By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
Work on parcels of land off DP Road yielded unexpected and unwelcomed surprises. These surprises are radioactive material, which forced the Department of Energy (DOE) to return to the land parcels it transferred to Los Alamos County and perform cleanup work.
During the County Council work session Tuesday night, Environmental Management Los Alamos (EM-LA) Field Office Senior Health Physicist Brian Harcek updated the council on the cleanup work.
The affected areas are on property on the south side of the road, Harcek explained. They are identified as A-8-A, A-8-B and A-16-A.
Regarding work on A-16-A, he said N3B is digging up the area and doing pot holing to verify where the contamination may be and “that we’re getting what we’re supposed to be getting.” Additionally, geo physicists were brought in, and they found three anomaly areas. Trenching was done and areas were dug up and are in the process of being studied to be certain they are free of contamination.
In A-8-A, Harcek said the area south of a Department of Public Utilities lift station where radioactive material was found is being dug and geophysical areas were identified there, too.
He added that the plan to address to the radioactive material was approved by the state. In general, 106 pothole locations were made on the two parcels and seven geophysical anomaly locations will be looked at. Furthermore, on A-16-A, seven sewer locations were identified and will be verified that there is no contamination there. There are four known contamination sites that are being dug to remove radiological material, he said. The hope is to complete the excavations by the end of September. After excavations, a confirmation sampling will be conducted to prove that there is nothing there, then an assessment report will be reviewed by an outside organization – Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Finally, Harcek said the final report will be taken to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Hazardous Waste Bureau for approval. The deadline for the final report to NMED is April 30, 2022.
The radioactive material, which is plutonium and uranium, is left over from early years of the Manhattan Project, he said.
“No further remediation is expected since we are trying everything we can to get this type (of material) out … that’s what the goal is,” Harcek said.
He added that the contamination in middle DP Road hasn’t been found on the property where the Bluffs, an affordable housing apartment complex for seniors, will be built.
Harcek’s presentation also noted that the discovered radioactive material poses low human and ecological risk due to it being attached to debris.
Councilor Sara Scott asked what the process is for the confirmation sampling.
Harcek said, in general, borings are being done around the excavation and additional points. Then the borings are being analyzed under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Councilor Sean Williams asked how all this happened.
“I guess I am going to keep asking this question until it gets answered,” he said. “How did the waste that was dug up get missed during the previous cleanup effort?”
Harcek explained that, “The waste that was dug up in MDA (Material Disposal Area)-B … MDA-B was, from historical records that were looked at, …ended at a certain point that was to the east of where we are finding this stuff. The historical record is open to interpretation. When we looked at that in the past, we did some additional investigations to the east and we did not find any trenches that had been done. This waste, there was reference to a coal pit that was sitting on A-8-B … we missed it. So, in general when we are looking at this stuff, what we found in the past is it would be fairly homogenous … this stuff is not homogenous. It is highly discrete; it is debris and it does not have a gamma signature that we can actually see and the stuff we are finding is 7-8 feet below the surface so the gamma signature wouldn’t have been useful anyway.”
EM-LA Manager Michael Mikolanis expanded on the reason.
“…when the land transfer occurred … the historians were brought to interpret the information and you can interpret the records (as) the more data you have (and) the more time the scientists at the time took to document things, the easier it is to interpret it … you can interpret this many different ways and using the best available information at the time the historians said, OK this is what it is and the requirements and sampling associated with the land turnover were completed,” Mikolanis said. “Now new information (is being received) … we found some material (and) the historians were brought back in to look at the records and laid out new information and got more field data. Now they are interpreting the records … so the sampling plan was put together …”
For the public’s sake, Councilor Denise Derkacs asked if Harcek could describe in terms of spread the differences of hazards between solids, particulates and liquids.
Harcek said solids don’t spread. Unless a person picks it up, their skin will protect them. Particulates are smaller pieces so a person would need to inhale them or get them into their body to be harmed. The same goes for liquids. They would have to get into the body to be harmful.
Councilor David Izraelevitz asked what the work plan covers to address the cleanup.
Harcek said they worked with NMED to come up with the acceptable potholes. Geo physical analysis is based on RCRA and RAD. RCRA is the standard for all environmental testing done at the laboratory, he said, adding that RAD is under DOE’s purview.
Council Chair Randall Ryti said the radioactive material was discovered in February 2020.
He wondered if the geophysics would have detected the material.
Harcek said no; the material is too small and buried too deep, adding that initially, stuff typically found in landfills were looked for such as drums or concrete.
A map of the different areas off DP Road affected by the discovery of radiological material. Courtesy/LAC
