The Washington state Department of Health has increasing concerns about the spread of radioactive contamination from the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, saying the public could be put at risk if demolition resumes without better controls. Clark Halvorson, assistant secretary at the Health Department, sent a letter to DOE on Tuesday, outlining the concerns and asking for more information.
The Department of Health is not a Hanford regulator, but is responsible for public health in the state. It asked DOE for information about which visitors and nonradiation workers may have been at Hanford in December. A spread of radioactive contamination from demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant was discovered in mid-December, and a further analysis of air samples showed radioactive contamination likely linked to the plant teardown from late October through at least December.
There has been no off-site release of radioactive contaminants from plant demolition that has put the public at risk, including from an earlier spread of contamination in June, Halvorson said. But the Health Department also realizes some workers drove their cars into town and the vehicles were later found to have alpha contamination, he said.
Incidents of airborne contamination linked to the Plutonium Finishing Plant have increased, with the contamination found outside the 200 West Area, where the plant is located, he said. Contamination has been found at the US Ecology commercial disposal site for low-level radioactive waste on leased Hanford land; at the Rattlesnake Barricade secure entrance to Hanford; and near the K East and K West reactors, which are about 300 yards from the Columbia River where the public fishes and boats.
“Once the contamination is allowed into the environment, it will migrate via pathways, water and through other biological vectors,” Halvorson said.
Information the Department of Health is requesting from DOE includes ambient air data for specific isotopes, plans for disposal of air filters, wind speeds during work time, the radioactive source term remaining at the plant and in its rubble piles, detailed worker bioassay results, and all personnel lapel monitor readings.
Teardown and work with demolition rubble piles at the Plutonium Finishing Plant have been halted since mid-December. In a statement Wednesday, DOE said it “has an established relationship with Washington’s Department of Health and we will continue our coordination with it. We welcome and expect feedback on our operations from Health as we conduct recovery activities at the PFP and other cleanup activities on the Hanford Site.”
