Report: EPA should update nuke levels for drinking water

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency should revise its 29-year-old standard for radioactive materials in drinking water, according to a report released today that could have implications for the Nevada Test Site and the nuclear dump planned for Yucca Mountain.

In general, the nation's drinking water is safe from radioactive contamination, said the report's author, Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, and a critic of Yucca Mountain.

But radioactive materials could endanger water sources near former government nuclear weapons facilities, including groundwater near the Nevada Test Site, Makhijani said.

"I'm worried about some very specific sites," Makhijani said.

Other water sources at risk include the Savannah River running between South Carolina and Georgia, the Snake River Plain Aquifer in Southern Idaho and the Columbia River in Washington.

The Nevada Test Site was the site of above- and below-ground testing for four decades, ending in 1992. Makhijani said he was concerned about plutonium that was dispersed during testing, especially in the 1950s and 1960s.

The federal drinking water standard for allowable levels of materials like plutonium-239, an atomic bomb ingredient, is too lax, Makhijani said. The report recommends that the EPA set a standard that is 100 times more strict, especially as the government continues clean-up efforts at former nuclear weapon sites.

Clean-up efforts include enclosing radioactive waste, including plutonium, in tanks, but the waste is still left near vital water sources, Makhijani said.

Makhijani also recommends that the stricter standard be applied to the proposed underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada officials have said Yucca cannot meet current standards limiting the release of radiation into the environment. Waste that would be permanently stored in casks in the repository tunnels would contain long-lived radionuclides like plutonium and neptunium that could ultimately seep into groundwater if the repository fails in the future, said Joe Egan, a lawyer for the state on Yucca issues.

Makhijani's recommendation "would make for a standard that is much more difficult for the Department of Energy to meet over the long term," Egan said.

An EPA spokesman said that the agency reviews its standard every six years.

"Unless someone has significant information not previously available, there is not a compelling case to change the rule," EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said.