Ch 17 Reports

In Livermore California. Radioactive water from the nuclear weapons lab storage tank is leaking. Following yesterday's earthquake we had channel 17 reports feel that the events in California make tonight's documentary on the deadly dilemma at the West Valley nuclear facility even more timely. Here's part one. And it's something in time bomb lies dormant in the bucolic surroundings of the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains of western New York a village called West Valley. It had its beginning in 1961. Governor Rockefeller and his GOP controlled Senate gave birth to a private nuclear service here

just 35 miles south of Buffalo a catarrh I guess County town of Ashford. A 1963 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issued a permit for the construction of nuclear fuel services a subsidiary of Getty Oil. Thus was created the only licensed commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing and storage operation in the nation. The facility which is located on a thirty three hundred acre site leased by FS from New York State reprocess spent nuclear fuel here from 1966 to 1972. The plant now is being maintained in a shutdown condition and the state will assume its responsibility for the facilities and its deadly waste in the company lease expires at the end of the year. I'm Fran Luca on channel 17 reports this week. We examined the explosive issue dealing with the decommissioning decontamination of the nuclear

services here in West Valley. The big question is does technology exist today for the safe removal and disposition of the high level radioactive waste buried here. One haunting fear that more nuclear garbage which will have a life expectancy of hundreds of thousands of years may find its way here once again. Posing a threat. To future generations. What's on the site right now. You have two burial grounds right next to each other. There's a state license barrier ground which consists of trenches. Which operated two thousand nine hundred seventy three. You have. An NRC license period ground which has holes dug deep which contains most of the material from the plant. You have a reprocessing building. On the side. Highly

contaminated reprocessing building. And you have these underground you can't really see them from the air but underground storage tanks. There are. Two large tanks one contains 500000 or 600000 gallons of radioactive materials. Very hot and you have a smaller stainless steel. Waste tank and it's alternate which contains radioactive material in liquid form. They've been used in the past. Material. Radioactive material when the plant operated the radioactive materials were released to Caracas Creek watershed and the first pass through these lagoons which are really settling ponds so those contain radioactive materials as well. And the NFL is controversy and West Valley has no simple solutions. There are nearly as many opinions and concerns about safeguards

and faults as there are residents. Did you have any member of your family ever worked for an FS. Yes for a short period of a year and a half maybe two years I can't remember exactly my husband worked in low level waste burial. What were his experiences. Well I don't remember them exactly as far as initial. I don't remember them exactly as one specific or two specific instances but I know that it upset him to see the way the waste was handled and discharge released and just different things that he thought were sloppy and it made him nervous enough so he quit. Why did you leave. I left because the radiation exposure was going really high. First year I worked there I got about two around the radiation exposure for the year the last year I worked I got about seven.

That's like over three and a half times too much. What can you tell me about radiation exposure at the plant overall. Well the exposure OK at the plant was the highest in history per the amount of fuel they reprocess. OK. It was it was. The company's policy was to give them the maximum allowed when a saturated department couldn't get any more than hired temporary employees to take up a crack to keep the plant operating plan didn't run very well a lot of them break down the need for a lot of exposure to women and repairing them. Has there ever been a health study at last fairly well there has always been a very extensive health program from a medical standpoint of the people at the site where they would go through and be given health examinations and

controls at the site. The amount of radiation that personnel could receive has always been within government standards and the standards have been backed up with withheld studies in great deal of depth that a lot of different facilities across the country. There's never been to my knowledge a specific health study of the workers at West Valley because there has been no indication of a need to just be. There's been very similar studies performed elsewhere showing no effects of the radiation or the type of radiation received there. And so therefore there's been no justification of a health study. There's been no study of all the workers. Including the part time workers and we think one is required. Let me give you an example of how. Contaminated that plant is. And how excessive the radiation exposures were to workers by comparing that plant to the Hanford plant in the in the state of Washington the government plant. If you look at all the radiation

