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F.A.C.T.S. Mailing Address: Box 566 Kenmore, NY 14217-0566 Phone/Fax: (716) 876-9552
To disseminate, in a timely manner, factual information related to the cleanup of the Tonawanda nuclear waste site. Also, to serve as a resource to help interested citizens obtain relevant site-related materials. FACTS supports the complete removal of Tonawanda's radioactive waste to a dry, secure site, much more suitable for the long- term management of these wastes. Back issues of the FACTS Newsletter are available upon request, at no charge. No permission is required to reprint or otherwise disseminate the FACTS Newsletter or articles appearing in the newsletter. In fact, we encourage you to do so. Please credit "FACTS (For A Clean Tonawanda Site) Newsletter" and indicate the issue date. We would appreciate a copy of the publication in which the material was used. FACTS is a non-profit, public-interest citizen group. We receive no government grants. We realize that this is one of many requests for support that you probably receive. BUT, this is a local issue that directly affects your health and well-being. We need your support if we are to be successful in getting the Tonawanda Site properly cleaned up. We hope you join today. Thank you! Name:_______________________________________________________________________ Organization (if any):____________________________________________________________ Address:_________________________________________________Phone:_______________ City:________________________________State:________ZIP: _________________________ _____ $25 Individual Membership _____ $10 Newsletter Only _____ $35 Family Membership _____ $ Other Donation _____ $50 Organizational Membership Mail with check or money order to FACTS, Box 566, Kenmore, NY 14217. Thank you! Linde/Praxair "Interim" Decontamination Update: the federal Department of Energy (DOE) is continuing to try to decontaminate buildings which were to be demolished at lesser cost under the community's preferred Cleanup Alternative #2. Contamination in Building 14 (the only one of the four buildings not built at taxpayer expense) has been very difficult (and costly) to remove. The work is taking much longer than expected. This building may yet be torn down. Building 30 has not been "certified as clean"; hot spots continue to be found. Recently, DOE workers are reported to be sampling soils outside and under buildings at Linde (work not outlined in the "interim" actions). DOE's Grumbly Breaks Commitment: during his visit here last October, DOE Assistant Secretary Thomas Grumbly said that a work plan would be drawn up for the resumption of discussions early in '96 with the community to determine an acceptable final sitewide cleanup plan. This has not happened. At the last CANiT meeting, Tonawanda Conservation Commission member George Melrose reported that DOE Site Manager Ron Kirk had told him that DOE was instead independently pursuing a "hybrid study". What this means is DOE plans to continue the piecemeal, inadequate cleanup of only "high radiation dose areas" (that is now underway at Linde/Praxair in the form of "interim" actions) at the other Tonawanda properties, while pretending to "study" a more thorough final sitewide cleanup plan, which may or may not ever be implemented. Grumbly has broken his commitment, and is violating the required public environmental review process, just as DOE did over ten years ago with John LaFalce's help at DOE's Lewiston site (see "Waste Must Be Removed From Lewiston Waste Storage Site " on page 2 of January 1996 FACTS Newsletter). NO SURPRISE, CANiT's DOE-friendly members were not perturbed by this development. They reluctantly decided to ask for a clarification from DOE and LaFalce. Attorney General Dennis Vacco Fails Tonawanda Community: after initially expressing interest in a thorough cleanup at Tonawanda last fall, the new AG has failed to even respond to a March 4, 1996 letter from five public interest groups seeking his intervention to obtain compliance by the DOE with N.Y. State’s more stringent cleanup guideline (TAGM-4003) during the "interim" cleanup actions underway at the Tonawanda nuclear site. Signing the letter were officers of two statewide groups: the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, and the Citizens' Environmental Coalition; and three local groups: the Buffalo Greens, Residents Organized for Lewiston-Porter's Environment (ROLE), and FACTS. Early in March, a coalition of area labor and environmental groups including the WNY Council on Occupational Safety and Health, Local 8-215 Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers, Sierra Club Niagara Group, the Buffalo Greens, and FACTS called on local governments to adopt resolutions requesting DOE to follow the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's cleanup guideline (TAGM-4003) at the Tonawanda nuclear site (see copy of suggested Draft Resolution on next page). The state guideline