DOE pulls back plan for self-monitoring near Test Site

The U.S. Department of Energy backed off a plan Monday to monitor itself for radiation in ground water and air around the Nevada Test Site.

The DOE had contracted with other federal agencies for radiation sampling around the Rhode Island-sized Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where nuclear weapons explosions began in 1951.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., expressed concern about the DOE's proposal to stop independent studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had monitored the Test Site surroundings since 1970.

"People who live and work in areas around the Nevada Test Site need a level of confidence that the monitoring program is effective," Bryan said. "That will not happen if DOE is left to monitoring itself. We're talking about public health and safety."

DOE officials in Washington, D.C., told the senator late Monday that the agency will create a new monitoring plan with public input, Bryan said.

The EPA had tested milk, meat, soils, air and ground water at various Nevada locations. Before that, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted off-site checks.

The EPA's Radiation and Indoor Environmental National Laboratory in Las Vegas had expressed concern for the changes in the DOE's monitoring program through a letter written on Sept. 25 by lab director Jed Harrison.

"As both DOE and EPA place protection of human health and the environment as a priority, we believe the loss of confidence that would occur if the public is exposed without adequate measurements is not worth the incremental cost savings afforded by the severe reductions," EPA said.

The EPA scientists are particularly worried about plutonium particles, which can become airborne on dust raised in Nevada's high winds.

With federal budget cuts, the monitoring monies dropped from $5.2 million to $3.2 million this year, and the DOE decided to consolidate its laboratory under Bechtel Nevada, the manager of the Test Site, said Doug Duncan, chief of DOE's environmental monitoring.

"Our intent was to keep the EPA field monitors collecting samples, but Bechtel would be in charge of the analysis," Duncan said.

Tests on vegetables grown near the site stopped in 1994. Then meat sampling ended in 1995, according to documents from the EPA.

In 1994 the EPA collected milk samples from 15 different locations around the state four times a year. By the end of that year sampling dropped to 11 locations once a year. This year sampling was further reduced to nine sites and in 1999 only two milk samples will be collected for the year.

No radiation has been found in off-site air, water, meat or milk samples, Duncan said.

Until 1993 the EPA published off-site monitoring results annually, said Rick Nielsen, director of Citizen Alert, a statewide environmental watchdog group. The DOE did not issue studies for 1994 or 1995 and the last one is listed as 1996, he said.

The DOE conducted three public workshops in the rural towns of Beatty, Amargosa Valley and Pahrump two years ago. "I think we have had the best of participatory democracy," Duncan said. "People told us they wanted a sentinal line of test wells between their towns and the Test Site."

The DOE is using 37 existing wells off-site to sample ground water moving south and west of the Test Site, into the Oasis and Amargosa valleys. The EPA monitored 21 wells, he said.

"We're looking primarily at what we know about the ground water, and we know it flows south and west," Duncan said.

Ground water cannot reach the Las Vegas Valley, Duncan said, because the Test Site ground water system flows in a separate system.

"People in Las Vegas are surprised about the changes in testing because they aren't in communities where samples have been collected for years," said Derek Scammell, a DOE spokesman.

High school science teachers in rural towns maintained the air sampling stations during above-ground nuclear weapons experiments and underground explosions until all blasts stopped in a 1992 moratorium on U.S. nuclear tests.

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