exposures that 28000 Hanford workers received over 33 year period of time that's equal to the total exposures they received at West Valley in two years. That's an example of how contaminated that facilities where do the dangers lie. Oh you mean the health. The health hazards. That's a very tricky question because it's controversial. There is a whole lot not known about the effects of low level radiation. There are some things about it however which are pretty uncontroversial. Almost everybody agrees that low levels of radiation can cause cancer and birth defects genetic defects of all kinds and. Studies have also indicate that there may be a lot of other effects like premature aging. That's one that's pretty hard to pinpoint. Because what happens

is that you just you end up getting old sooner than you would have otherwise and you get all the same diseases that you would get. But to get them sooner that kind of health affects the purpose. Of reprocessing. Is. To. Take the fuel rods. And recycle the material which in general of course you know environmental groups like ours. Are in favor of recycling to. Take out. The rain. Separate your brain. And then you can't just waste material. That you store and eventually dispose of somehow. So they would take these fuel assemblies and. Dissolve them in acid and then it would be like a chemical facility a radioactive chemical facility. They separate out all the materials you know and then they'd take the uranium away the plutonium. Much of plutonium came from Hanford Washington and that would

be sent back. 60 percent of it would be weapons grade plutonium and it would be used for weapons. Some of the other plutonium was given to some of the fuel manufacturers and also shipped to West Germany. To put the uranium itself has never been recycled. And sits in Ohio now. And the Waste Of course it in the tank at West Valley. Most of the way sitting in a very large tank about 600000 gallons of waste in a tank at West Valley. Can you describe this tank and its contents. While the tank is like a large tank it's about 75 feet diameter 25 feet high. It sits in a vault. It's within a pen which sits within a concrete fault is a steel. Carbon steel tank so it's it's corroding like any. Steel drum would be corroding. The material

inside the tank is separated into two faces there's a liquid and then there's a sludge underneath the liquid and that sludge is intermixed with a lattice work at the bottom of the tank. What is the life expectancy of one of these tanks. OK the tanks were originally designed to last for 40 years but were in the last two years again 10 years from the Department of Energy and now they're designed to last 50 years. In a tank on the other hand there. Will be danger. Anywhere from 300 to 200 about 300 years or 200000 years depending on who you talk to. OK depending on who you talk to the nuclear industry or their latest numbers or their old numbers. We have 600000 gallons of highly active liquid waste. And in the bottom of this one tank is an unknown amount of sludge.

Do we know what is contained in this sludge. No. As a matter of fact it's surprising that so little is known about it. They don't really know what the physical or chemical characteristics of that sludge are. They don't even know yet how to take a stratigraphic sample. Now they're beginning to study that in preparation for pumping it out of the tank. But the methods used for pumping will depend on how thick it is. One thing we do know about the chemical characteristics though is that the more long lived isotopes in radioactive materials are in that sludge. So it won't do just to take the liquid part off the top. You're going to have to get the sludge out. How they're going to get it out is is a question. What about the sludge in the bottom of the tank is the chemical or physical makeup known and can it be removed.

I don't think there's been a lot of different instances where where one has had sludge contained in tanks and there are ways of mixing the sludge when losing it into other receptacles force live occasion purposes and this is being done at a fair degree of frequency. What would happen when the liquid is removed from the sludge. Would it generate heat. Would there be a problem. Well I think the intent with the original design was that at some point in time that the material that the liquid in the tanks would be boiled off over a period of years and effectively the material itself would turn to a solid so I see no problem in in the solids itself that are in there. Some say that they fear that it may generate heat to a great excess but this this is this is quite calculable and measurable and so you can you can measure the amount of heat that's being produced in the tanks today and so one can determine this.

I don't think you'll find very many people who have been involved in handling high level waste or waste of this type that's concerned about the amount of heat that's produced in there something you look at and determine and can be hidden will be very difficult to remove that material from the tank. Of course we're very concerned about that situation because the tank is corroding and we're concerned that it could withstand the type of earthquake that could occur on the site. And if there were an earthquake that we're concerned you know what would happen in this area. There's a mega Curies. Of material in that tank. And the potential to cause. Millions or billions of cancers of various kinds. So it's absolutely necessary that that material be contained and not be released to the environment. Is there any danger here of earthquakes locally. Well you know we've 23 miles from the Fault Line

