DEADLY CROP IN THE TANK FARM An Assessment of the Management of High-Level Radioactive Wastes in the Savannah River Plant Tank Farm, Based on Official Documents Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.* Robert AIvarez** Brent Blackwelder, Ph.D.*** * Associate Professor, Capitol Institute of Technology ** Director, Nuclear Weapons and Power Project, Environmental Policy Institute *** Vice-President, Environmental Policy Institute Corrections were made to several pages, in January 2012. Changes to pages 27 and 29 are described at http://www.ieer.org/errata.html. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface, ............................................... i 1 . Summary and Recommendations ....................... 1 Part I 2. Site Characteristics ................................. 8 3 . Introduction to Tank Farm Operation ................... 16 4 . Technical Problems ................................33 5 . Catastrophic Events ................................55 6. Environmental Contamination......................... 71 7 . Worker Exposures.................................. 100 Part I1 Tables Compiled From The Savannah River Plant 200 Area Fault Tree Data Bank PREFACE Although much attention over Union where U.S. intelligcncc sources the past decade has been focused on and exiled Sovict scientists suggest an accidental large-scale releases of explosion in 1957 scverely contaminated radioactivity from commercial nuclear several hundred square miles and reactors, a similar potential exists at resulted in a major loss of life. A federal nuclear facilities. In recent potential for similar expIosive years, the risks and consequences of accidents or loss of containment from major radiation accidents as well as the earthquakes also exists at the Savannah health and environmental effects from River Plant site. the routine operations of the facilities The tragic accidental release of owned by the U.S. Department of Energy methyl isocyanate at a Union Carbide (DOE) have also become the subject of plant in Bhopal, India which killed more increasing concern, One principal reason than 2,500 people and injured tens of is that the various DOE installations thousands with long term effects have now been operating for two to four underlines the need to pay much more decades, and the evidence of adverse attention to events which may have a health effects from exposure to small probability of occurring but which radioactivity is now accumulating at an are disastrous if they do occur. alarming rate. This applies to various Initiated in 1981, this study is an exposed populations such as workers at independent evaluation of the management DOE facilities, the veterans of atomic of the high-level radioactive wastes in tests and the people who lived in the the Tank Farm at the Savannah River path of the fallout from these tests. Plant (SRP). These wastes come primarily There also exists the potential for from the manufacture of plutonium for serious damage from large releases of nuclear warheads. Plutonium is produced radioactivity resulting from operating in nuclear material production reactors accidents or from events outside the and extracted at SRP's two reprocessing control of DOE, such as earthquakes. plants. Very large quantities of radionuclides Our study is based upon that part of in liquid form are present at some DOE the official record which has been made facilities. In particular, the public (some of it through Freedom of facilities at the Savannah River Plant Information Act requests filed by the in South Carolina and at Hanford in Environmental Policy Institute in 1981). Washington state, contain very large In all over 14,000 summaries of reported quantities of radionuclides in liquid accidents, worker exposures, spills, form, which are particularly dangerous equipment failures and non-routine because of their mobility. Large maintenance at the SRP Tank Farm were quantities of toxic non-radioactive made available to us for analysis. wastes also exist at these sites. The However, a great deal more data, terrible actuality of a massive accident particularly technical monthly reports, involving nuclear high-level radioactive and more detailed measurements of worker wastes has already been experienced in exposures and environmental the Ural mountain region of the Soviet contamination is still held secret by the U.S. Department of Energy and its calculations of failure probabilities contractor, E.I. du Pont dc Ncmours and and thc statistical model used by DOE Company. This secrecy, which we believe and DuPont for risk estimates. Robcrt for the most part is not justified, Alexander, Chief of the Occupational means that limitations have been put on Standards Branch of the Nuclear . our research. Nonetheless, many Regulatory commission*^ Office of conclusions emerge rather clearly, and Research and his staff, reviewed Chapter we have tried to delineate these and 7 which deals with occupational other issues as best the available exposures. Dr. Alice M Stewart, MD, information permits. Senior Research Fellow at the University The study comes not only in the of Birmingham School of Social Medicine context of a heightened concern about in England reviewed various DOE nuclear facilities, but also at a epidemiological studies pertaining to time when the public and Congress are the Savannah River Plant and- offered considering renewal of a federal law advice on their interpretation. Dr. Karl known as the PricelAnderson Act. 2. Morgan, former Director of Health Enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1957, Physics at Oak Ridge National and renewed every ten years, the Laboratory, reviewed Chapter 6 and 7. Price/.Anderson Act is designed to deal William Lawless, professor of with major nuclear accidents occurring Mathematics at Payne College, Augusta, at federal and civilian nuclear Georgia, and former senior engineer for facilities. The principal mechanism in the Department of Energy at SRP, the law is a ceiling on the total limit reviewed the entire report and made of liability that private utilities and several helpful comments and criticisms. the federal government can bear. Under Yaaron Sternberg, Professor of Civil the law, some 280 DOE nuclear facilities Engineering, University of Maryland, are covered with the liability limit set reviewed sections of Chapter 6 at $500 million, DOE contractors are pertaining to hydrology at SRP. Bernd completely shielded from liabilities Franke, Senior Research Fellow at the arising from a major nuclear accident. Institute for Energy and Environmental We hope that the data and analysis Research in Heidelberg, West Germany, presented in this study will be a reviewed Chapter 6. Dr. Uta Boiket of contribution to the public debate on the University of Bremen in West Germany this question which is not only also reviewed Chapter 6 and made important for our generation, but for comments on soil contamination. David future generations at well. Afbright, research fellow at the We would like to thank the people Federation of American Scientists, who reviewed our report and provided reviewed portions of the Fault Tree Data usef ul criticisms and comments. Dr. Bank on occupational exposures and Peter Bickel, Professor of Statistics helped derive dose estimates for and Divisional Dean of the College of plutonium depositions. Dr. Roland Arts and Sciences, University of Cali- Finston, Health Physics officer at fornia, Berkeley, reviewed statistical Stanford University (California) portions of-the end of Chapter 3 and the provided advice on estimating cancer portion of Chapter 5 dealing with risks. The conclusions and recommendations of this report are ours alone and not necessarily those of the reviewers. Their comments were vital in improving the report and we are deeply indebted to them. We would also like to thank Jackie Williams and Diana Kohn, who helped type, edit and prepare the the report for publication. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation whose financial support made this report possible, and to Frances Close Hart who helped encourage its initiation and final completion. Washington, D.C. July 1986 Arjun Makhijani Robert Alvarez Brent Blackwelder CHAPTER ONE SUhlhlARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Eight hundred million curies of the major equipment--such as the deadly high-level radioactive wastes are reactors and reprocessing plants, as stored in the Savannah River Plant well as many of the tanks, date back to (SRP). Although 27 million gallons of the 1950s. This is a field in which these wastes constitute about one third technological change and safety of the total volume of military standards have changed rapidly. Yet in high-level radioactive wastes in the recent years the basic approach to waste U.S., they contain about 78 percent of management at the Savannah River Plant the total radioactivity in all U.S. Tank Farm has changed but little. military high-level wastes. SRP's In fact, the operating record of the high-level wastes pose a serious threat obsolete facility shows that its very to the plant's workers, to the people design basis was faulty and dangerous. who live in substantial portions of There is also substantial South Carolina and Georgia, to future evidence that these problems have been generations and to the environment. The compounded by unsatisfactory management rates of radiation=-related cancers among in many areas crucial to safety. Both workers are already significantly higher DuPont and DOE appear to be more anxious than expected. The plant site borders to minimize any adverse consequences and the Savannah