Hazardous waste cleanup frustrates group

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

After spending a year and about $1 million to devise a way to assess risks at the Nevada Test Site, a group of Nevadans is frustrated.

The group doesn't have enough information.

It says the U.S. Department of Energy doesn't have enough money under a flat budget to clean up the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to allow other industries to use it.

The group worries about soil contamination on and off the Test Site beyond the typical scenario of inhaling radioactive soil particles.

Radiation isn't the only thing to worry about on the site, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Hazardous waste sites scattered around the area include discarded batteries, drums, mud pits, wells injected with tunnel muck, storage tanks above and below the surface, oil spills and miscellaneous wastes from more than 40 years of above- and below-ground nuclear experiments.

In the next three months, the Nevada Risk Assessment Management Program working group has the daunting task of preparing a final report for DOE headquarters and for the public.

The physicists, environmental and nuclear engineering staff come from the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV.

They include principal investigator Bill Andrews, nuclear engineer Anthony Hechanova, environmental modeler Tod Johnson, risk assessor Muhilan Pandian, physicist Dennis Weber and Pat Jonker, who makes sure citizens, Indian tribes and residents living closest to the Test Site in Nye County are involved.

With the rest of the $2.8 million DOE grant, the group decided last week to continue to pursue addressing the concerns of those living in Pahrump, Beatty, Las Vegas and the rest of Nevada.

But they can't include risk assessments for high-level nuclear waste, if it ever comes to Yucca Mountain. They are limited to exploring radioactive and chemical wastes that might head to the Test Site.

Encouraged by a can-do spirit pervading the DOE, Andrews applauded DOE environmental manager Alvin Alms' attention to transporting nuclear waste.

Alms instructed DOE field offices to prepare a 10-year plan to tackle environmental problems. In Nevada the funds range from $82.9 million for 1997 to $84.3 million a year through 2006.

For most Americans, shipping nuclear waste across the country tops the list. After a recent visit to Las Vegas, Alms put transportation among the DOE's top issues.

But the NRAMP group cannot examine the risks to future Test Site users without the DOE revealing more information about the nature of contamination, he said.