Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/24/2014
The Sierra Club will continue its challenge against the Barnwell low-level waste disposal facility license renewal early next month in the South Carolina Court of Appeals. The Sierra Club initially loss its challenge in the Administrative Law Court, which upheld the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control’s decision to re-new the license, but the appeal asserts that the Administrative Law Court “erred in making specific findings of fact and, ultimately, in affirming the renewal of the license.” According to Susan Corbett, chair of the South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, the lawsuit aims to get Barnwell to change its disposal practices. “We are challenging the license approval based on the fact that we do not think they are using best practices and they are using practices that are allowing this [waste] to currently or eventually leak out and leave the premises so it won’t permanently isolate it from the environment,” Corbett said. South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control did not respond to comment this week. Site operator EnergySolutions argues that it is in full compliance of regulatory guidelines. “We don’t usually comment on pending litigation; however in this particular license renewal case, we have followed policies and procedures diligently with confidence in DHEC’s license renewal process and remain 100 percent compliant with our license,” EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said.
DHEC announced at the October meeting of the Atlantic Compact Commission meeting that tritium levels were trending upwards in six locations, and in the most recent annual trending report from EnergySolutions subsidiary Chem-Nuclear, the company released similar results of tritium in the groundwater. “In the 2013 annual trending report, 27 monitoring locations were evaluated for changes in tritium concentrations,” the Chem-Nuclear report said. “The tritium data indicated that 10 monitoring locations showed no evidence of trending either up or down, six locations showed an upward trend and 11 locations showed a downward trend over the most recent five-year period (third quarter 2008 to second quarter 2013).” The report also indicated, though, that tritium concentrations in Mary’s Branch Creek have actually decreased over the five year period, a change from the stable levels of tritium from the previous 12 years.
Susan Jenkins, director of DHEQ’s division of waste management, told the Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council two weeks ago that the amount of tritium in the water was in compliance with federal regulations, according to local reports. Critics, though, pointd to federal drinking water standards, in which the tritium levels fail to meet compliance standards. “All they are trying to do is say that no one is drinking the water so there is no immediate danger, but eventually all that stuff ends up in the Savannah River, which is the prime drinking source for a number of cities downstream,” Corbett said.
