Officials in southern Ohio are scheduled to meet today to narrow the list of potential third-party contractors to sample for potential radioactive contamination at a middle school near the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site.
The Pike County General Health District said Tuesday it is working with DOE, along with local and state agencies, to establish a procedure outlining “when and where to collect samples,” and the number of samples needed.
“We are aware of the time sensitive nature of this project” and plan to quickly select a contractor with the necessary experience, according to the statement issued through Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster. The health district and the Scioto Valley Local School District are drafting a memorandum of understanding with the Energy Department about the planned sampling.
Officials want the samples taken and analyzed prior to start of the 2019-2020 school year.
The school district on May 13 said Zahn’s Corner Middle School would start summer break right away, following detection of traces of enriched uranium within the building and neptunium-237 by a nearby Energy Department air monitor. The school, 2 miles from the former gaseous diffusion plant, halted classes after Northern Arizona University researchers analyzed air and water samples collected by local residents.
In a letter Monday to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Energy Secretary Rick Perry said his agency will release “raw air monitoring data” for the Portsmouth Site for 2015 through the first quarter of 2019. The level of radionuclides in the vicinity is far below a level posing risk to human health, DOE says.
The agency’s sampling data has already been shared with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health, Perry said.
In the letter, Perry said funding for the third-party sampling and analysis near Zahn’s Corner Middle School will come through an existing DOE grant to Ohio University.
