NIF dump update

[Marylia Kelley <marylia@igc.org>]

Hi careerpro folks. Here is an update on the buried dumpsite found under
the National Ignition Facility construction site at Livermore Lab. As you
can see by the press release that follows, we are back in court. A bottom
line for me is that Livermore Lab officials acted unilaterally, not only in
initiating the emergency removal action under CERCLA, but, most
egregiously, in determining amongst themselves that they (Livermore Lab)
would up and resume full-scale excavation in the area- even though there
may be additional wastes buried in the vicinity. A goal here is to force
Livermore Lab to sit down with the regulators and the public to draw up and
carry out a plan for careful, further "source investigation" in the NIF
constuction area. A backhoe is not a proper tool for such investigation.
Nor is it proper to leave adjacent areas uninvestigated. Here's the news
release....
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 22, 1997 P. 1 of 2

Contact: Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA (510) 443-7148
 Barbara Finamore, NRDC, Washington, DC (202) 289-2371
 Bob Schaeffer, Military Production Network, (617) 489-0461

FEDERAL COURT ASKED TO STOP NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY CONSTRUCTION AFTER
SITE EXCAVATION UNEARTHS MAJOR TOXIC WASTE DUMP; GROUPS CLAIM ENERGY
DEPARTMENT FAILED TO HEED ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

Livermore, CA- Thirty-nine organizations seeking to enforce the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) today asked U.S. District Court Judge
Stanley Sporkin to issue a preliminary injunction to stop construction of
the National Ignition Facility (NIF) after excavation uncovered a large
unlicensed, undocumented hazardous waste dump at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory site.

Earlier this month, crews digging the football arena-sized construction pit
for the nuclear weapon program's megalaser facility uncovered more than one
hundred two foot-by-two foot capacitors containing carcinogenic
polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, chromium, mercury and molybdenum. They
also found 75 crushed waste drums marked "radioactive."

"Evidence indicates that Defendants have long been aware that hazardous,
toxic and radioactive wastes may have been buried under the NIF site over
the course of several decades," said Barbara Finamore of the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and lead attorney for the 39 plaintiffs.
"Yet the Department of Energy (DOE) did not disclose or analyze these risks
in the NIF Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)," Finamore continued. That
EIS is part of the Programmatic EIS on DOE's Stockpile Stewardship and
Management program, and a focus of the lawsuit.

"DOE and Livermore Lab willfully ignored this very real threat to human
health and our environment," charged Tri-Valley CAREs president, Marylia
Kelley, who lives and works only about a quarter-mile from the Livermore
Lab. "Further, it appears possible, even likely, that additional hazardous
wastes could still be hidden underground, like a ticking time bomb, in the
area. If toxic wastes are broken into by a backhoe, as happened with the
PCB-laden capacitors, or allowed to continue, undiscovered, migrating and
off-gassing through the environment, this could pose a significant health
risk," she added. "DOE and Livermore Lab must thoroughly investigate this
area and safely deal with any additional hazards that may be lurking there
before proceeding with construction of the NIF. We are extremely alarmed
that DOE and Livermore Lab have declined to do this, and that workers are
right now digging up the site, full speed ahead, health and environmental
risk be damned."
MORE

FEDERAL COURT ASKED TO STOP NIF... PAGE 2 OF 2

Livermore Laboratory initially informed local newspapers by phone on
Friday, September 5 that three PCB-laden capacitors had been discovered by
a backhoe digging on the site, and that a fourth
might be still in the ground. In fact, the contamination was more serious
and widespread than originally disclosed.

According to various officials, Livermore Lab unearthed about 118 PCB-laden
capacitors, likely buried during the 1960s from Livermore's magnetic fusion
energy program. Each capacitor is bigger than a microwave oven, roughly 2
feet by 2 feet, and each contains around 2 pounds of PCB-contaminated oils.
The soil in the area was wet with the oily PCBs.

Adjacent to the leaking capacitors, Livermore Lab discovered severe soil
contamination, including readings as high as 120,000 to 200,000 parts per
billion (ppb) of chromium, mercury at 240 ppb and molybdenum at 400 ppb. In
a nearby trench, also, Livermore Lab found buried crushed drums marked as
radioactive, and each containing a layer of concrete, about one inch-thick,
at their bottoms. Within a week, about 75 such drums were unearthed, though
no radioactivity was measured in the soil, according to Livermore Lab.
Officials there speculate that the drums may have been prepared but not
used for disposal of radioactive wastes that Livermore dumped off the
Farrallon Islands, off the Northern California coast, during the 1960s.

As plaintiffs outline in their Motion put before the court today, during
excavation in 1984, Livermore Lab uncovered an unregulated, old landfill
containing both toxic and radioactive wastes. That dump site, called the
East Traffic Circle area, is a scant 200 feet away from the newly unearthed
toxic wastes under the NIF site. Moreover, only another 200 or so feet
south of the East Traffic Circle dump, Livermore Lab discovered a third,
undocumented hazardous waste dump.

"The events of the last several weeks provide compelling additional
evidence to support Plaintiffs' claim that Defendants have violated NEPA by
failing to take a 'hard look' at the environmental impacts of the National
Ignition Facility," says the Motion filed today. In essence, this Motion
asks the Court to reconsider part of its earlier decision on the plaintiff
groups' original Motion for Preliminary Injunction. In that decision, Judge
Sporkin had ruled that construction of the NIF could proceed while DOE
provides plaintiffs with some of the additional environmental review sought
in the suit, and while plaintiffs pursue the case on its merits.

 In addition to uncovering buried hazardous wastes, plaintiffs have also
recently discovered that the area to be excavated for the NIF will come
within five feet of a contaminated groundwater aquifer that lies under the
Livermore site. Defendants have obtained a dewatering permit to pump water
from under the excavation in the event the construction crew digs into the
polluted aquifer.

"The continued excavation of a three-story deep hole without further
analysis and disclosure of potential groundwater impacts poses a threat to
workers as well as a risk of interfering with the complex groundwater
program now underway at Livermore Lab," explained Finamore. In 1987,
Livermore Lab's main site, where the NIF construction is occurring was
placed on the Environmental Protection Agency's "National Priorities
List,", also known as the Superfund list, of worst contaminated sites in
the nation. Livermore Lab's site 300 was added to that list in 1990.

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