The Pike County, Ohio, General Health District hopes this week to select a third-party laboratory to conduct air and water sampling near the Energy Department facility suspected of being the source of radioactive contaminants found recently at a local middle school.
“We are working as fast as possible along with performing our due diligence to ensure that we hire a company who can give us an accurate and honest independent third-party assessment” of local air and water samples for potential contaminants, Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said by email Monday.
Once a lab is confirmed, Pike County health officials want the work to start immediately, Brewster said.
The goal is to have samples taken and analyzed in time for the Scioto Valley Local School District to decide whether it’s safe to reopen the Zahn’s Corner Middle School after summer break. The Energy Department has agreed to pay for the third-party sampling, and let state and local officials determine the ultimate scope of the work.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said it agrees with DOE’s position that radionuclide levels near the school are minimal and do not present a public health risk. “However, we want additional verification to ensure the health and safety of the community,” Ohio EPA spokeswoman Heidi Griesmer said in an email Monday.
Scioto Valley Local School District Superintendent Todd Burkitt announced May 13 that the middle school, 2 miles from DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant campus, was closing immediately for summer vacation. The move came after research by Northern Arizona University, on samples taken by area residents, stoked local concerns about contaminants such as neptunium-237 and enriched uranium beyond background levels in and around the middle school.
The Energy Department said its prior sampling shows only trace amounts, far below posing a threat to human health, of neptunium-237 and americium-241 in the vicinity of the middle school.
