• The Miami levels are typical northern hemisphere concentration levels as noted in the HASL surveys.

Western Technologies. (1991). Plutonium-238 and 239/240 testing of the surface soil on the Conda, Spicer, and MaKay gravel lease properties, Rocky Flats west buffer zone. Project 769-OK-007, Western Aggregates Inc., Boulder, CO.
 

Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico

An important research and development laboratory located on 2,828 acres 6.5 miles east of Albuquerque, NM, total BEMR life cycle facility stabilization, environmental restoration and waste management costs are estimated at $1,591,074,000.

"The principal contamination sources include firings conducted over many years to test weapons and weapons components; discharges of radioactive liquids and hazardous chemicals; oil spills; disposal of radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals in landfills; rocket launches; and burning of certain wastes, such as high explosives. The wide range of contaminated facilities includes reactors, artillery ranges, and scrap yards." (BEMR pg. New Mexico - 52).

Sandia is the location of 2,331 kg of spent nuclear fuel, and a possible site for some undocumented historical disposal of missing military radioactive wastes. Sandia is of most interest, however as a principal component of DOE efforts to monitor and dispose of existing radioactive wastes. Sandia is the principle laboratory involved with the design and construction of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for disposal of weapons production derived transuranic wastes, as well as the location of the Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC), which uses sophisticated remote sensing technologies as a component of nuclear non-proliferation research and investigation. See especially Sandia derived information pertaining to the Airborne Multisensor Pod System (AMPS). Also see RAD 4: Definitions and conversion factors for more information pertaining to AMPS. See RAD 13: RADLINKS: Part II-D, Sandia National Laboratory.
 

Savannah River Plant, S. Carolina

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Integrated DataBase reports the Savannah River Site (SRS) inventory of high-level waste as of Jan. 1, 1996 at 502,200,000 Ci (See Oak Ridge citation under the subsection, U. S. Nuclear Power Plants; also see additional comments on missing U.S. military (DOE) high-level wastes in part 14 of this section). The DOE Baseline Environmental Management Report (BEMR) lists total life cycle remediation costs at $48,769,000,000, another example of DOE's liberal (i.e. low) estimates for one of the most contaminated weapons production sites in the world. Not enough data is available to determine whether the Savannah River site or the Hanford Reservation in Washington is the second largest nuclear accident-in-progress within the continental United States; the Rocky Flats site being the most dangerous in terms of the immediate potential health physics impact.

The Savannah River Site covers 310 sq. miles in west central South Carolina and is separated from Georgia only by the Savannah River on its south west side. The DOE BEMR includes an extensive description of the facilities in this location including area maps.

The Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) maintains an Internet Site (see RAD 13: RADLINKS: Part II D-2: DOE Laboratory Servers).

• The SRTC Site contains important information about environmental remediation technologies including air stripping, bioremediation, contaminant chemical identification using fiber optics, remote systems including robotics, SWAMI (Stored Waste Autonomous Mobile Inspection), vitrification, as well as all relevant NEPA ( Natural Environmental Policy Act) Environmental Impact Statements (EIS).
• The SRTC Site has links to HOPS, a "ground-up, top-performance large scale data warehouse engine," including Datadelve, an environmental data warehouse.

• Comparisons of the elemental and isotopic ratios of the sediments show that the majority of the sediments studied have been impacted upon by plant operations...Atom ratios of ²⁴⁰Pu/²³⁹Pu indicate that up to 86% of the Pu in these sediments is derived from plant operations." (pg. 249).

• "The Savannah River plant discharges 180,000 gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste into unlined seepage basins every day." (pg. 49).
• "The amount of long-lived radionuclides and other toxic substances that seep from these cement blocks over thousands of years will far exceed the amount already dumped into the ground." (pg. 50).

• The "official" release figures. See note on missing weapons production high-level wastes in subsection 14.

• "Despite the independence of this study, it has to rely on DOE sources," said [Bob] Guild, who has represented former SRS employees in lawsuits.  "The bottom line is the Department of Energy's own record keeping fails to account for some of their own radiation releases.  There is evidence SRS suppressed some incidents." (Mark Pratt, February 2, 1999, Associated Press).
• Median radionuclide releases from the SRS to air and surface water in curies. (Results, Table I).

 

Principal Radionuclide Releases to Air (in curies)		Principal Radionuclide Releases to Surface Water (in curies)
Iodine-131	57,000	Tritium	1,800,000
Tritium	26,000,000	Cesium-137	250
Argon-41	6,400,000	Strontium-90	100
Iodine-129	5.6
Plutonium-238, 239, 240	16

• Editorial note re:  ¹³⁷Cs releases to surface water:  this dose reconstruction project should be given no credibility in view of the following information:  the DOE Integrated Database indicates domestic commercial light water reactors have produced 2,310,000,000 Ci of ¹³⁷Cs as of 1994.  US government military weapons production-derived ¹³⁴Cs can be approximated as 1/5th of commercial reactor production.  Almost all military weapons fuel was produced and reprocessed at the Hanford and Savannah River Reservations.  During the reprocessing of fuel and the extraction of plutonium for weapons production, hundreds of millions of curies of radiocesium entered the waste stream.  Only a small percentage of this total remains within (leaky) tanks at the Hanford Reservation and the Savannah River Plant.  The above SRS dose reconstruction project lists only 250 Ci as being released into surface waters:  this is misleading in that the amounts of ¹³⁷Cs released at SRP via "french drains," leaky holding ponds and other uncontrolled liquid releases other than to surface waters is probably in the hundreds of thousands of curies.  These effluents cannot be measured by taking grab samples from surface water bodies; their concentrations and their pathways are essentially unknown.  No accurate dose reconstruction for these and many other effluents can ever be known.  Similar observations can be made about all of the data in the above dose reconstruction project.  This dose reconstruction project may be a laudable attempt to evaluate impact of SRP operations but it represents a most primitive and, in fact, nearly stone age attempt to evaluate the health physics impact of emissions of which no accurate database exists.

