BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Department of Energy (DOE) officials say they will ship 1 million tons of low-level radioactive waste from the former Fernald uranium processing plant site beginning in March, it's hard to understand just what that means.
Think of 166,666 full-grown, 6-ton African elephants. Or picture 5,659 empty Boeing 747 aircraft, which weigh 353,398 pounds apiece. Or, in this case, imagine a locomotive pulling 45 rail cars filled with the toxic stuff, leaving the Fernald site in northwestern Hamilton County once every two weeks for nearly six years.
Because that's exactly what is going to happen.
With the recent dismissal of a lawsuit that had threatened to jam up the works,the DOE and site manager Fluor Daniel Fernald say they are ready to proceed with plans to empty seven underground waste pits. In July, construction begins on a massive, on-site dryer plant where the waste material will be prepared for shipping. Covering about 40 acres and measuring an average of 40 feet deep, the pits are filled with uranium- and thorium-contaminated wastes that stacked up over the 38 years that Fernald was in operation. According to Dave Lojek, DOE's Operable Unit 1 (waste pit) team leader, there are sludge byproducts, wooden pallettes, concrete chunks and other building debris.
"We have a pretty good idea of what's in there, but not 100 percent," said Dennis Carr, vice president of soil and water projects for Fluor Daniel Fernald. "We expect the unexpected."
The first pit was constructed when the plant opened in 1953. As it filled up, another was built, and so on. The oldest four pits have one-foot clay bottoms; the newer ones also contain an impervious rubber membrane.
Officials worry that the liners of the oldest pits have cracked over the years.
"There is concern that these waste pits are 40 years old and the integrity of these liners is unknown," Mr. Lojek said. "We believe there is some leakage into the (Great Miami) aquifer already, but it's contained on-site."
Plastic liners on top of the pits prevent rain water from flowing through them, and any runoff that does occur naturally heads further onto the Fernald site. And the uranium and thorium material inside is in a chemical form that is not easily transported by water.
Still, it's one reason that DOE personnel and community members are eager to have the waste removed posthaste.
"We don't particularly like shipping our stuff somewhere else, but it can't stay here. It just can't," said Lisa Crawford, president of Fernald Residents for Environmental Health and Safety (FRESH).
Although FRESH initially wanted all radioactive material shipped away from Fernald, Ms. Crawford said her group has accepted the DOE's "balanced approach": Large amounts of very low-level waste will be stored indefinitely in new on-site underground cells, so long as the more radioactive waste is removed.
"It doesn't make much sense to ship slightly contaminated waste because then you risk the (increased) possibility of a transportation accident," explained DOE environmental engineer David Rast. DOE officials and community members have set a standard that anything with a uranium content of more than 1,030 parts per million must be moved off site. According to Mr. Rast, that is the equivalent of two teaspoonsful of liquid in an Olympic-size swimming pool. "It's not going to go boom. If you get a drop of it on you, it's not going to kill you. It's not dangerous in that sense," Mr. Rast said of the waste pit material. "But it is harmful to the environment where it sits right now because of its proximity to the aquifer. We can't just let it stay there."
Mr. Lojek said there are also administrative concerns.
Earthen berms that support one of the pits are beginning to erode and would be costly to repair. And before the site can be put to another use, the aquifer must be decontaminated -- so it doesn't make much sense to allow the contamination to spread, he said.
Deadline to begin
The waste must begin leaving Fernald no later than March 1, according to performance deadlines imposed on DOE by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after cost overruns and inefficiencies were reported in the Enquirer in 1996.
But before that can happen, officials must award a $100 million-plus contract to a commercial dump site -- most likely Clive, Utah-based Envirocare, which receives more than 95 percent of the government's low-level nuclear waste -- and negotiate a $100 million transportation deal with the CSX and Union Pacific railroads.
Over the summer, International Technologies Corp., based in Pittsburgh, will build a dryer plant at Fernald to remove the moisture from the waste, reducing its overall weight and making it easier to transport. The company, which will also excavate the pits and crush large chunks of material, was awarded a $122 million contract in October.
Although the contracts are awarded on a competitive basis, Pasadena, Texas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) said the dumping business is loaded in favor of Envirocare, virtually the only commercial site in the nation that holds the proper permits to receive DOE waste.
WCS, which wanted to bid on the contract, challenged the DOE in court.
"While they profess to have an open bidding system, the system is set up to ensure a monopoly," WCS attorney John Kyte said.
Federal court Judge Joe Kendall imposed an injunction on the DOE, preventing it from awarding the Fernald contract.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit dismissed the suit and ordered the injunction lifted.
Slow alternative
Fluor Daniel Fernald and DOE officials say they are glad the lawsuit is near an end. They had worried that it could lead to time and cost overruns.
If they had not turned to a commercial dump, Energy officials say they would have been forced to use the government-owned Nevada Test Site -- which can handle only 25 percent of the annual waste load. So the project, which is slated for completion in 2005, would have taken four times as long and become much more expensive, Mr. Lojek said.
