Jim Green − Nuclear Monitor editor
Reprinted from WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, #813, 4 Nov 2015
http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor
In the last issue of the Nuclear Monitor we reported on the smoldering underground fire that has come within 350−400 metres of a radioactive waste dump, the West Lake Landfill, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The site has been in the news again with an above-ground brush fire on October 24, started by a faulty switch inside the landfill’s perimeter. The fire was doused before it reached the area containing radioactive waste. The EPA sent a letter reprimanding site operator Republic Services for the incident.1
On October 26, about 300 local residents attended a ‘Community Advisory Group’ meeting to discuss the West Lake Landfill smoldering fire (which has been burning since 2010) and the October 24 fire. Many are sceptical about the reassurances provided by government and company representatives. “I’m scared,” said Darlene Hartman, a life-long resident. “You try to eat healthy, you try to be good citizens. And you don’t know who to trust.”2
Nevada fire
On October 18, a fire broke out at a radioactive waste dump in southern Nevada. The fire followed flash flooding that shut down the town’s escape routes: U.S. 95 and Highway 373. County officials and law enforcement agencies declared an emergency. The site, operated by U.S. Ecology, is home to 22 low-level radioactive waste storage trenches that range in size from shallow holes to chasms hundreds of feet deep and wide as football fields.3
Associated Press reported on October 25:4
“The operator of a closed radioactive waste dump that caught fire in southern Nevada last weekend was troubled over the years by leaky shipments and oversight so lax that employees took contaminated tools and building materials home, according to state and federal records.
“A soundless 40-second video turned over by the firm, U.S. Ecology, to state officials showed bursts of white smoke and dirt flying from several explosions on 18 October from the dump in the brown desert, about 110 miles north-west of Las Vegas.
“In the 1970s, the company had its license suspended for mishandling shipments – about the same time state officials say the material that exploded and burned last weekend was accepted and buried.
“Nevada now has ownership and oversight of the property, which opened in 1962 near Beatty as the nation’s first federally licensed low-level radioactive waste dump. It closed in 1992. State officials said this week they did not immediately know what blew up.
“A state fire inspector, Martin Azevedo, surveyed the site on Wednesday. His report, obtained on Friday by the Associated Press, described moisture in the pit and “heavily corroded” 55-gallon drums in and around the 20ft-by-30ft crater. Debris from the blast spread 190ft. Two drums were found outside the fence line. …
“In 1979, the then Nevada governor Robert List ordered the Beatty low-level waste facility shut down and launched an investigation after a radioactive cargo fire on a truck parked on U.S. Highway 95, at the facility gate.
“The fire came three years after employees were dismissed for stealing radioactive building materials, tools and even a portable cement mixer, according to a 1994 report prepared by the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
“Operations at Beatty resumed “only after assurance was given by the federal government that the rules governing shipments … would be enforced,” according to the Idaho lab report.
“List expressed doubt that anyone will ever know what is really underground at the site. ‘Good luck with that,” he said. “What we found when we did our investigation was they had very, very skimpy records about what was there.'”
The Nevada Department of Public Safety said in an October 19 statement that high altitude and intermediate altitude testing resulted in negative readings for radiation.
The Department said it would initiate an investigation to determine the cause of the fire.5
WIPP fire
The underground chemical explosion at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Nevada on 14 February 2014 has generated huge public and media interest … so much so that a fire that occurred nine days earlier has been all but forgotten.6 A truck hauling salt caught fire on 5 February 2014. The fire consumed the driver’s compartment and the truck’s large front tires. Six workers were treated at the Carlsbad hospital for smoke inhalation, another seven were treated at the site, and 86 workers were evacuated.
