* For years, Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL) has claimed that the drinking water in Los Alamos County
was safe from surface pollutants dumped by the Lab into
surrounding canyons. New evidence has shattered this claim.
According to lab officials, the aquifers were sealed against
pollution by thick packed volcanic ash and lava flows. This was
the thought at LANL for the lab's first forty years, said Bruce
Galleher, the lab's chief hydrologist. Earlier evidence gave
cause for alarm about contaminated drinking water, but LANL
scientists claimed the evidence found in testing done by the New
Mexico Environmental Department, (or NMED) was debatable.
Results obtained from the first deep testing well in almost forty
years have confirmed that lab pollutants can travel fairly easily
into ground waters as deep as 275 feet under Los Alamos County.
The pollutants include acid byproducts and uranium. The uranium
exists at more than twice the level being proposed by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a drinking- water
standard. Concentrations of uranium and oxalate acid, an
organic acid used in uranium processing, are higher than what is
referred to as naturally-occuring, and levels of chloride and
nitrate, discharged by the lab for decades, are also higher than
expected. In the deep aquifer, which holds the region's drinking
water, the only traces of radioactive pollution to be confirmed
so far are traces of tritium, a kind of hydrogen produced in lab
experiments and nuclear weapons tests. Lab scientists claim it
is not certain that it is lab influenced, although they do
concede it could have come from LANL operations.
The new test-well, called R-9, is the first of 32 deep wells
insisted upon by state hazardous-waste regulators to map the flow
of contaminants into ground water. It is the most expensive well
ever built for testing and geological characterization in New
Mexico, according to private well-drillers and hydrologists.
Originally budgeted at 332,298 dollars, in fact, it has cost more
than 1.7 million dollars, and is still incomplete. As pollutants
have not been found so far that exceed legal limits, the
Department of Energy (DOE) has no plans to clean up the ground
water. Lab experts say that, as major sources of pollution
pouring into Los Alamos Canyon have now been shut off, tritium
levels should now diminish. Another canyon, however, is still a
problem. Critics point to the treatment plant of TA-50, which
they maintain is inadequately designed, and continues to dump
thousands of gallons of radioactive liquid waste daily into
Mortendad Canyon. This waste has high levels of strontium 90,
tritium and other contaminants. According to critics, the lab
said they would amend this situation years ago, but continues to
dump radioactive contaminants into the canyon. One of the 32
test wells will be in Mortendad Canyon, and the NMED LANL
Oversight Bureau plans to participate in the decision of exactly
where in the canyon the well will be dug.
* Just days ago, at B&W Hanford Co., the
notorious nuclear facility in Hanford, Washington an almost-
forgotten process tank filled with radioactive sludge was
discovered buried outside the plant. The sludge contained sixty-
two pounds of plutonium, enough to make 12 atomic bombs.
Scientists say the tank could contain explosive gases that could
cause the plutonium to chain-react. Before lifting the lid,
officials will insert instruments to test for explosive and
poisonous gases. They also plan to use a video camera and
ultrasound to locate the plutonium. Originally the tank was used
as a settling tank to clean the Plutonium Finishing Plant's
watery waste, before it was flushed into the ground. When the
tank filled with sludge, the DOE simply put a lid over it. Now
the taxpayers will have to pay the deferred tab on cleaning up
the cold war waste: the tank holds enough plutonium sludge to
fill 1,500 to 2,000 barrels. Disposal will cost 10,000 to 15,000
dollars a barrel.
* Workers at the Pantex Plant near
Amarillo, Texas have tested five nuclear weapons to discover if
other units were contaminated by mercury during a reassembly
procedure at the facility, said plant officials. The main
activity at Pantex is the assembly and disassembly of nuclear
weapons, specifically the fabrication of high explosive
components. On January 29, a technician at Pantex found mercury
in the leak detection system used by the plant's gas laboratory,
government reports stated. According to Pantex officials, 37
weapons could have been contaminated during a back-filling
procedure. A DOE Pantex spokesman said that the problem involves
"rebuild units" that are shipped to Pantex for evaluation,
maintenance and modification, before they are returned to
military forces. When the units are examined at Pantex,
technicians draw out the air inside and pump in inert gases to
replace it. The problem was that mercury was found inside the
pumping system. Weapons designers are trying to find out if the
weapons are contaminated, and if contamination could affect the
systems inside the bombs. Two systems have been used to detect
mercury, but no contamination has been found so far. The
detection devices can detect mercury down to the molecular level.
Pantex also shipped some weapons components to Sandia National
Laboratories in New Mexico, which also found no contamination. It
is still up to the three national laboratories involved--Los
Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs--to determine
whether they want to pull in the other 32 units for a complete
check. Sixteen workers were tested for potential mercury
contamination from the incident. One technician tested positive,
but received only a minute amount, said the DOE spokesman.
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