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Re: Audit: Groundwater Cleaning Ineffective

Audit: Groundwater Cleaning IneffectiveThey do this kind of punitive nonsense to industry all the time.  It is sad they want to do it to the taxpayers as well.  It is not unheard of, however.  It is common practice for EPA to levy administrative penalties (fines) against other governmental entities, especially municipalities.



Syd H. Levine

AnaLog Services, Inc.

Phone:  270-276-5671

Telefax:  270-276-5588

E-mail:  analog@logwell.com

URL:  www.logwell.com



  ----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Ottley, David B (Dave) 

  To: 'radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu' 

  Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 12:09 PM

  Subject: Audit: Groundwater Cleaning Ineffective





  Concerning the audit of the ineffectiveness of the groundwater cleanup at Hanford.  The Tri-Cities Herald reported that, "DOE spent more than $85 million over the past eight years and will continue to spend about $8 million a year to operate pump-and-treat systems. 



  DOE has agreed previously that its pump-and-treat system for a radioactive strontium plume near the Columbia River is ineffective. The audit said that from 1995 to 2002, the system removed 1.3 curies of strontium. At the same time, 319.3 curies naturally decayed in the ground water. 



  DOE has proposed stopping the program to get a baseline reading on contamination and then trying a new approach. That could be using trenches or wells to inject minerals into the ground to increase the capacity of the soil to bind the strontium in place while it decays naturally. 



  The Washington State Department of Ecology has objected to halting the strontium pump-and-treat program, except for testing, until a new program is in place. Pump and treat does have limited benefits, the state told the federal government. 



  The Department of Ecology says that the contamination would decay naturally in 300 years, but the pump-and-treat program could reduce that by 10 percent, to 270 years."



  This is over $65 million per Curie for less than a half percent increase beyond natural decay!  The dose that has been saved is not measurable, it can only be estimated using dose-modeling and is a fraction of a mrem per year.  At least DOE realizes this.  It is too bad that the State wants to spend federal (our) money so frivolously.



  David Ottley 

  Kennewick, Washington