It should take anywhere from two to four weeks to fully analyze the Energy Department’s new sampling for radioactive contaminants at a middle school near the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
The results should be publicly provided as soon as they are available, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said in a Wednesday email.
A team of certified health physicists from DOE national laboratories collected samples over a nine-hour period Saturday. The Energy Department took 44 smear or wipe samples from surfaces inside the school, along with air samples from around the school, he said. No soil or water samples were taken.
The Energy Department team originally planned to collect samples from desks, table tops, and floors at Zahn’s Corner Middle School, “which have been cleaned almost daily since August,” Brewster said. But officials with the Pike County General Health District and Scioto Valley Local School District insisted they focus more on “undisturbed” locations in ceilings, the heating-cooling system, and I-beams, he added.
The school, 2 miles from the former gaseous diffusion plant, closed May 13, a week ahead of the planned summer break, after analysis by Northern Arizona University indicated the presence of enriched uranium and neptunium-237. Subsequent DOE sampling found only trace amounts of radioactive contaminants, which the agency says are well below posing a risk to health.
The Energy Department, Pike County health district, and the Ohio Department of Health will each have separate labs analyze the new samples. The Energy Department is using the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, while Northern Arizona University will again assist Pike County, Brewster said.
Aside from the Memorial Day weekend sampling, the Energy Department has agreed to pay for a third-party consultant picked by Pike County to conduct independent sampling and analysis. The consultant should be selected soon, Brewster said.
Local officials in Pike County have already decided to house the students from Zahn’s Corner at two other schools for the 2019-2020 school year, the health commissioner noted.
