Survivors on a Radioactive Wasteland

By: Duane Craig

There is a long story of radioactive contamination across New Mexico, especially in the northwestern portion of the state, where recent estimates of cleaning up just one site will require the removal of 1.4 million tons of soil, according to an article at E&E Publishing, LLC.

Much of this story centers around the U.S. Department of Energy and the United States’ race with the Soviet Union to see who could create more nuclear weapons. The five-year cleanup plans in this part of the country come and go like the winds, while more than 500 polluted mine sites wait to be cleaned up. Meanwhile, the people live with contaminated water and land, and there are even radioactive homes that were built with waste from uranium mining.

The Environmental Protection Agency says miners took about four million tons of uranium from Navajo lands between 1944 and 1986, and besides fueling the manufacture of nuclear bombs, it was also pressed into service for nuclear power plants. Uranium mining activity left an indelible mark on the land and even in the water. In a part of the country where 30 percent of residents use untreated water, and water quality is often unknown or too dangerous to drink, the long-term health implications become even more staggering.

There is much more to the detailed story here.

UC Davis Addresses Leftover Contamination Below Animal Research Facility

by: Duane Craig

University of California, Davis Campus

Superfund Cleanup at UC Davis

A Superfund site with shared responsibility between the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of California Davis campus enters a new phase of the cleanup--the portion the university is responsible for--and it may be getting quite costly.
The university tested the effects of radiation on beagles, the animal research industry’s canine workhorse. According to this article in The Sacramento Bee, about 800 beagles endured various assaults by radioactive contamination before being dispatched. Twenty years ago their remains were hauled away along with toxic dog waste and contaminated gravel as the first part of the site cleanup. Now, the university must clean up waste pits where it disposed of a wide range of unwanted items, including perhaps an anesthetic.
The anesthesia of choice for the beagle experiments was chloroform, and a plume of that has migrated offsite and is contaminating soil and groundwater below nearby agricultural land. Always the intrepid experimenters, university researchers are using a pilot project to get rid of the chloroform. Air is being pumped into the ground to force the chloroform out of the soil and into a pipe that carries it into the air.
The Energy Department spent decades and millions of dollars on the first phase of this cleanup. But this next part has an amazingly wide potential cost, anywhere from $6 million to $100 million.

Kentucky landowners settle lawsuit over contamination from uranium plant that cut land values

April 20, 2010- A group of landowners have settled in a long-running lawsuit for $1.75 million over allegations that water leaks from a western Kentucky uranium enrichment plant devalued property values.

Edmund Schmidt, a Nashville, Tenn., attorney representing the landowners living near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, about 10 miles west of Paducah, confirmed the settlement on Tuesday. Schmidt said the funds are aimed at compensating between 70 and 80 homeowners for the devaluation of their property because of radiation contamination.

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Minor Radiation Leak at Three Mile Island

November 27, 2009 -

The operators of Three Mile Island should have notified the public sooner about a relatively minor radiation leak that nevertheless raises troubling concerns.

Gov. Rendell had every reason to blast the Exelon Corp. for a five-hour delay in informing state emergency officials about the incident Saturday.

The biggest reason: Three Mile Island is forever linked to a near disaster - the 1979 partial meltdown that occurred at the plant's sister reactor, Unit 2, which remains shut down.

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32 Chicago homes to be tested for Thorium

May 10, 2008 - Additional testing will be required for more than 30 West Chicago homeowners to determine whether their properties are contaminated with thorium, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official said Friday.

The contamination led to two cleanups in the 1980s and 1990s.

mong the homes slated for more testing for thorium is that of Sandy Riess.

Riess and her husband moved out of their home last September after radioactive levels 300 times above what's considered safe were discovered on her property. Tronox, the successor to Kerr-McGee, has been paying for some of the family's living expenses.

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Illinois Couple Leave Home Contaminated with Radioactive Thorium

September 15, 2007 - More than three weeks after learning their home was an environmental hazard, Sandy and Rich Riess are getting out.

On Aug. 22, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials informed the company that tests showed the Riess home was contaminated with Kerr-McGee thorium, causing more than 300 times the safe level of radiation.

Until Friday, Tronox lawyers hadn't responded to requests from Mark Sargis, the Riesses' attorney, to move the couple out.

Tronox representatives had said only that they needed to examine the home and create a cleanup plan -- a process that could take six weeks, Sargis said.

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Missouri community learns what was left behind by former nuclear fuel plant

September 6, 2007 - At a community meeting Thursday night at the First Christian Church in Hematite, Westinghouse and the government laid out exactly what was found.

The new study found radioactive materials, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals were left behind, buried in the soil and lingering in the water in Hematite.

"Part of the ground water is contaminated and it's leached into the wells so people couldn't use them any more," resident James Downs said.

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EPA finds radiation levels in soil beneath a West Chicago home that are more than 300 times the federally acceptable level

August 23, 2007 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified radiation levels in soil beneath a West Chicago home that are more than 300 times the federally acceptable level, officials said Wednesday.

Inspectors took samples on Aug. 9 from the home of Sandra Riess, whose property is about 200 yards from the former Kerr-McGee Co. plant that once produced thorium for gas lamp mantles. The plant was identified as the source of thorium found throughout the town after the plant closed in 1973.

Two weeks ago, inspectors removed bricks, mortar and soil from a hole in Riess' basement to pinpoint the source of radiation that had been found in samples taken in July.

By testing positive for high levels of radium, Riess' property falls under the agency's Superfund project that has cleaned up 676 properties in West Chicago.

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Radiation in West Chicago neighborhood

August 10, 2007 - In April, when her two St. Bernards died of bone cancer within six days of each other, Sandra Riess tried not to panic.

She already knew her property in West Chicago contained higher than usual levels of radiation from the old Kerr-McGee Co. plant that once sat less than 200 yards away. But when the area was cleaned in 1994, inspectors were prevented by the then-owner from testing the basement, where Riess' dogs frequently wandered after Riess moved in. Their deaths led her to push the EPA harder to inspect her property, she said.

On Thursday, inspectors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed bricks, mortar and soil from a hole in her basement to pinpoint the source of radiation after samples taken two weeks ago showed levels nearly 50 times what the federal government considers acceptable.

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