The Scioto Valley Local School District in Ohio plans a community meeting Saturday to discuss radioactive contamination concerns at a middle school located about 2 miles from the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site.
Zahn’s Corner Middle School will be tested for radioactive byproducts released into the air by the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant during past uranium enrichment operations, as well as from demolition of plant structures and ongoing construction of a new waste disposal cell, according to a Tuesday email from Jennifer Chandler of the Scioto Valley-Piketon Area Council of Governments.
The Pike County middle school in May closed early for the summer break, and is scheduled to remain closed for the upcoming 2019-2020 academic year.
At the request of local education officials and the Pike County General Health District, the Energy Department is paying for an independent environmental contractor to collect air and dust samples around the school. That sampling by Ohio-based Solutient Technologies should begin next month. Samples will be taken inside classrooms and on the playground.
The sampling and preparation of a report analyzing potential risks to human health are expected to take at least six months, according to a Monday letter to Zahn’s Corner Middle School staff, faculty, and parents from the Scioto Valley Local School District.
The Saturday meeting at Piketon High School begins at 11 a.m. The gathering will feature a presentation from Northern Arizona University researchers Michael Ketterer and Scott Szechenyi. The researchers contend dust samples taken at the school over Memorial Day weekend back up their earlier findings that suggest enriched uranium is present within indoor dust.
The Energy Department says its own tests show there is no public health risk from radioactive material preventing Zahn’s Corner Middle School from opening in the fall. The federal agency said its latest sampling shows there is no radiation above background levels at the school.