is at least ten times more stringent than DOE's outdated cleanup guideline. On April 2 the Buffalo Common Council became the first representative body to adopt such a resolution (a copy is on display in the FACTS exhibit at the Museum of Science). Kudos to the Buffalo Greens and the Common Council for your leadership in recognizing the long-term consequences of a shoddy cleanup. CANiT Chair (and Erie Co. Planning Commissioner) Richard Tobe spoke against adoption of such a resolution by the Erie County Legislature after a presentation by FACTS before the legislature's Energy and Environment Committee. The resolution was tabled. At the last CANiT meeting, CANiT member (and legislator) Charles Swanick boasted that the resolution would only be passed if CANiT's new DOE-approved technical consultant so advised. Other CANiT members have so far prevented adoption of similar resolutions by their respective local governments. CALL YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES AND INSIST THAT THEY ADOPT A THOROUGH CLEANUP RESOLUTION. Regarding: The Department of Energy's (DOE) "interim" plan for cleanup of the Tonawanda Nuclear Site. Whereas: The DOE intends to perform a partial cleanup of the Linde/Praxair portion of the Tonawanda Nuclear Site. Normal background radiation to which we are all exposed produces three fatal cancers in each 300 of us; DOE is proposing a cleanup at the Tonawanda Site that will raise this death rate 33%1. Four instead of three of each 300 users of the Tonawanda Site will die of such cancer. To lessen this threat the DOE plans to try to restrict use of the Site following cleanup. Whereas: This plan violates the following guidelines: The federal government's stated goal in its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) is to clean to a level that leaves no restriction (no deed limitations on housing, no fences to control access, etc.) on the use of property after radiation cleanup. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation (*2) that would require cleanup of radioactive contamination to a level that would produce only a 5% increase in these cancer deaths. This regulation does not allow restrictions on the use of the property, after cleanup, to accomplish this goal. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's TAGM-4003 (*3) directs that the increased death rate after radiation cleanup be no more than 3.3%. The EPA's long term goal for cleanup of Superfund sites is no more than a 1% increase in this death rate. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that restrictions on the use of a site in order to limit exposure to radiation cannot be relied on for more than 100 years (*4). The radioactive wastes contaminating the Tonawanda Site have a hazardous life of over 500,000 years. Whereas: The DOE is trying to keep the cost of this cleanup under $60 million. The current cost to society of each fatal cancer case is roughly $100,000 (*5). If the DOE's Tonawanda plan is followed, non-fatal cancers, mutations and birth defects as well as fatal cancers will be increased and continue at this increased rate for the next 500,000 years. The additional cost in dollars and in human suffering thus generated is almost beyond comprehension; it is certainly greater than the additional upfront cost of a thorough cleanup to the NYS guideline cited in #3 above, TAGM-4003 (*3). Whereas: The Tonawanda Site is an almost Williamsville-sized collection of desirable real estate overlooking the Niagara River and Sheridan Park. If cleaned only to the DOE specifications, it never be safely used for housing. After a hundred years, according to the NRC, the restriction on use will have been forgotten and despite the DOE's good intentions a community of a few thousand people will likely be living there, exposed to that hazard. Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved That: This community rejects a 33% increase in radiation-induced fatal cancer for those Tonawanda residents who will live on that riverfront site in the future. This representative body rejects DOE reliance on restrictions to the use of that site, as a way of avoiding thorough cleanup. We insist that the DOE reduce health risks to a publicly acceptable level by following the more stringent cleanup policy and procedure in the NYS DEC's TAGM-4003. ----------------- *(1 ) Engineering Evaluation / Cost Analysis for Praxair Interim Actions, Section 2.3, US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations Office, FUSRAP, January 1996 *( 2) Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 196 *( 3) NYS DEC's Technical Administrative Guidance Memorandum-4003, Cleanup Guideline for Soils Contaminated with Radioactive Materials, September 14, 1993 *(4 ) Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 61 *(5 ) (Extrapolated from) Cancer Facts and Figures, American Cancer Society, 1995 by Don Finch Apparently, this is not what the Department of Energy (DOE) has in mind when it comes to obtaining important