Group calls for tests on plutonium

No tests have been conducted to determine if plutonium is drifting off a low-level nuclear waste dump in Beatty and threatening the environment, a Los Angeles-based environmental group said.

Other man-made radioactive elements have been discovered more than 300 feet southwest of the repository's fence, but no tests have been conducted to determine if the 47 pounds of plutonium buried at the Beatty dump are contaminating the area or threatening the ground water, said Daniel Hirsch, an analyst for the Committee to Bridge the Gap.

Traces of Tritium and Carbon-14, which come from manufactured sources, have shown up in tests conducted by federal agencies of the area outside Beatty, Hirsch says an analysis of the data shows.

However, state officials question Hirsch's findings and whether the radioactivity outside the fence is actually migrating from the site or comes from other sources like fallout from bomb testing.

Hirsch stands by his conclusions.

"We now know it (radioactivity) got out of the unlined trenches and off the property," Hirsch said. "What we don't know is the extent of the contamination. They weren't looking for plutonium."

Hirsch first learned last week that 47 pounds of plutonium was buried at Beatty, about 110 miles northwest of Las Vegas, after the release of a federal General Accounting Office report.

"What they've found so far is like the canary in the coal mine," Hirsch said of other radioactive elements moving off the site.

Further tests on the radiation at Beatty are necessary to find out if plutonium has migrated.

Traces of radioactivity have been found in the ground water, which drifts west and southwest from the site, toward the Amargosa Valley, one of the most fertile areas of the state.

The valley, about 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas, offers fertile fields for dairy cows, pistachio nuts, fruits and vegetables.

Since 1997 Nevada's Radiological Protection Division has had responsibility for long-term care and control of the Beatty facility. The state has regulated Beatty since 1977. Radioactive wastes were buried at Beatty from 1962 to 1992.

Stan Marshall, director of the state's Radiological Protection Division, said samples taken outside the Beatty site by state researchers indicated uranium and thorium, both occur naturally, and no levels thatthreatenpublichealth.

After reviewing 2,700 environmental samples collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, US Ecology, the firm that formerly managed the site, and other sources, the state concluded radioactive materials were not migrating off the Beatty site. The radioactive elements found outside the fence came from other sources, the state says.

Hirsch said that Nevada officials never ordered further testing or took any action beyond a warning letter sent "one or two times."

Radiation levels detected in Beatty's water between 1962 and 1992 by the U.S. Geological Survey called for further action, such as more intensive testing, in 23 separate incidents.

Hirsch said neither the state nor the USGS, which found radiation 20 times higher than drinking water limits in 1982 at Beatty, went the extra step to hunt for plutonium. The USGS is under investigation for suppressing evidence of radioactive migration from Beatty.

Plutonium is a man-made nuclear element that will remain radioactive in the environment for half a million years. Plutonium is extremely dangerous when inhaled. An invisible speck of it weighing a millionth of an ounce will cause lung cancer, if inhaled, Hirsch said.

The 47 pounds of plutonium buried at Beatty could pollute the water in a 5-foot-deep swimming pool with the square mileage of Maine. It's about the amount of water supplying 200 million households a year. "It's sometimes described as the most toxic material on Earth," Hirsch said.

American Ecology, US Ecology's parent company, reported the amounts of plutonium buried at Beatty and in Washington, Kentucky and Illinois to the GAO.

While the amount of plutonium at Beatty is significant, it is not illegal.

Low-level nuclear waste sites are allowed to bury up to 800 pounds of plutonium mixed in with other wastes from reactors, laboratories and hospitals under Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations. In 1983 the NRC required sites to report the concentrations of radiation from these elements.

Most of the plutonium buried at Beatty probably came to the site in the 1960s and 1970s, said James Kennedy, in charge of low-level nuclear waste at the NRC.

Kennedy said he suspects the plutonium at Beatty came from commercial reprocessing experiments such as those at West Valley, N.Y., and Morris, Ill. The United States has outlawed reprocessing commercial reactor fuel, fearing rogue nations could steal enough uranium and plutonium to make nuclear weapons.

Broken fuels rods and leaks at nuclear reactors today leave much smaller amounts of plutonium, Kennedy said.

The nuclear waste area at Beatty is roughly 35 acres of unlined trenches. Dump trucks brought the wastes -- including liquid sludge -- to the site and dumped it in the trenches, which were covered by soil.

The plutonium in the landfill entered the dump as tiny particles clinging to waste such as clothing and laboratory containers.

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