Friday, November 19, 1999
Showdown is looming at Fernald
Uranium cleanup method divides
BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CROSBY TOWNSHIP — Fernald's most dangerous waste — a hazardous and radioactive muck held in two crumbling concrete silos — is again threatening to divide this western Hamilton County community.
Regulators and neighbors of the former uranium processing plant are struggling to select one of two technologies that could be used to treat the waste, so it can be shipped across country to the Nevada Test Site dumping ground.
And they are coming up with different answers.
Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH) — which celebrated its 15th anniversary and recent cooperation with site managers and the Department of Energy (DOE) Thursday night — favors vitrification.
DOE's desire for chemical stabilization could damage their relationship.
Vitrification is a complex technology that would heat the waste and encase it in small glass-like pellets. The end product would be faster and safer to ship, but would be difficult and more time-consuming to produce at Fernald.
It already was tried once, in 1996, and ended in a disastrous melter accident that led to budget overruns and halted the project. No one was hurt. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in and imposed sanctions on DOE and site manager Fluor Daniel Fernald.
The waste was left in the silos, which are cracking and had to be patched this spring to stop cancer-causing radon gas from leaking into the community. In a complicated and multimillion-dollar extra step, it soon will be moved into secure temporary holding tanks until a treatment technology is selected. .
Radon gas that leaked from the silos undetected and unchecked until 1979 caused an estimated 85 cancer deaths within a 10-mile radius of the site, according to previous regulator studies.
Now DOE says it would rather treat the waste with chemical stabilization: mixing it with concrete and other dry materials to produce large, concrete-like bricks.
The technology is simple — the ingredients are stirred together in a large vat and poured out into shipping boxes. But it produces a much larger volume of material, 6,000 boxes as opposed to vitrification's 2,000 boxes, that would take more time to move on crowded interstate highways.
Both procedures would cost about the same in the end — vitrification is more expensive to start up; chemical stabilization leads to much more transportation expense.
This is just one of three Fernald cleanup efforts leading to massive cross-country waste shipping. Trucks filled with low-level radioactive waste are moving to Nevada Test Site; trains are traveling to Envirocare, a commercial dump in Utah.
“I still think that vitrification is taking a rap because they did it here and messed it up and they're afraid,” FRESH President Lisa Crawford said.
DOE and Fluor Daniel Fernald officials revealed their preference for chemical stabilization during a public informational meeting Wednesdaynight. They said it is more of a sure thing.
“Looking at the implementability, there is a difference in the degree of confidence,” said Terry Hagen, Fluor Daniel Fernald's director of strategic planning.
“We're not saying that any one of these technologies is going to be easy,” he continued. “But it's the tentative conclusion between DOE and the regulators (Ohio and U.S. EPA) that the vitrification technology is more complex, more difficult to implement ... and has more risks.”
DOE will produce a draft plan by February, which will be subject to public comment and then forwarded to EPA for approval.
In the meantime, EPA, FRESH and the Fernald Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) will try to get the pulse of workers and the community.
“I think it's going to be a tough decision because we have members who favor each of the technologies,” said Jim Bierer, chairman CAB, a panel of community and union representatives that advises DOE on all phases of the site cleanup. The CAB will try to reach consensus at a Dec. 6 meeting.
Some members, including Mr. Bierer, agree their selection must be reliable and relatively easy to carry out.
“We don't want a repeat of the (vitrification) melter accident,” he said.
But others, including Mrs. Crawford and fellow members of FRESH, say they are more worried about the potential for traffic accidents with all of the extra shipping chemical stabilization would require. And the vitrified pellets would remain solid over many years, where concrete blocks can crumble.
As for workers, they, too, are worried about dealing with the more complex process. Vitrification uses extreme heat and produces more hazardous radon gas, steam and water that would have to be captured and treated.
“I would think that you would find that a worker might be at greater risk (with vitrification) because, after all, we're dealing with heated materials ... and a much more complicated process,” said Bob Tabor, safety representative of the Fernald Atomic Trades and Labor Council.
Vitrification also is more labor-intensive. Although both processes would use robotics and automated lines to minimize worker exposure, vitrification takes longer to complete and requires more human oversight. And if it were to fail, it would take much greater effort to restart the process and make up for lost time, Mr. Hagen said.
The union is polling members and has not yet come up with a formal position on which technology it will favor.
Ohio EPA plans a public hearing 7 p.m. Dec. 1 at Venice Presbyterian Church in Ross Township to solicit community opinion — and neither DOE nor Fluor Daniel Fernald will participate.
The Critical Analysis Team (CAT), an independent review panel brought in after the 1996 vitrification accident to monitor DOE and Fluor Daniel Fernald and to advise the citizens' groups, came out neutral.
“There's not one thing that strongly favors either technology either way,” said Todd Martin, CAT leader. “Either one can effectively treat the waste with proper engineering, a good contractor and strict oversight, according to the CAT report.
“All of this can be done” and each has its own risks and costs, Mr. Martin said. “The personal values that you hold are what will be what sways you, one way or the other.”
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