A March 2014 report by the Department of Energy’s Accident Investigation Board blamed Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), the contractor that operates the WIPP site. The Accident Investigation Board said the root cause of the fire was NWP’s “failure to adequately recognize and mitigate the hazard regarding a fire in the underground. This includes recognition and removal of the buildup of combustibles through inspections, and periodic preventative maintenance, e.g., cleaning and the decision to deactivate the automatic onboard fire suppression system.”7
In 2011, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent advisory board, reported that WIPP “does not adequately address the fire hazards and risks associated with underground operations.”8
Spent fuel pools and reactors
Fire could result in a catastrophic accident if it compromised spent nuclear fuel pools. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff calculated that if even a small fraction of the inventory of a Peach Bottom reactor pool were released to the environment, an average area of 9,400 square miles (24,300 square kilometers) would be rendered uninhabitable, and that 4.1 million people would be displaced over the long-term.9
Reactors are also at risk. The Union of Concerned Scientists noted in a 2013 paper: “Fire poses significant risk to nuclear power plant safety. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimates that the risk of reactor meltdown from fire hazards is roughly equal to the meltdown risk from all other hazards combined − even assuming that plants comply with fire protection regulations, which many do not. Because of this risk, the NRC established a set of fire safety regulations for nuclear plants in 1980 and an alternate set in 2004. However, today − more than 30 years after those regulations went into effect − nearly half of U.S. operating nuclear reactors do not comply with either set of regulations.10
A report found that there were around 100 fire incidents at nuclear sites in France in 2011 − reactors, reprocessing plants and other nuclear sites. The dangers must be “taken very seriously”, said Jean-Christophe Niel, managing director of national nuclear safety regulator ASN. About 10 of the 100 fires were considered significant in terms of nuclear safety, Niel said.11
A 2013 report by the U.S. Department of Energy details many of the interconnections between climate change and energy. It noted that power lines, transformers and electricity distribution systems face increasing risks of physical damage from wildfires that are growing more frequent and intense.12
Peaceful nuclear explosions
The nexus between fire and nukes is an altogether unhappy one. If there is an exception, it is this unlikely yarn about ‘peaceful nuclear explosions’ from the science and culture blog io9:13
“All in all, nuclear civil projects were a massive mistake. There was one use, though, that seemed to work. The Soviet Union tried it several times, and actually had some success: it turns out nuclear bombs are great ways to put out fires. That’s not as unimpressive as it sounds! Underground fuel reserves are vast stores of combustible material that cannot be reached by human firefighters, but can quite merrily burn. Coal, peat, and gas fires can burn for decades. Centralia, Pennsylvania had a coal seam that caught fire in 1962 and is still burning. The Urtabulak gas field caught fire in 1963. It burned steadily for three years. In 1966, the Soviet Union decided to do something about that.
“The gas fire was ventilated by the holes that had been drilled to harvest the gas; if the holes could all be sealed shut, the fire would go out. Naturally, no one could go into a vast gas fire to shovel earth into a deep hole. Geologists and physicists calculated that a nuclear explosion equal to about 30 kilotons of TNT could seal shut every hole within about 50 meters. The rock would basically melt over the fire. In the fall of 1966, a special nuclear bomb was detonated in one of the holes, and fire was out in 23 seconds.
“But if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Within a few months of that fire going out, a new fire, in another gas field, erupted. In 1968, the Soviets dropped a bomb into that one. This took longer. For a few days, rock and other earth flowed into the holes, but eventually it worked. The fire went out. In 1972, another well was sealed off after it caught fire. The last known attempt at sealing a gas fire with a nuclear weapon was done in 1981, and it did not work out. The scientists couldn’t get accurate data on the location of the vents in the well. The bomb went off, but the well never entirely sealed shut.”