information through the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Everything goes smoothly - you ask and DOE sends you the information requested. Then, as time goes on and you begin to zero in on very pertinent and sensitive (to DOE) information requests, the DOE goes deaf, dumb and blind. On October 31, 1995 , FACTS asked for material under the FOIA request process. There was no problem until they got to the request for the Report WAMD008 (low altitude survey of the Town of Tonawanda, New York - done in September, 1979) and the results of the DOE survey of the old Lake Erie Engineering building (most recently used as the Town of Tonawanda Highway garage which burned during the summer of 1995). A request for the WAMD008 report made to the Washington, D.C. Freedom Of Information/Privacy Act Officer was referred to Oak Ridge, Tennessee Operations Office (OROO). Then it was referred to Nevada Operations Office (NOO) [this is where OROO said these records are stored]. NOO replied that they can't find this survey and we should go to National Technical Information Center (NTIC) who has this document and we can obtain it free of charge. NTIC informed us that it will cost $16.00 plus to obtain the document. FACTS said fine, we'll go for that. A later fax letter from NTIC states that they don't have this document and can't help us. When it comes obtaining information concerning the old Lake Erie Engineering building , OROO can't seem to find this building. After sending them a map showing where this building is located, we are then asked for more detailed information. This information was sent to OROO. Guess what, the "line went dead." A FACTS Communication Followup form was sent February 15, 1996 to OROO asking what the problem was? Since then, there has been no reply whatsoever to our correspondence. The last letter from DOE was dated February 7, 1996. A subsequent complaint to Vice President Al Gore eventually shook loose a virtually useless copy (not the full report) containing unreadable photocopies of survey maps. The Energy Department's public participation program in practice is really no more than a slick PR machine. Access to important information? What a joke. And the joke is on us. by Jim Rauch Radon gas is coming out of the Niagara Landfill in concentrations that are 800 to 3,000 times the state and federal governments' regulatory release limit. Radon is a toxic radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. The Niagara Landfill is operated by Browning-Ferris Industries, Inc. (BFI). It is located in the Town of Tonawanda at the Seaway Industrial Park, 4825 River Road just east of the south Grand Island bridge. The property is owned by Benderson Development Company, Inc. It is one of the five radioactively contaminated properties that make up the Department of Energy's (DOE) Tonawanda NY FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program) Site. The landfill was contaminated in 1974 when the Ashland Oil Company transferred some of the Manhattan Project radioactive waste that was present on their property to the adjacent Niagara Landfill. The transferred material contains a significant amount of radium (one curie), which undergoes radioactive decay to produce the radon gas. The radon gas is coming out of the landfill along with the biogases (chiefly methane from the decomposition of garbage) through vents at the top of 34 deep wells installed in the landfill last fall. These wells are part of an active gas extraction system that has not yet been turned on. The wells are connected via piping to two blowers that are designed to pump the biogas to a $5 million electricity cogenerator that BFI plans to build if, after running the system for a year, BFI thinks there is enough biogas being generated to make the cogenerator investment profitable. Initially, BFI plans to pump the gas to a flare (burner) at the southwest corner of the landfill. Burning the biogas will not affect the radioactive nature of the radon. The Town of Tonawanda has agreed to buy the electricity from BFI at a price of six cents per kilowatt- hour, a price negotiated two years ago (a good deal then) before the deregulation of the retail electricity marketplace that is now taking place. It is probable that the Town of Tonawanda could now obtain electricity at equal or lower cost from independent power producers, without putting residents at risk from the radon. Neither Benderson nor BFI has gone to bat, at least publicly, to pressure DOE to remove the Manhattan Project waste from the property. Since this gas extraction system/electricity cogenerator project was announced by Tonawanda Supervisor Carl Calabrese two years ago, the citizen group FACTS (For A Clean Tonawanda Site) has expressed concern about this issue of radon release to NYSDEC, Calabrese, and CANiT (Coalition Against Nuclear materials in Tonawanda), a group of DOE-friendly local politicians which includes Calabrese. FACTS recommended that, because of the potential radon