The Scioto Valley Local School District in Ohio plans a community meeting Saturday to discuss radioactive contamination concerns at a middle school located about 2 miles from the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site.
Zahn’s Corner Middle School will be tested for radioactive byproducts released into the air by the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant during past uranium enrichment operations, as well as from demolition of plant structures and ongoing construction of a new waste disposal cell, according to a Tuesday email from Jennifer Chandler of the Scioto Valley-Piketon Area Council of Governments.
The Pike County middle school in May closed early for the summer break, and is scheduled to remain closed for the upcoming 2019-2020 academic year.
At the request of local education officials and the Pike County General Health District, the Energy Department is paying for an independent environmental contractor to collect air and dust samples around the school. That sampling by Ohio-based Solutient Technologies should begin next month. Samples will be taken inside classrooms and on the playground.
The sampling and preparation of a report analyzing potential risks to human health are expected to take at least six months, according to a Monday letter to Zahn’s Corner Middle School staff, faculty, and parents from the Scioto Valley Local School District.
The Saturday meeting at Piketon High School begins at 11 a.m. The gathering will feature a presentation from Northern Arizona University researchers Michael Ketterer and Scott Szechenyi. The researchers contend dust samples taken at the school over Memorial Day weekend back up their earlier findings that suggest enriched uranium is present within indoor dust.
The Energy Department says its own tests show there is no public health risk from radioactive material preventing Zahn’s Corner Middle School from opening in the fall. The federal agency said its latest sampling shows there is no radiation above background levels at the school.
Department of Energy contractor Longenecker & Associates has promoted Mike Briggs to the newly created post of group vice president for High-Hazard Operations support.
Briggs joined the Las Vegas-based company last year and helped launch the business line that supports incident response and recovery at DOE sites, the company said in a Monday press release. Until now, Briggs’ title was director of the High-Hazard Operations group.
The business line does work for the Energy Department subcontracts held by L&A at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Sandia National Laboratories, both in New Mexico. The work includes training, Incident response and recovery, waste management, and disposition support.
“Mike has been a tremendous asset in providing this vital support across the Nuclear Security Enterprise,” said L&A CEO Bonnie Longenecker in the release.
According to his online biography, Briggs has more than 30 years of experience in health and safety-related work in the nuclear industry. From 2015 to 2018 he worked for BWX Technologies at Nuclear Waste Partnership, the Energy Department’s management contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Briggs was the lead for industrial hygiene, radiation protection, and occupational medicine at WIPP, according to Longenecker.
Between 2012 and 2015 he served as a senior European business manager for BWXT predecessor Babcock & Wilcox, setting up the company’s office in the United Kingdom.
