EDI's Review of INEEL's proposed Environmental Restoration at the Naval Reactors Facility (NRF)
The Environmental Defense Institute (EDI) received the Department of Energy (DOE) proposed plan (Plan) on Friday January 16th. Since Monday was a national holiday, it meant that EDI received the Plan one working day prior to the public meeting in Moscow Wednesday January 21. The public meetings are the only opportunity an individual has to get oral testimony into the public record. Inadequate preparation time literally translates into inadequate opportunity to be engaged in the decision making process. Additionally, there are two comprehensive waste area group plans presented, one for the Naval Reactors Facility and one for Argonne National Laboratory - West, covering a total of over 28 individual waste release sites. The volume of information needed to review two comprehensive plans is orders of magnitude over one or two subgroup (operable unit) waste release sites. Therefore, the public participation process is fatally flawed and unacceptable. EDI appreciates that the agencies responded to our preliminary comments by extending the comment period.
The apparent absence of lessons learned between the Hanford Environmental Restoration (ER) process and the INEEL ER process is regrettable and a serious threat to Idaho. DOE is taking advantage of its position as the single largest employer in Idaho to float ER actions at INEEL that it was not allowed to do at Hanford because public and regulatory pressure blocked shortcuts. Specifically, at Hanford DOE was required to build the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF) which is a fully compliant Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA)/ Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) mixed hazardous/radioactive dump with double liner, leachate collection and monitoring wells and an impermeable cap. ERDF was completed in the Spring of 1996 at the farthest location on Hanford away from the Columbia River and will receive contaminated soil and decontamination/decommissioning (D&D) waste. At INEEL, DOE refuses to build such a repository because the Department is not being pressured by the state and EPA regulators to comply with the law.
The Plan (January 1998 publication) assumes that the DOE and the Naval Reactor Facility (NRF) enjoy credibility in the public=s eye. This is an invalid assumption. These agencies have broken the law and are being forced via a Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order to correct their illegal activities. As illegal polluters, no credibility can be assumed and therefore full and complete disclosure is demanded in all Plan publications. The Plan does not provide the reader with full disclosure or provide the essential information the reader needs in order to evaluate the appropriateness of the preferred remedial alternative. For instance, maximum contaminate levels for all contaminates of concern must be stated for each Operational Unit as well as the effective standard for that contaminate so that the reader can make up their own mind whether the cleanup actions or no actions are appropriate. Stating conclusions without providing definitive data to support the finding assumes credibility that the agencies do not have.
Another major assumption that is extensively evoked in the Plan is 100 years of DOE monitoring and institutional control of the contaminated sites. In real life, when entities brake the law, and are required to do major corrective actions in the future, they are generally required to establish a trust fund so that if they again decide to disregard their legal requirements, or are no longer in existence, the funding will be there for the state or local government to do the job. The state of Idaho should therefore, require DOE to establish a monitoring/institutional control trust fund to cover those costs at INEEL. An example of where this issue is important is the current designation that NRF is not in the Big Lost River (one mile away) 100 year flood plain. This current designation is due to Big Lost River dams that divert flood waters south into spreading areas. These dams and their related water channels require regular maintenance in order to provide that flood protection to NRF and other INEEL facilities. Spring 1997 runoff nearly topped the dams. Prior to construction of the diversion dam, NRF was in the Big Lost River 100 year flood plain. [RI/FS@5] Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) radioactive waste disposal requirements state, Awaste disposal shall not take place in a 100 year flood plain.@ [10 CFR ss 61.50] Stipulated institutional control in the Record of Decision must include diversion dam and water channel maintenance as well as an explicit monitoring regime and maintained fencing of waste sites. The NRF Plan proposes consolidation of contaminated soil into one of the leach pits. The cesium alone will take over 420 years to decay to acceptable risk levels, or considerably longer than the planned 100 year institutional control. Indeed, institutional control must extend as long as the contaminates are hazardous.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) also incorrectly assume credibility with the public. The presence of their logos on the Plan, their review of the document, and their endorsement of the preferred alternative make these agencies complicitous in the Plan=s inadequacies and flaws as well as a history of INEEL Acleanup@ Plans that were more coverup than cleanup.
The Plan states: AThe Comprehensive RI/FS Waste Area Group 8 represents the last extensive Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) investigation for the Naval Reactors Facility.@ This Plan is not Acomprehensive@ because it excludes the Retention Basin (one of the most contaminated waste sites at NRF) from the CERCLA cleanup process. The Retention Basin (OU-8-08-17) is a large concrete tank that temporarily holds liquid radioactive and chemical wastes (presumably to allow short-lived isotopes to burn off) prior to discharge to the various leach pits. The Plan fails to state that the sludge in the basin contains cesium-137 at 192,700 pico curies per gram (pCi/g)(risk-based action level is 16.7 pCi/g) and Cobalt-60 at 20,410 pCi/g. [RI/FS@H8-8] A long history of Basin leaks assures significant soil contamination under the basin and therefore must be included in the Comprehensive Plan.