major fault line called the Quirinal and Paul. There are branches that fall in Iran all through the area so there is a fair chance of an earthquake in an area one of the. Things that. I like to credit for the fact that nuclear fuel sources close down when they did that we found a shift in Iraq that is or valley that we documented a fault ship about five years ago and we documented some of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And that was when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the standards for nuclear fuel for with us said that should they want to. Expand the plant which is what their plan was at the time. That. They have they would have to build a much stronger earthquake than its built for now. So there is that good possibility for the NRC that they could have an earthquake. You talked about earthquakes before has there been a seismic study done in the area. Well there the

government has said you know what earthquake standards should be on the side. There is a large fault line you know which runs through Attica runs under Lake Ontario all the way into Canada it's called the Clarendon Linden for an earthquake associated with a fall there been larger earthquakes in 1965 and 66 and very large earthquake in 1909. They raise the seismic standards. To a point which would have made it economically unfeasible for the company to remain. Now by the seismic standards that just means the size earthquake that could occur here based on its nearest to the Clarendon Lindon fault the one that goes through Atika. Remember there was a big earthquake in Atika. Point a few years

ago. Based on that I would say that that fuel pool would crack the water would leak out of it. A. Recent study would indicate that maybe the tanks would hold all right. You know the liquid the ones with the liquid. The high level stuff in it but that's not for sure. We don't. There's already a leak in the pan underneath one of those tanks. The big one. And the effects of an earthquake on the building are kind of unknown. The some study has seemed to indicate that the building a lot of the building would fall but the hot cells would probably stay there. That's not too comforting if you think about the building falling down into the fuel pool all the fuel rods falling over and the water leaking out. It could be a disaster throughout the whole area. Yes certainly could. Is there

a fault in the area. Well there are a lot of faults around New York State. There is one historic fault that they refer to as the Clarendon Lindon fault but so far as I know there has been no activity on that fault in recorded time recorded history. There is however the Tonawanda Creek Fault which runs roughly through the attic area north and south for a few miles. That is had a fair amount of activity in recent years it was a reasonably sizable earthquake here in August 1929 there have been more recent ones that have been significant 1 January the first thousand nine hundred sixty six. Then there's been another one. June the thirteen thousand nine hundred sixty seven. We've had a few other smaller quakes in western New York since then but usually days would be very weak and there might even be more because of safety because of difficulty because they would release earth stresses that might otherwise build up.

Could this for. Effect the West Valley area in any way. I would not think that it would go into the West Valley area. It isn't that close. There are other smaller faults around western New York I don't offhand know. And he is right in the West Valley area but the could be some geologic maps would show you know Gnome falls. There's been rather extensive studies made what the effect of earthquake would be in the area and one tends to find that the planet in the fast would would stay together well beyond any of the other facilities in the other. Other planets or even the communities around and if you're going to come up with a hypothetical tremendously large earthquake you're going to find hundreds of thousands of people going to be killed in the Buffalo area by other means and if I had my choice I'd be just as happy to sit down a West Valley is probably one of the safest places to be. Are you worried about the trenches that contain low and low level

waste. Oh absolutely. The trenches are as they have turned out to be in other parts of the country just bearing radioactive materials on the ground has just turned up to be a ridiculous way to try to get rid of waste. Apparently what's happening with that is it's not migrating through the ground because at least not very fast because it's a very heavy clay soil. But these trenches fill up with with rainwater. You have a bathtub effect and. They have in the past leapt out over the top and. The Southern trenches which were thought to have a better cover so that that wouldn't happen. Are beginning to fill up a little faster and there they're going to have to monitor and maintain those that burial ground for thousands of years. And they've made promises concerning the trenches you know that. All right. We've had

problems with our northern trenches but our new Southern trenches I knew I mean they they just began they finish drilling on 75 so that's only five years ago. The new Southern treasures are now filling up with water the ones that they promised you know would not fill up with water are now filling up with water and that has an eight foot clay cover over the top. I think the problem is this area gets a lot of water. I mean we all know that. In general we get a lot of rain and snow in the area and I don't know if the East the northeast is the right place to store this kind of material especially with that kind of technology. We think those trenches contain a lot of radioactive materials and a lot of strontium lot of they contain 12 pounds of plutonium in those in the state licensed burial ground. It's not it's not peanut butter that's in those trenches. Are many Sure there is great danger in West Valley. They're afraid