• "The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Board) has devoted substantial attention to the planned use of the In-Tank Precipitation (ITP) System at the Savannah River Site, because of its importance to removal of high-level radioactive waste from storage tanks at that Site, and because certain unique hazards are associated with the ITP process."
• "The hazards are a consequence of the volatile and flammable organic compound benzene that is released during the process in amounts that must not exceed safe limits. The benzene is generated through decomposition of tetraphenylborate (TPB) compounds. These compounds are added in the process with the objective to precipitate and remove radioactive cesium from solution in the waste water destined for the saltstone process."
• "The generation of benzene in the waste under treatment in Tank 48 was unexpectedly rapid. A surprisingly large amount of the benzene remained captured in the waste, and that benzene was released through action of mixing pumps in the tank."

• "Ducks... recaptured after attaining equilibrium concentrations in the field... [averaged]...16.6 pCi (16,600 pCi/kg) radiocesium/g live body weight" (pg. 415).
• Peak concentrations in recaptured wood ducks exceeded 100,000 pCi/kg live weight.

• "... the average tritium concentration in this river is ~5 pCi/ml, whereas other rivers in the southeastern United States of America average less than 0.5 pCi/ml." (pg. 271).

• Baseline given as 2.0 mCi/km².

• "A comprehensive resampling study was initiated for the purpose of gaining insight into ¹³⁷Cs mobility and retention in Pond B ... The total measured ¹³⁷Cs inventory in Pond B decreased from 4.6 x 10¹¹ Bq in 1984 to 2.3 x 10¹¹ Bq in 1994." (pg. 251).
• "Concentration ratios for the sediment and biota were very similar for both studies. A general trend of ¹³⁷Cs penetration into the sediment profile and of sediment transport to deeper water was observed." (pg. 251).

• Concentration factor of this sample was 11,215 (Bq/g dry / Bq liter).
• "These results suggest that radionuclide whole body concentrations may vary in unexpected ways between sex or size classes within a given species and that such differences may also vary within microgeographic scales." (pg. 131).

• "The pond has elevated concentrations of ²³⁸Pu and ^239,240Pu in sediments due to releases from former reactor operations." (pg. 59).
• "Pond B is an 87-hectare impoundment constructed in 1961 and used as a cooling reservoir for a nuclear production reactor until 1964. During this period, 5.7 TBq ¹³⁷Cs, 0.44 TBq 90 Sr and undocumented quantities of Pu and other actinide elements were released from the reactor to several aquatic systems including Pond B." (pg. 61).
• "Current inventories of Pu in the sediments of Pond B are approximately 33 MBq ²³⁸Pu and 430 MBq ^239,240Pu and are >/= 5 times the inventories expected from global fallout in this region." (pg. 61).

Straney, D.O., Beaman, B., Brisbin, I.L. and Smith, M.H. (1975). Radiocesium in birds of the Savannah River Plant. Health Physics.28. 341-345.
 

Summer 1971+1972

SRP, Aiken SC

Kingbird (summer bird)

Total body burden

2,992,700 pCi/kg live weight

• "Significant levels of radiocesium were found in adult avian communities inhabiting areas near a reactor waste effluent stream and adjacent to a radioactive waste burial ground." (pg. 341).
• "Radiocesium levels found in this study average lower than those found by Willard (1960)." (pg. 343). (Willard, W.K., 1960, Science, NY 132, 148 not available for review.).

• 441 pages of government reporting about unsafe SRP reactors and not a Bq/m² or a µBq/m³ in sight.
• "Radiation protection rope around the intermediate burial trenches and the mixed waste facility building had no signs or tags specifying radiation hazards." (pg. 360).

West Valley is the location of a facility constructed for the purpose of reprocessing commercial spent fuel. The operation of this facility resulted in a debacle of major proportions as well as in the termination of attempts to reprocess spent fuel in the United States. West Valley is one of the oldest, best known and most thoroughly studied plume source points in the United States. Articles or research papers discussing or documenting this plume source point run into the hundreds if not the thousands over a period of the last three decades. For a concise summary of this facility see the DOE BEMR, New York. West Valley is currently in the final stages of a 17 year effort by the DOE to solidify by glassification 600,000 gallons of radioactive waste left over from reprocessing efforts. Cost estimates for this vitrification program are 1.4 billion dollars for of 280 ten feet tall by 2 feet in diameter 2.5 ton waste casks which will be stored on-site indefinitely (until a permanent storage facility is identified and prepared.)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Integrated Data Base reports the former fuel reprocessing facility at West Valley, NY inventory of high-level waste as of Jan. 1, 1996 at 24,700,000 Ci. Extensive surveys of the West Valley area have been conducted by the New York State Department of Conservation, one of whose reports is cited in Section 8 of RADNET.

U. S. Department of Energy. (1996). Plutonium recovery from spent fuel reprocessing by nuclear fuel services at West Valley, New York from 1966 to 1972. U. S. DOE, Washington, D.C.