Radioactive water alarms Nye officials

Thursday, March 2, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

Nye County officials are taking a serious look at the radioactive contamination discovered in a ground-water sample off the Nevada Test Site and expect to have more results in a week, County Manager Jerry McKnight said Wednesday.

"Good science dictates that we verify these initial results," said Les Bradshaw, manager of the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities.

Nye officials revealed Wednesday that radiation in ground water has been found outside the Nevada Test Site in amounts 25 times higher than the federal drinking water standards.

Increasing their concern is the type of radiation found. Two types of radioactive particles -- alpha, which is found in several sources including plutonium, and beta, which causes skin burns -- make it harder to pinpoint the source of the nuclear contamination.

If the radioactive source came from one of the 928 nuclear weapons experiments from Cold War activities there, it would be the first time radiation has been found outside of the Test Site, which is located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Department of Energy's monitoring program has never found radiation outside of the Rhode Island-sized nuclear proving grounds. In 1998 DOE scientists discovered plutonium that traveled on microscopic particles about a mile away from an underground nuclear bomb crater on the site.

Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., called Wednesday's announcement another surprise. Reid said he would discuss the issue with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson today.

Reid had planned to meet with Richardson about including Test Site workers in legislation that would compensate those harmed by exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals.

The senator said the radiation found in the ground water indicates why most Nevadans oppose a high-level nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca is the only site under consideration as a national dumping ground for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive wastes from commercial reactors and defense activities.

"It's really important we accelerate the surveillance and monitoring at the Test Site," Reid told the Sun. "And it shows why we're opposed to Yucca Mountain. We need to know more."

Bryan agreed with Reid.

"This appears to be part of a growing pattern of radioactive migration from the Test Site," Bryan said. "More importantly, this discovery once again raises the credibility question for the Department of Energy."

Nye County began its early-warning well network in 1998 with Department of Energy funds. Each year the county adds more wells south and west of the Test Site and analyzes test results in labs independent of the DOE.

Nye County is officially neutral on Yucca Mountain, McKnight said.

"Our position has always been if they have the science, then what is the argument?" he said. "If the science is not there, then there is a problem."

Nye County's preliminary water result has received some criticism because it was such a surprise, found in a shallow test well 26 feet deep, McKnight said. Further tests will subtract any naturally occurring radiation coming from sources such as surrounding rocks, the sun or cosmic rays.

The radiation may have been introduced by the drill bit as it bored the well or from contaminated soils from the surface, he said.

"It is technical, but in this case it is critical," McKnight said of the complicated testing procedure. "If the radiation was in the water, we have a lot more work to do."

The preliminary findings by Nye County also make it less likely that the test result is a mistake, several scientists told the Sun.

It is not simple tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen easily dissolved in water that usually alerts scientists to other radioactive contamination, said Steve Frishman, technical coordinator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"Now that they know the sample is real, they have to do further radiation testing," Frishman said.

The Nevada State Health Division is sampling the well today, health physicist Larry Franks said.

"We are going to do a full analysis," Franks said. The state will look for nuclear bomb traces such as uranium, plutonium, cesium-137 and tritium, as well as naturally occurring radiation, he said.

The DOE confirmed that two of the three types of radiation had been found in the water sample. While alpha and beta particles are particularly dangerous if swallowed or inhaled, gamma particles can enter living tissue unless it is protected with a lead shield. No gamma source had been measured or identified.

But the DOE questioned the county's method used to analyze the water sample.

If the water was not carefully collected, DOE spokeswoman Nancy Harkess said, particles of sediment from the well could have contaminated the sample.

The U.S. Geological Survey took a water sample from another well about 2 feet away from Nye County's hole and found no radiation in the water, Harkess said.