release problem, the gas extraction/cogenerator project should be allowed to go forward only after the Manhattan Project waste is removed from the landfill. The otherwise beneficial project could be used as a prod to get DOE to remove the Manhattan Project waste from this incompatible, garbage landfill. [Two years ago DOE "suspended" the public environmental review process instead of making a sitewide cleanup decision. DOE wanted to do only a partial cleanup of the five contaminated properties and to construct a landfill along the Niagara River for the radioactive waste, a plan vigorously opposed by the (continued next page) community. Last fall, with the cooperation of CANiT, DOE started an inadequate piecemeal cleanup at the Linde/Praxair property. These "interim" actions consist of the more costly decontamination of buildings which were constructed at taxpayer expense during World War II versus the less costly demolition of the buildings as called for in the community's preferred cleanup plan, Alternative No. 2. (corporate welfare?) Interestingly, DOE's original plans also called for the cleanup of the other more-contaminated properties first.] With installation of the gas extraction system proceeding, when the "interim" actions at Linde/Praxair were announced by CANiT and DOE last August, FACTS again questioned whether radon coming from the landfill posed a greater public health risk and, if so, recommended that it should be cleaned up first. Under pressure from area residents and environmental groups, on February 8th the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) took gas samples from 6 of the wells. The results of the sampling are contained in NYSDEC's March 20, 1996 "Interim Report on the Radon Investigation at the Niagara Landfill". The gas samples, collected from the wellhead vents, were analyzed and found to contain radon at concentrations ranging from 83 picocuries per liter (pCi/l) to 299 pCi/l. These concentrations are about 800 to 3,000 times the state (Title 6 NYCRR Part 380) and federal (Title 10 CFR Part 20) release limit, measured at the point of discharge, of 0.1 pCi/l. The state and federal radon concentra- tion release limit (0.1 pCi/l) is that concentration of radon which if breathed for one year will give an individual 100 millirems of radiation dose. This dose rate (100 millirems per year) corresponds to a 33 percent increase in the lifetime risk of radiation-induced fatal cancer. According to state and federal law then, the maximally exposed individual must not receive more than 100 millirems of radiation dose per year from such releases. In addition, the laws prescribe that doses must be kept "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA), which, in practice, has come to mean ten percent of the dose limit, or 10 millirems per year. The maximally exposed individuals are those people working or living closest to the landfill. These individuals would include employees working at businesses located on Fire Tower Drive southeast of the landfill, employees at trucking companies and other businesses along River Road, toll-takers at the I-190 toll barrier to the south Grand Island bridge, and residents in the Riverview community along Two Mile Creek. Under adverse weather conditions--calm air or atmospheric temperature inversion-- the plume of radon gas coming from the wells may spread over the surrounding area with only slow dilution of the radon concentration. Radon gas is 8 times heavier than air, and so it will diffuse more slowly (about four times more slowly) than methane. Under these conditions, concentrations of radon gas of 1 pCi/l or higher could reasonably be expected in nearby offsite areas. Individuals breathing air containing 1 pCi/l of radon during such periods would receive 10 millirems of radiation dose after 96 hours (4 days) of such exposure. This worst case scenario must be considered since the area experiences these weather conditions four percent of the time, or the equivalent of 14 days per year. Faced with the results of their sampling, what has been the response of Pataki's new, business- friendly NYSDEC? 1) They have tried to pass the buck to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). For two years NYSDEC's Bureau of Radiation has acted as if they had the authority to control this radon release from the Manhattan Project wastes under Part 380. [We questioned the validity of two sets of DOE calculations which were the basis for NYSDEC's previous decision not to require BFI to apply for a Part 380 radiation control permit (see January 1996 issue of FACTS Newsletter).] Now, presumably after seeing the actual, much higher radon concentration results, NYSDEC, realizing a Part 380 radiation control permit should have been required, has instead asked the NRC to take responsibility for this mess. NYSDEC claims that, under the State Agreement with NRC, they don't have the authority to apply Part 380 to the Manhattan Project wastes. NRC has not confirmed NYSDEC's