RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION FOUND AT ADDITIONAL SPOTS AROUND WIPP SITE

Additional samples collected at “numerous locations on and around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant” have tested positive for “slightly elevated levels of airborne radioactive concentrations” matching waste disposed at WIPP, DOE said yesterday. Officials have said that most likely radiation escaping a waste drum underground at WIPP set off an underground air monitor the night of Feb. 14, and last week a monitor 0.6 miles from the site detected radiation. Yesterday, DOE reported that samples at several additional locations indicated radioactive contamination levels between 1.3 and 4.4 disintegrations per minute. DOE air sampling monitors range in distance from 0.5 miles to 26 miles from the plant, DOE spokeswoman Deb Gill said yesterday, but she did not say which ones had detected contamination. 

 

DOE is undertaking additional analyses of the sampling. “There are no shortcuts,” Joe Franco, manager of DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, said in a statement. “Our scientists and technicians must complete detailed, comprehensive protocols to ensure the information we produce is accurate.”