Hanford NOV of Radioactive Emission Regulations

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Hanford Given Notice for Violation of Radioactive Emission Regulations

     OLYMPIA, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 1998--Today, the Washington
State Department of Health's Division of Radiation Protection issued a Notice
of Violation to the U.S. Department of Energy for violating radioactive air
emissions regulations governing the potential release, monitoring, and control
of airborne radioactivity.

     The Department of Health has federal and state enforcement authority for
ensuring that the public is not affected or harmed by the release of
radioactivity to the air, especially at the Hanford Site near Richland, where
significant releases occurred in the past.

     The violation occurred April 14-17, when the Department of Energy
processed obsolete nuclear weapons components in a furnace in what is called
the "300 Area" of the Hanford Site, next to the Columbia River. "The violation
has two parts," said Al Conklin, manager of the Department of Health's Air
Emissions and Defense Waste program. "First of all, this furnace is only
permitted to treat small quantities of buried waste -- not weapons components.
Secondly, the Department of Energy decided to turn off samplers that would
have measured the amount of radiation going out the stack of the furnace."

     According to Conklin, the weapons components contained tritium, a
radioactive hydrogen isotope that is used to boost the power of nuclear
weapons. "It appears that the total amount of tritium released was small,"
Conklin said, "and that there was no threat to public health."

     Conklin, who has a security clearance, has reviewed the classified data
on the amount of tritium contained in the weapons components -- information
that existed before the violation and which is not dependent on operation of
the furnace stack samplers. He was able to verify that the release was less
than the 20 curies permitted by the Department of Health.

     "To justify turning off the samplers," Conklin said, "the Department of
Energy claimed the information was classified for security reasons. They did
not discuss the issue with us in advance. This is an important part of the
violation. If we allowed this to go unchallenged, it would establish a
dangerous precedent for behavior that is reminiscent of Hanford's past.
Security classification is no justification for not collecting data on stack
emissions. It was practices like this in the past that resulted in significant
distrust of the Department of Energy by the public and the need to calculate
historical doses that the public might have received from these releases."

     The Department of Health's Hanford Health Information Network is
currently disseminating information to the public on those past releases of
radioactivity, which occurred in the 1940s and `50s and primarily involved
radioactive iodine, which is much more dangerous than tritium.

     As part of the Notice of Violation, the Department of Health issued
compliance orders requiring the Department of Energy to evaluate all their
permits to assure there are no further discrepancies, and requiring them to
obtain the proper permit for further work in the furnace, and to operate the
tritium sampler continuously. Conklin said, "While the Department of Health
has the authority to issue fines, we will reserve that option as a last resort
to be exercised only if the Department of Energy does not meet the conditions
of the compliance order."

     --30--DS/se

CONTACT: 

Division of Radiation Protection 

Al Conklin, 360/236-3261

or

Office of Communications

Steve Kelso, 360/586-4002

http://epsilon.doh.wa.gov/