of leakage. Leeching into their nearby streams What is your feeling. Well there's a great deal of monitoring that goes on at West Valley all the time and well before there would be any any hazard of picking up by leeching or anything else. It would be certainly would be detected. The basic reason for the West Valley site being selected to begin with was because of the geological a very good geological conditions that have existed there and since the site has been closed there's been even more extensive evaluations made by the United States as well as New York State Geological Survey people who have made samples around there and every single report that they have come out with has always been very favorable with the site and indicated that the site itself is quite stable quite manageable and is a very good site for for storage of radioactive materials. There are some people that say well if you know the tank cracks

open the VOC cracks open why we still have this magic silt detail that will contain all the radioactive materials. But I do know we we don't agree with that. With that philosophy. I mean you might as well just dig a hole and pour the stuff in a flash your philosophy. What would happen if we got into this famous silty to well that land would be contaminated essentially forever. No no one could be on that land forever. You know that land be written off. Would it leach into waterways. You could reach into waterways. That's right there are sand lenses underneath. Probably no one knows. You know where the. Sand lenses go that's never been completely you know research where all the sand lenses go and if you have an earthquake then sand lenses connect to each other it's always possible that another pathway is for you know to do to the grief talking about the liquid part.

Do we have the technology to solidify the liquid part. Well there are some suggestions. There is not agreement among the experts about what's the best way to do it. See it's a very complicated problem because it's all tied in with what you're going to do with it after you've solidified. You can't decide just to solidify it in the cheapest or the easiest way because you have to consider where it's going to go and whether the method you've used is compatible with the final repository. And as you know. There is no Federal Repository yet no permanent place to store the waste. But we have to make a start. And it's pretty clear that that it's going to have to be pumped out of the tanks and probably. A preliminary process called Cal summation which is basically just a way of drying it and putting it into a powder is going to have to be done OK.

Other ways that hamper what you do in the van or river or weapon bill the federal government has. Done it by a method called Alpha nation few hundred thousand gallons the way that way. Or another method that they talk about glass of the cage and the. Orbiter that gave me the thing. It's questionable whether they can do that right now it's been done on a laboratory scale Normand on a large scale. Then the Department of Energy primary option for doing. The work here seems to be the case and they want to use this as an experimental facility. That actually does work. So then they can go to the millions of gallons the heart of a way to have the weapon plant and classify them potentially. Is the certification of the liquid waste. She's about yes sure. I've seen it done. I went to Barnwell South Carolina. I saw where they store the chemicals for this live occasion of liquid waste. I was of the process was explained to me as a layman in this industry

and I felt very confident to dippy people there knew what they were talking about and could very successfully handle the quote liquid waste problem in West Valley. I believe the technology there is reasonable technology that can be applied to this litigation of the waste. Major point of the discussion that seems to go on is not whether one has the technology to do it but I should. Should you develop improved technology. And at what point should you stop developing or looking for improvements and get on with actually doing the job. Other words this is more of an experimental. This is more or less an experimental process isn't it. Well it depends on how you define experimental If you talk about real basic experimental I would I would dispute that certain experimental from the standpoint that is not the type of thing that's being done on this scale on a day to day basis. However the principles that are involved are fairly well known so I don't put it into that. What I would classify as

you're developing brand new experimental technology that one has to The Wonder if it's really ever going to work work at all leaves any question about that. On Channel 17 reports next week we conclude our West Valley story with possible solutions to the dilemma we examine the know how our lack of it dealing with the removal of the deadly waste. We talked to townspeople concerning their greatest fears and ways to face them. And how about the economic impact on the community. It's been partially subsidized in village and school taxes by an FS. Then there's a question of safety versus economics. The reopening of the plant will mean a continuing tax benefit for the people of West Valley. But will it open up a Pandora's box. Could it become a permanent dumping ground for nuclear garbage in a suspected deal between the state and federal government.