The U.S. Energy Department is conducting additional sampling to detect any radioactive contamination at a school near its Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio, while local officials seek to be kept in the loop.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry dispatched a technical team to do an assessment of the school, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday.
Energy Department representatives “were completely unresponsive to our request” for details on this work, including data quality objectives, the sampling and analysis plan, and methods or locations, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said by email Friday.
Zahn’s Corner Middle School, located 2 miles from Portsmouth, was closed May 13, a week prior to scheduled summer vacation, due to concerns about radiation. The Scioto Valley Local School District made the decision after Northern Arizona University researchers reviewed air, water, and sediment samples taken by local residents and found contamination exceeded background levels.
The Energy Department has said its own air sampling near the school shows trace amounts of neptunium-237 and americium-241 far below levels that might pose a health hazard. Nevertheless, the DOE Office of Environmental Management agreed to pay for additional sampling by a third party.
The Pike County General Health District and Scioto Valley Local School District learned at a meeting Thursday that DOE planned to itself perform sampling at the school starting over the weekend.
Students from the affected middle school will start the 2019-2020 academic year housed at either a local elementary or high school. Given that, and the upcoming third-parting sampling, “I’m not sure why there is a delay in producing [the requested information] or the mad rush to sample the school,” Brewster said of the DOE move.
The head of DOE’s nuclear cleanup office, Anne Marie White, has taken an interest in the situation, and met with Pike County residents. Multiple sources said Thursday and Friday that White is resigning her post after Undersecretary of Energy for Science Paul Dabbar questioned her handling of the matter. The agency has not confirmed her departure, nor the reason for it.
