Almost a year after a middle school outside the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio went on summer break early due to concern over levels of radioactive contaminants on campus, an independent contractor will start on-site air and soil sampling.
The project is scheduled to start in April, the top official at the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the manager of the agency’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office said last week.
Zahn’s Corner Middle School ended the 2018-2019 school year a week early last May, after analysis by researchers from Northern Arizona University indicated the presence of enriched uranium and neptunium-237 on the property. But subsequent DOE sampling found only trace amounts of radioactive contaminants, which the agency describes as far too minimal to pose a risk to human health.
During a March 11 appearance before the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, Energy Department Senior Adviser for Environmental Management William (Ike) White said, in order to address local concerns, the agency is footing the bill for third-party sampling at the Pike County school 2 miles from Portsmouth.
“That work to develop the sampling plan and the methodology with the local community is still ongoing, but I expect that to begin within the next few weeks,” White said.
At the same time, many activities around the nation are being delayed because of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
In July 2019, the Pike County General Health District recommended using Canton, Ohio-based environmental solutions provider Solutient Technologies to collect samples and analyze contamination levels at the school and other areas in the immediate vicinity of the former DOE gaseous diffusion plant.
Since then, DOE has been developing “data quality objectives for the sampling,” said Portsmouth/Paducah Manager Robert Edwards on the sidelines of last week’s Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix. “All of that will be wrapped up this month,” he added.
The physical sampling is the easiest part of the task, Edwards said. More difficult is “trying to understand what you are going to sample,” Edwards said. He noted that DOE is financing the sampling by Solutient via an existing $4 million grant to Ohio University to support research, cleanup, and reuse of Portsmouth property.
The controversy over the Zahn’s Corner Middle School led to the June 2019 resignation of then-DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White, after her boss Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar evidently did not like her handling of the situation. The potential contamination also sparked federal court litigation in Ohio. Residents within 7 miles of the Portsmouth Site, some with kids who attended the school, claim current and former contractors failed to keep contamination inside the fence.
