A top federal manager for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday the agency is continuing to investigate the cause of a July 4 spill of low-level radioactively contaminated water near H Canyon.
“We are taking a very hard look at exactly what occurred,” Michael Budney, the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s operations manager told the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board.
“We haven’t had one like that in quite some time,” Budney said of the spill, which involved less than 100 gallons of liquid, although a few gallons reached an industrial stormwater outfall within one-third of a mile from a stream.
“The response to the spill was excellent by the contractor.” Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), Budney said. The contractor is still working on a longer-term remediation plan. The DOE has previously said there was no worker contamination or environmental releases to the public.
The DOE wants to get a handle on why the spill occurred, if there is a danger of similar spills elsewhere in the federal complex and how to prevent such events in the future, Budney said.
The spill came from a temporary above-ground tank system used to take liquid from the pumping of a sump, which happens from time-to-time at H Canyon, according to SRNS.