The Plan=s exclusion of the NRF Expanded Core Facility (ECF) contaminated soil resulting from leaks additionally demonstrates the incompleteness of the so called Acomprehensive@ Plan. The ECF, built in 1958, does not meet current spent reactor fuel storage standards that require stainless steel liner, leak containment, and leak detection systems. The ECF should be shutdown for exactly the same reasons the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant (CPP-603) Underwater Fuel Storage Facility and the Test Area North Pool were shut down- they are an unacceptable hazard and do not meet current standards. ECF has been leaking significantly over the past decade and the soil contamination around and underneath the basins must be included in the CERCLA cleanup process. [RI/FS@5-1] The Plan offers no soil sampling data to substantiate exclusion of the ECF from CERCLA action. A theoretical risk analysis assumed only one leak (>62,500 gallons) which does not reflect the actual ECF history and that is why the sampling data is essential.
The Plan=s exclusion of the Sewage Lagoon (NRF-23) from its so called Acomprehensive@ CERCLA cleanup, again, demonstrates the incompleteness of the Plan. Contaminate levels of arsenic, mercury, and cesium-137 would normally require remedial action. In fact, the Track 1 investigations recommended inclusion of the lagoons into the comprehensive RI/FS primarily due to radionuclides and the risk assessment results showed increased cancer rate of 1 in 10,000 from exposure to the site. [Plan@25] The Plan offers no data to substantiate the Arisk management decision@ to exclude the lagoons. NRF intends to continue to use these unlined leach pits despite the fact that every gallon of waste water that flows into the pit, leaches more of the contaminates toward the aquifer below. NRF should be required to close the Sewage Lagoons, clean them up, and build new lined ponds that meet current regulations. U.S. Geological Survey NRF well sample data confirm ground water inorganic contamination three orders of magnitude over the Maximum Contaminate Levels (MCL). [DOE/ID-22125@45] Clearly, the failed waste management practices of the past must end immediately.
The preferred alternative 3 that DOE, the State, and EPA want the public to accept cannot be justifiably called a cleanup plan. A shell coverup game, yes, but not a cleanup plan. Alternative 3 is a rerun of the misguided actions at the INEEL Test Reactor Area Warm Waste Pond. The NRF Plan calls for the consolidation of the contaminated soil from numerous sites into the bottom of one of the old leach pits (S1W Leach Pit), then cap it with rocks and gravel. It=s quick, dirty and comparatively cheap; and that=s why DOE likes it. With a slight of hand DOE wants to create a dump without calling it a dump because if they called it a dump then they would have to comply with hazardous and radioactive disposal regulations. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck then it is a duck. The very moment contaminated soil is moved from one site to another, a dump is created, and therefore the regulations apply regardless what DOE wants to call it.
The Plan offers inaccurate data to support the preferred alternative. The Plan states that the maximum soil concentration at all of the 8-08 Operable Units for cesium-137 is 7,323 pCi/g. [Plan@14] Appendix H of the RI/FS however credits the S1W Leach Pit with a maximum detected cesium-137 concentration of 149,759 pCi/g Adecay corrected to obtain equivalent 1995 results.@ [RI/FS@H4-22] This contaminate concentration discrepancy is significant because the undisclosed higher amount qualifies under NRC radioactive waste Class B criteria in 10 CFR ss 61.55 and the Atechnical requirements for land disposal facilities@ in ss 61.50. The preferred alternative does not meet NRC requirements. Actually, DOE=s preferred alternative does not even meet municipal garbage landfill requirements under RCRA Subtitle D which require liner, leachate monitoring wells, impermeable cap, and location restrictions over sole source aquifers. The NRF Plan contains none of these essential features. This Plan effectively shifts the risks, hazards, and ultimate cleanup costs to future generations. The high levels of hazardous materials in the NRF waste qualify it as a mixed hazardous and radioactive waste under the 1992 Federal Facility Compliance and RCRA Land Disposal Restrictions. Hazardous contaminates in the soil include chromium at 2,090 mg/kg, lead at 1,140 mg/kg and mercury at 56.1 mg/kg. EPA=s interim lead soil cleanup level is 400 mg/kg. The Plan offers no Toxic Concentration Leach Procedure (TCLP) data to support exclusion of this hazardous waste from regulatory disposal compliance. The transuranic contaminates (americium-241 and plutonium-238) at 20 pCi/g have half-lives of 432 and 87 years respectively guarantee the waste will be hazardous for a long time. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to see how the Plan=s preferred alternative can claim to meet all the AApplicable or Relevant and Appropriate Requirements@ (ARAR).
