The Department of Energy acknowledged last week that a “minor miscalculation” by contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth resulted in the under-reporting of doses of some radioactive contaminants for many years around the agency’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
That said, the radioactive dose rates “remain far below” the point of being a health and safety concern, DOE Undersecretary of Science Paul Dabbar said in a June 6 letter to Pike County, Ohio, Health Commissioner Matt Brewster.
The letter did not offer details on the miscalculation.
Dabbar said the flawed data, which went into the department’s annual site environmental reports for the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant between 2001 and 2017, was discovered by site cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT and reported to the federal agency on May 28.
Two national laboratories subsequently confirmed the corrected calculations still show that contaminants from the Portsmouth Site do not pose a risk to the surrounding community, according to the letter.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management is conducting a detailed review of the longtime monitoring process for radioactive contaminants at the onetime uranium enrichment site. The move was prompted by the decision to close the Zahn’s Corner Middle School, located 2 miles from Portsmouth, for the 2019-2020 academic year. The decision came after the Energy Department and Northern Arizona University both reported finding at least trace amounts of neptunium-237 and americium-241 around the school.
The Energy Department has discovered only trace amounts of contaminants in studying results from six air monitoring stations on-site at Portsmouth, along with 10 more monitoring stations in the surrounding community. The agency did additional sampling during the Memorial Day weekend, and will pay for third-party air sampling and analysis for the school.
There was no immediate response from the Energy Department as of Thursday evening on the error that led to the under-reporting of radiation dose levels.
Portsmouth Advisory Panel Rejects Another Proposal on Waste Cell Decision
For the second time in a year, the DOE’s Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board rejected a member’s request to urge the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to reopen its decision on the On-Site Waste Disposal Cell being built at the Portsmouth Site.
During a meeting June 6 the panel voted against a recommendation by member Dennis Foreman to call upon Ohio EPA to reopen its 2015 record of decision, which cleared the way for construction of the $900 million disposal facility.
The advisory board first rejected Foreman’s motion in May 2018.
The latest vote followed the recent controversy about contamination at Zahn’s Corner Middle School.
The disposal facility, expected to open in 2021, will hold up to 2 million cubic yards of contaminated waste resulting from demolition of buildings once used for uranium enrichment. Analysis by Northern Arizona University suggests construction work at the cell might have resulted in off-site contamination.
“The decision not to recommend opening the ROD was disappointing,” Brewster said in a Monday evening email.
Evidence suggests “there are not adequate controls in place,” Brewster wrote. “It is reasonable for the public to expect and leaders to demand that DOE do the responsible thing and stop any act that could be causing the off-site contamination.”
The Pike County General Health District wants Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to urge the Energy Department to halt construction of the cell until third-party sampling and analysis is conducted on contamination levels near the Portsmouth Site.
Brewster, who was on vacation this week, said his office is working with the Ohio Department of Health to establish a scope of work for the planned third-party sampling.
