The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) on Monday reported that exposure to radioactive materials near St. Louis, Mo., could be linked to a heightened danger of various types of cancer.
Coldwater Creek in north St. Louis County was contaminated by upstream storage facilities for radiological waste from uranium extraction operations in St. Louis for the World War II Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. These sites are now being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
Local residents in 2016 asked the ATSDR and St. Louis County Department of Public Health to study the potential connection between the waste contamination and health problems experienced in the area. In a draft report issued Monday, the Health and Human Services agency said it determined that locals who lived or played near the creek over a period of years from the 1960s to 1990s could face a higher potential for bone or lung cancer, leukemia, and to a lesser degree skin or breast cancer. Heightened danger for bone or lung cancer persists from daily exposure for those who lived near the creek beginning in the 2000s.
However, the agency is not recommending further general disease evaluations for past or current residents near the creek. “The predicted increases in the number of cancer cases from exposures are small, and no method exists to link a particular cancer with this exposure,” according to the draft report.
Some present and prior residents would have had lower exposures than the level assumed by the ATSDR study, the agency said. It added that it backs continued work to find and clean radiological waste in the area, but there is no means for studying other potential routes of exposure such as inhalation of dust from waste storage piles.
Public input or additional data from environmental sampling could change the findings, the federal agency said.
The report lists a number of “next steps” based on its findings. Among other recommendations, the agency said current or past local residents who might have been exposed to contaminants in Coldwater Creek should discuss the situation with their physicians and report any new or unusual symptoms to those doctors. The state of Missouri should also look at refreshing evaluations of cancer incidence, cancer mortality, and birth defects.
The ATSDR recommended the Army Corps of Engineers continue its Coldwater Creek sediments and floodplain cleanup efforts and evaluate the possibility that contamination went beyond the floodplain. Specific sampling going forward could encompass: areas where soil and sediment from the creek floodplain might have been used, such as for construction fill; and areas where flooding might have left soil or sediment, including basements.
Warnings signs should also be placed in areas near the creek that have not been remediated or investigated, the report says.
The draft report is open for public comment through Aug. 31. Comments can be submitted at [email protected]; by email at [email protected]; or by mail at Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Attn.: Record Center, Re: Coldwater Creek, North St. Louis County, MO; 4770 Buford Highway NE, Atlanta, GA 30341.
Information sessions on the findings are scheduled for June 27 and 28 at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall in Florissant, Mo.
The Department of Energy said Monday it would issue over $3 million in grants to U.S. universities for research on management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.
The funding is a slice of a $64 million tranche of awards for various advanced nuclear energy technology research programs at DOE national laboratories and 39 universities.
The University of Idaho has been awarded $800,000 for an initiative that employs “stir based repair and mitigation technique” to prevent pitting and stress-corrosion cracking that can cause dry-storage containers for spent fuel to deteriorate, according to a DOE fact sheet. The ultimate goal is to establish a means based on “friction stir technology” to prevent such container failures.
The University of California, Los Angeles, will receive $800,000 for research related to vitrification – converting nuclear waste into a glass form for disposal. Specifically, the project aims to “identify the thermodynamic propensity and corrosion kinetics for zeolite precipitation in borosilicate glasses used in nuclear waste immobilization applications, as a function of solution conditions, such as composition, pH, and temperature,” DOE said. “This information will establish a science-based foundation to facilitate long-term corrosion rate expectations, while ensuring safe and successful vitrification operations.”
The University of Colorado Boulder will take home $799,798 for research on “geomechanical aspects of modeling by addressing the time-dependent evolution of rock microstructure and its coupling with the THC processes that are of first-order importance to the stability and the isolation performance of repositories,” according to the fact sheet. “The research will delineate an integrated experimental, theoretical and numerical strategy in assessing the evolution EDZ over time and its implication on the long-term migration of hazardous species. These results will enhance the confidence of the predicted long-term performance of repositories, which help of one-million-year isolation of high-level nuclear wastes.”
Texas A&M University gets $608,375 for a project on how gas migration can impact engineered barriers intended to prevent leakage of high-level radioactive waste in storage or disposal. The findings are expected to contribute to increased knowledge on gas migration and therefore to contribute to stronger designs for engineered barriers.
BWXT Technologies said Wednesday that a subsidiary of Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG) would provide irradiation services for a new medical isotope production program.
In May, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company announced commercial development of generators for technetium-99m, an isotope used each year in more than 30 million medical procedures globally, including medical imaging for cancers and heart and lung disease.
Technetium-99m is the decay product of another isotope, molybdenum-99. Irradiation of molybdenum targets is part of the production process. While a final deal is still being negotiated, BWXT said in a press release that OPG’s Canadian Nuclear Partners would irradiate targets at CANDU reactors in the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario. BWXT would then process those targets to manufacture technetium-99m generators.