The INEEL Oversight Program=s Kathleen Trever claims that the SIW data set containing the 149,759 pCi/g cesium-137 was not considered reliable by DOE and therefore it was not used in the Risk Assessment. When asked about this data-set discrepancy, EPA=s Wayne Pierre said that DOE could not arbitrarily ignore data-set unless they had more than 10 data-sets, and then they could choose the most reliable 10 sets. Since DOE only had three data-sets, Pierre thought it unacceptable to rely completely on the 1991 and 1992 samples. It is possible that the earlier sampling grid identified hot spots that the later sampling grids could be planned to avoid.
1971 sampling data buried in the RI/FS show long-term waste mismanagement at the S1W Leach Pit with cesium-137 at 310,000 pCi/g, cesium-134 at 42,00 pCi/g, hafnium-181 at 20,000 pCi/g, and cobalt-60 at 1,300,000 pCi/g. [RI/FS@I-59] Algae (accessible to ducks using the pond) sampling show 667,447 pCi/g. [RI/FS@ pg H6-13] By comparison, the risk based soil concentration for cesium-137 applied to this Plan is 16.7 pCi/g. These high contamination levels were due primarily to once through reactor cooling water dumped in the leach pits which was discontinued by 1980. No explanation is offered why the remediaton goal applied to Waste Area Group 3 of 0.02 pCi/g for cesium-137 was changed.
Alternative 4, Complete Excavation and AOff-site Disposal@ is equally unacceptable because AOff-site@ is defined as hauling the contaminated soil from NRF to another INEEL leach pit consolidation site at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant, Test Reactor Area, or the Radioactive Waste Management Complex, none of which would qualify even as a garbage dump. Interestingly, DOE calls these AINEEL soil repositories.@ Therefore, alternative 4 also does not meet legal requirements in the ARAR=s.
The cumulative risk assumptions that determine the exposures to future 100 year residential and occupational scenarios are not conservative (most protective of human health) and not supportable. The Plan states: AThe ingestion of soil, the ingestion of food crop, and direct contact with soil through the dermal pathway are not included in the cumulative assessment because these involve exposures routes that are not likely to occur at more than one release site at a time.@ [Plan@11] A possible future scenario of a pasture over the leach pit, a well over the Retention Basin, and dermal exposure from digging around the ECF is reasonable. Therefore, all these pathways must be considered to be cumulative. The risk assessment must also be recalculated using the above cited maximum cesium-137 contaminate level of 149,759 pCi/g which will produce radically different results from the 7,323 pCi/g used by DOE as the maximum contaminate level at NRF.
NRF and DOE representatives stated at a public meeting in Moscow that the groundwater and aquifer are not at risk because contaminates are absorbed by the soil column. Review of the historical deep well sampling data at NRF does not support the Navy=s conclusion. The NRF October 1995 Remedial Investigation / Feasibility Study (RI/FS) Appendix K shows Table III Deep Well Sample Results for Wells # 1, # 2, and # 3 at 60, 69, and 44 pico curies per liter respectively for gross beta. The federal drinking water standard (MCL) for gross beta is 8 pico curies per liter. This deep well sample data confirm that the contaminates do migrate, contrary to the Navy=s claims. The USGS well sample data previously cited additionally confirm contaminate migration.
The Plan=s Aremediation goals@ that set risk-based soil concentrations for contaminates of concern (cleanup goals) fail to include inhalation as an exposure pathway. This exclusion represents a major flaw in the Plan. Inhalation is the most biologically hazardous for alpha emitting contaminates of concern listed as americium-241, neptunium-237, plutonium-238, plutonium-244, and uranium-235, yet inhalation is not considered for these isotopes, nor for lead. The wide difference between ingestion of beta/gamma contaminated soil also appears out of balance. For instance cleanup goals for cesium-137 external exposure is set at 16.7 pico curies per gram (pCi/g) while ingestion of soil is set at 24,860 pCi/g. Additionally, the beta emitter strontium-90 is not considered for external or inhalation exposure but is considered for soil ingestion at 15,416 pCi/g and food crop ingestion at 45 pCi/g.
An integral factor in the Plan=s establishing a Aremediation goal@ is the maximum concentration of contaminates of concern. The Plan acknowledges (pg 14) that the maximum cesium-137 soil contamination detected at the NRF is 7,323 pCi/g which generated a risk based cleanup goal of 16.7 pCi/g. Again, as previously discussed, this must be recalculated using the above cited maximum detected cesium-137 at 149,759 pCi/g Adecay corrected to obtain equivalent 1995 results.@ This significant discrepancy begs the question as to the quality of regulatory review the State and EPA are bringing to the process and whether the Aremediation goals@ are supportable.
References:
1. Final Comprehensive Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study for the Naval Reactor Facility, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Waste Area Group 8, October 1995, U.S. Department of Energy
2. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Code of Federal Regulation ss 61 Subpart D
3. Environmental Protection Agency, 40 Code of Federal Regulations ss 261
4. Chemical Contaminates in Water from Wells in the Vicinity of the NRF, INEL, 1991-93, US Geological Survey, Open File Report 95-725, DOE/ID-22125, November 1995
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