NIF backhoe hits toxic wastes

[Marylia Kelley <marylia@igc.org>]

Hi, I'm off to the Military Production Network meeting, but wanted to post
this before I go. I think it is very important. Peace, marylia

Oops: NIF Backhoe Hits Toxic Wastes
from Tri-Valley CAREs' September 1997 Citizen's Watch
by Marylia Kelley

Crews excavating the Oakland Coliseum-sized hole for the National Ignition
Facility discovered potentially deadly buried "treasure" at Livermore Lab;
carcinogenic PCBs, chromium, toxic mercury and molybdenum.

According to the Lab's initial report, a backhoe operator unearthed three
solid capacitors leaking polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. There might be
one more still in the ground, said the Lab.

The contamination, however, is much more serious and widespread than
originally reported.

As of the morning of September 11, the Lab had found 112 of what officials
there described as pulsed power capacitors, each bigger than a microwave
oven, about two feet by two feet, and each containing around two pounds of
PCB-laden oils. By the day's end the estimated number of capacitors stood
at 118, according to the state Dept. of Toxic Substances Control.

Capacitors are routinely used to store energy in fusion and other programs
at the Lab. These capacitors were dumped between 1966 and 1970. The Lab is
now looking for disposal records, but so far has come up empty.

As we prepare to go to press, the Lab has dug a trench 200 feet long, 15
feet wide and 15 feet deep in an effort to get at the capacitors. The soil
in the area is wet with the oily PCBs, and the Lab has shipped some
capacitors and 22 truckloads of contaminated soil to a hazardous waste
facility in Utah, says EPA.

Adjacent to the leaking capacitors, Livermore Lab has discovered
additional, severe soil contamination, including levels of chromium
measured at 120,000 to 200,000 parts per billion (ppb), and mercury at 240
ppb. The molybdenum find includes concentrations to 400 ppb. Here, the Lab
has also dug up collapsed waste drums marked as radioactive and containing
about an inch of concrete in their bottoms, according to DOE. So far, no
radioactivity has been measured in the vicinity.

Officials speculate that the drums may have been prepared but not used for
the radioactive wastes that Livermore dumped off the Farallon Islands,
along the Northern California coast, during the 1960s. About 20 drums have
been located so far. The trenching at this spot covers 60 feet by 15 feet
by 15 feet.

In the 1980s, during another construction project in the same general area,
Livermore Lab uncovered an unregulated, old landfill containing both toxic
and radioactive wastes. Without further investigation, it remains unclear
whether that 1980s find was a separate, though still major, toxic burial
ground or whether this new site is connected to it, thereby forming one
massive, heretofore undocumented dump under much of the Lab's eastern
quadrant.

Evidence we have come across in state files, including a note about a
radioactive cow buried whole somewhere on the grounds, considered along
with anecdotal reports we get from "old-timers" at the Lab of plutonium and
other radioactive wastes buried in lard cans, suggests there may be more
dangerous surprises still in the ground.

Excavation reportedly has been halted for the present, although some NIF
construction is apparently continuing.

No further NIF excavation should be allowed until the area has undergone a
careful "source investigation" for other buried pollutants. Such a study is
conducted very carefully so as to not expose workers or spread
contamination. A backhoe is not a proper tool for doing a source
investigation.

Too, the monies needed to remedy the contamination- between $100,000 and
$500,000 estimated so far- should not come out of the Lab's already
eviscerated Superfund cleanup budget. Says DTSC's Robert Feather, some
assurance has been given to that effect.

Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs * 5720 East Ave. #116 * Livermore, CA 94550
Ph: (510) 443-7148 * Fx: (510) 443-0177