Scientists rip DOE info on radiation of water

Monday, Aug. 30, 1999 | 11:47 a.m.

Six scientific experts say the Department of Energy cannot predict which way radioactive contamination in the ground water from former underground nuclear weapons experiments will escape from the Nevada Test Site.

In a 60-page report that has not been publicly released, the scientists criticized the DOE's lack of information to support computer models for ground water, echoing a peer review panel's critique on Yucca Mountain done in February.

The two computer models -- part of a $170 million program -- attempt to forecast which areas outside the Test Site are at greatest risk for future contamination as the radioactive ground water escapes the site. The results of those models are classified.

However, scientists of the review board said, not enough scientific information exists, so the computer models of the area on the eastern edge of the Test Site cannot work. A key piece of information the DOE is missing is the extent of the contaminated ground water plumes, which would show the pattern of the escaping radioactivity, the report concluded.

That means the DOE really has no idea, despite its responsibility to monitor radioactive releases from the Test Site, which way the contamination is headed, the scientists said.

Ironically, some of the underground nuclear blasts at the Test Site were designed to discover how radioactivity travels through ground water.

Another expert panel concluded six months ago that a similar lack of information haunted the DOE's computer models for a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca Mountain stretches along the southwest edge of the Test Site.

The report on the Test Site urged the DOE to drill two more monitoring wells north and south of Frenchman Flat where nuclear bombs were exploded, test water layered between new and existing wells, sample all wells for carbon-14 to confirm that the Frenchman Flat ground water model is correct, study rocks and minerals near the surface because little information exists about the chemical reactions and study earthquake fault zones at the flat and at Yucca Mountain.

The scientists also recommended drilling wells directly into contaminated plumes to find out how large an area is affected and how far the radiation has ranged over years of nuclear experiments. The DOE has reported that 928 atomic weapons were exploded at the Test Site, all but 100 of them underground.

Lynn Gelhar, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led the Test Site review team. He is a national expert in tracking ground water.

The review panel found calculation errors as well as missing data. The experts said the Frenchman Flat model could not be linked with a regional portrait of the 1,350-square-mile Test Site. In addition, reports from a DOE lab and a contractor were not consistent. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California and IT Corp. in Nevada provided sketchy information, the report said.

Lawrence Livermore tried to predict radioactive releases from some 260 nuclear test cavities with the potential to contaminate the ground water and migrate outside the Test Site's boundary, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

IT's model was trying to predict how far contaminated water would have to travel before posing a danger to workers inside the Test Site and humans outside it. The danger is partly determined by how much radiation travels with the water.

The review was done as part of a DOE request to the state Division of Environmental Protection, under an agreement with the federal government, to clean up the Test Site of radioactive and toxic substances left after 41 years of nuclear experiments.

One of the difficulties the state has had in making progress with the cleanup of the site after nuclear tests were conducted there from 1951 to 1962, is secret data withheld for national security reasons from state environmental officials and scientific reviewers who don't have proper security clearance, said the state division's Paul Liebendorfer, who has a top secret clearance to read classified information such as the radioactive contents of bomb blasts.

The DOE said that the expert review panel did not have access to classified information on the radiation. The DOE's Underground Test Area Project Manager Bob Bangerter said the DOE will address the experts' concerns.