“We are making progress on negotiations of an agreement and hope to finalize as soon as possible,” BWXT spokeswoman Natalie Cutler said by email. “We do not anticipate that we will be disclosing the terms of the agreement.”
Following approval by Canadian regulators, the Darlington plant should begin irradiation services before the close of 2019, the companies said.
In April, BWXT also announced plans to acquire the medical isotopes business of Canadian health company Nordion. That deal is expected to be finalized by the end of this year.
The United States has no domestic capacity for molybdenum-99 manufacturing, and production at Canada’s National Research Universal reactor effectively stopped in 2016, according to an OPG press release. That put North America at the mercy of supplies from Europe, Africa, and Asia.
BWXT says it will be ready to provide the full need in North America for the isotope. It isn’t alone in this effort: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved construction licenses for production facilities in Missouri and Wisconsin, and other manufacturing programs are underway.
“BWXT’s process includes the irradiation of natural molybdenum metal targets in a nuclear reactor. The targets are processed in a licensed facility and loaded into newly designed Tc-99m generators,” Cutler said. “The generators currently under development, are similar in dimension and activity levels to existing generators available commercially, and will be delivered to radiopharmacies and hospitals where they will be used for patient diagnoses.”
Scotland-based energy industry project and engineering specialist Wood on Thursday announced a competition to fund projects for development of nuclear decommissioning technologies.
The Wood Nuclear Innovation Fund is expected to pay as much as £250,000 ($331,000) each to projects from small- and medium-sized enterprises. Asked how many awards will be issued, Wood spokesman Stephen Brauner said the fund value would be based on the “scale and complexity” of projects picked for funding. “Wood is constantly looking for suitable projects, so this is not a one-off,” he said by email.
The competition would be focused on technologies in the areas of decontamination, contamination management, waste packaging, holding, moving, size reduction, and visualization and planning.
“The UK government and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wants industry to deliver safer, cheaper and faster decommissioning and to meet this challenge, it will be necessary to deploy new or existing technologies in ingenious and innovative ways,” Bob McDonald, CEO of Wood Specialist Technical Solutions, said in the announcement.
The lead applicant in any team must email [email protected] to show interest in being considered for funding. Submissions are due by Sept. 30, with funding decisions anticipated by Nov. 30. Funded projects would be expected to begin by Jan. 7 of next year and to reach “inactive demonstration” status — a demonstration without need for radiological protection — by the close of 2020. The program intends to produce return on investment no later than three years after the investment project concludes.
“We recognise the importance of IP ownership to SMEs and so we will operate a pragmatic and mutually beneficial approach based on the principal that any background IP is retained by the SME and foreground IP developed in the execution of the project is appropriately shared,” according to a Wood fact sheet.
Participants must be a small- or medium-sized enterprise that can demonstrate that their proposal has a reasonable route to commercialization. Collaboration is allowed, as is technology that could be employed in other industries. “Pre-start-ups” will be considered, but will need to register as a business upon receiving a contract. Companies from outside the United Kingdom will be considered for awards.
The state of Utah has formally recognized workplace safety and health activities at EnergySolutions’ radioactive waste disposal facility at Clive.
The Salt Lake City-based company said on June 15 it had obtained Voluntary Protection Program status from the Utah Labor Commission’s Occupational Safety and Health Division (UOSH). “Admission to VPP status constitutes UOSH’s official recognition of company management and employees with outstanding occupational safety and health management systems,” according to the UOSH website.
In over 30 years of operation, UOSH has only provided VPP status to nine other companies, EnergySolutions said in a press release. These include Raytheon, Smithfield, ConocoPhillips, Firestone, and Frito-Lay.
“This is an incredible accomplishment for our employees at the Clive Facility,” EnergySolutions President and CEO Ken Robuck said in the release. “The credit goes to every Clive employee for their dedication and commitment to health and safety.”
The Clive site, in the Utah desert about 75 miles west of Salt Lake City, is one of four U.S. facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for disposal of low-level radioactive waste. EnergySolutions operates a second disposal site in Barnwell, S.C. The others are Waste Control Specialists’ property in Andrews County, Texas, and US Ecology’s operation at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
From The Wires
From the BBC: U.K. National Audit Office report finds that some plutonium canisters at the Sellafield nuclear site are degrading more rapidly than expected, and that a leak would produce “intolerable risk.”
From the News & Star: U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority director says agency making contracting process more efficient, after audit also found £913m in excess costs.
From the San Diego Reader: California appeals court directs California Public Utilities Commission to produce communications with the state governor’s office on the share of costs to be borne by ratepayers for the premature closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
From World Nuclear News: Final nuclear waste disposal testing in Finland to begin after middle of summer.
From the International Atomic Energy Agency: Inspection team finds commitment, areas for improvement, in Bulgaria’s management of used nuclear reactor fuel and radioactive waste.
