The Pike County, Ohio, General Health District wants the U.S. Department of Energy to provide it with corrected air sampling reports from 2001 through 2017 after a federal official acknowledged last month a contractor under-reported potential contamination around the Portsmouth Site.
Energy Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said in a June 6 letter to Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster that a “minor miscalculation” by contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth caused under-reporting of doses of some radioactive contaminants for several years. Despite the error, radioactive dose rates “remain far below” the point of posing a health and safety concern, Dabbar wrote.
On June 18, the county health district requested the corrected reports from DOE, Brewster stated in a July 2 email. In addition, “we are still waiting on the raw data and laboratory reports for all of the DOE air monitors in 2018 that we requested on May 8th.”
The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is reviewing its monitoring process for radioactive contaminants at the former uranium enrichment site. Discovery of radioactive contamination at the Zahn’s Corner Middle School, located 2 miles from the Portsmouth Site, led local officials to close the school for the 2019-2020 academic year.
The Energy Department and Northern Arizona University have both reported finding at least trace amounts of neptutnium-237 and enriched uranium around the school.
Since the news became public this May, DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White has stepped down, and two lawsuits have been filed against current and former Portsmouth Site contractors for allegedly failing to protect the public from radioactive contamination.