interpretation. Also, the NRC says as long as DOE is studying the site to decide on remedial actions, NRC itself will not exercise their authority to license the owner of the waste and control the radon release. However, DOE has not put forward any plan or schedule to remove the radioactive waste from the landfill. In fact, DOE's original plan for sitewide remediation (which was rejected by the community) called for leaving much of the Manhattan Project waste in the Niagara Landfill, even though DOE's own guidelines for disposing of these radon producing wastes prohibit their disposal with biogas producing organic garbage precisely because of this radon release problem. Furthermore, even though the Manhattan Project wastes resulted from the operations of DOE's predecessor agencies and DOE has committed to cleanup of these sites, DOE claims it does not own the wastes, and therefore does not have regulatory authority to control their environmental release until DOE actually takes possession of the wastes during cleanup. This sudden development of an apparent regulatory vacuum, with no agency is taking responsibility for control of the radon coming from the landfill, is clearly unacceptable and must be resolved. Until then, according to DOE, the owner of the property, Benderson Development Company, appears both to own the waste in the landfill and to be responsible for the radon being released from it. 2) Realizing that the release concentrations show a permit to be required, NYSDEC has attempted to show that the releases do not violate the requirements of Part 380 by constructing a model which uses a single average weather condition (a 10 mile per hour west wind) to predict the radon concentration and radiation dose at the landfill boundary and in the immediate offsite area. The worst case scenario described above is not modelled. 3) NYSDEC also claims that the radon coming out the vents is probably not from the Manhattan Project wastes, that "it is likely that most of the vented radon originates in the solid waste itself, the soil used for cover, and the soil beneath the waste." We do not believe there is sufficient evidence to support this contention. (Part 380 does not apply to unlicensed radioactive materials used in consumer products, such as luminous watch dials, and later disposed of in garbage landfills or incinerators. Such materials have been regarded by government as "below regulatory concern", and so in this case NYSDEC is attempting to attribute most of the radon release to such materials.) We do know there is about one curie of Manhattan Project radium in the landfill (according to DOE). If, as NYSDEC claims, less than half of the radon coming out is from the Manhattan Project radium, then there must be more than one curie of radium in the garbage and landfill soil, assuming that the radon contributions to the vent gas from these other possible sources are proportionate to their amount (measured in curies). NYSDEC has not shown that this amount of non-Manhattan Project radium is present in the landfill. More important, for a Part 380 radiation control permit for the radon coming from the Manhattan Project radium to not be required , NYSDEC needs to show that this material is contributing less than 0.01 pCi/l (the permit triggering threshold for release of regulated radon to air) to the 150 pCi/l average concentration measured (or less than 0.007 percent of the radon being released). For this to be true, over 99 percent of the radon coming out of the landfill would have to be coming from the garbage and landfill soil. This would require a much larger amount of radium to be present in the garbage and landfill soil than the one curie known to be in the Manhattan Project radium. This is highly unlikely. NYSDEC has proposed measuring radon gas concentrations from other landfill venting systems to support their contention. This is a good idea. What Should Be Done: 1) As soon as possible, DOE should remove the Manhattan Project waste from this incompatible, garbage landfill to a properly licensed radioactive waste disposal facility. 50 years of mismanagement is more than enough! 2) NYSDEC should require BFI to apply for a Part 380 radiation control permit. Such a permit protects the public by: a) requiring "adequate justification for the proposed discharge of licensed material to the environment" (presumably the availability, from other suppliers, of electricity at equal or lower cost would be an important consideration); b) providing for monitoring of the discharge; and c) requiring records be kept of estimates of the total radioactivity released each year. WHAT TO DO: Contact area politicians and the responsible agency heads. Tell them what should be done and remind them who they work for. ADDRESSES: Mr. Thomas Grumbly, Asst. Secy. Send copies of your letters to: Paul Merges, Chief Bureau of Radiation NYSDEC Mr. Richard Goodyear AND Mr. Richard Bangart General Counsel |
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