Test Site to get low level radioactive waste

Monday, Feb. 28, 2000 | 11:39 a.m.

As expected, the Nevada Test Site was named a regional dumping ground for low-level radioactive waste left over from U.S. nuclear weapons development, the Department of Energy announced on Friday.

However, the DOE decided to add radioactive wastes mixed with chemicals for disposal at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The mixed wastes will be treated at Hanford, Wash., the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory or the Oak Ridge, Tenn., site, then disposed of at the Test Site or Hanford.

"It's no surprise," said Paul Liebendorfer, the state's chief investigator for the Test Site at the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

"We knew what was coming," Liebendorfer said, adding that the state did not protest the decision. Currently, the DOE buries only mixed wastes from cleanup activities at the Test Site. Friday's decision could bring mixed wastes from other sites, he said.

The Test Site now receives roughly 600,000 cubic feet each year of low level radioactive waste that is buried in 55 gallon drums from other DOE sites.

The waste includes soils, protective clothing and laboratory equipment contaminated with radiation.

Carl Gertz, DOE's assistant manager in Nevada for environmental management, has estimated that up to 700,000 cubic feet a year of the contaminated wastes could come to the Test Site from Fernald, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The DOE preferred the Test Site for low-level waste burial because it is remote and in a dry climate, Gertz said.

The DOE decided to treat the low level nuclear waste as little as possible, to reduce worker radiation exposures and costs.

About five other DOE sites could be added to the current 13 sending waste to the Test Site, DOE spokesman Derek Scammell said. Fernald and Oak Ridge would be the largest shippers.

Fernald, which processes uranium for nuclear warheads, has already been sending about 600,000 cubic feet of the wastes annually to the Test Site. Oak Ridge has to be approved to send an estimated 100,000 cubic feet of wastes a year.

Fernald shipments were stopped in December 1997 after seven containers shipped with sludge containing low levels of radiation leaked liquid at the Test Site and in Kingman, Ariz. The two gallons of liquid dripping from a truck in Kingman were not radioactive.