Finally, if there is a nukes-and-fire story more bizarre than the use of ‘peaceful nuclear explosions’ to put out underground gas fires, it involves U.S. shipyard worker Casey James Fury, who in May 2012 was having problems with his ex-girlfriend and wanted to leave work early. So, naturally, he set fire to a nuclear submarine. The USS Miami sustained US$450 million damage in the blaze, and Fury was given a 17-year jail sentence.14
References:
1. www.cbsnews.com/news/st-louis-community-fed-up-over-dangerous-landfills-attorney-general-sues/
http://fox2now.com/2015/10/24/brush-fire-at-west-lake-landfill-sparks-concern/
www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_047a3e46-7b6d-11e5-8519-f751e2f1666f.html
2. http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/anger-and-frustration-bridgeton-community-meeting-officials-maintain-area-safe
3. Kyle Roerink, 20 Oct 2015, ‘Beatty residents call for transparency after nuclear fire’, http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/oct/20/beatty-residents-call-for-transparency-after-nucle/
4. Associated Press, 25 Oct 2015, ‘Radioactive waste dump fire reveals Nevada site’s troubled past’, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/25/radioactive-waste-dump-fire-reveals-nevada-troubled-past
5. Nevada Department of Public Safety, 19 Oct 2015, ‘Media Release: Update on the U.S. Ecology Industrial Fire in Nye County’, dps.nv.gov/media/PR/2015/Update_on_the_U_S__Ecology_Industrial_Fire_in_Nye_County/
6 June 2014, ‘Fire and leaks at the world’s only deep geological waste repository’, Nuclear Monitor #787, www.wiseinternational.org/node/4245
7. http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/Final%20WIPP%20Underground%20Fire%20Report%2003.13.2014.pdf
8. www.dnfsb.gov/board-activities/reports/staff-issue-reports/fire-protection-program-waste-isolation-pilot-plant
9. www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/fuelstoragepetition21314.pdf
10. Union of Concerned Scientists, June 2013, ‘NRC’s Failure to Enforce
Reactor Fire Regulations’, www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/ucs-nrc-fire-regulations-5-2-13.pdf
11. Platts, 28 Aug 2013, ‘French nuclear power plants must improve fire safety measures: regulator’, www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/french-nuclear-power-plants-must-improve-fire-26220147
12. U.S. Department of Energy, July 2013, ‘U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather’, http://energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-sector-vulnerabilities-climate-change-and-extreme-weather
Fire threatens radioactive dump in Missouri, USA
Jim Green
Reprinted from WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, #812, 15 Oct 2015
http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor
A radioactive waste dump in Missouri, USA, is under threat from an underground fire. The fire at Bridgeton Landfill, near St. Louis, is as close as 350−400 metres from the West Lake Landfill. The West Lake facility was contaminated with radioactive waste from uranium processing. The waste was illegally dumped in 1973 and includes material that dates back to the Manhattan Project.1,2
The cause of the fire is unknown. It has been burning since 2010. The issue has received media attention recently because of the release of a St Louis County emergency plan.3
The emergency plan states that if the underground fire reaches the waste, “there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the region.” The plan calls for evacuations and the development of emergency shelters, both in St. Louis County and neighbouring St. Charles County.
Last month, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said he was troubled by new reports about the site. One found radiological contamination in trees outside the landfill’s perimeter. Another showed evidence that the fire has moved past two rows of interceptor wells and closer to the radioactive waste. Koster said the reports were evidence that Republic Services, operator of both the Bridgeton Landfill and the West Lake Landfill, “does not have this site under control.”4
Four school districts near the radioactive West Lake Landfill recently sent letters to parents explaining their plans for a potential emergency at the site. “We remain frustrated by the situation at the landfill,” wrote Mike Fulton, superintendent of the Pattonville School District. Rhonda Marsala, a local who has two children at nearby schools, said: “We prepare our kids for tornadoes, fire drills, intruder alerts, but how do you prepare them for something like this? The fact that these young children know about it, and they have anxiety over it, it’s very unfair to them.”5
The state of Missouri is taking legal action against Republic Services, initiated in 2013, alleging negligent management and violation of state environmental laws. The suit is set for trial in March 2016.4
Missouri Coalition for the Environment wants the radioactive waste removed, saying that the EPA’s 2008 decision to “cap and leave” means the wastes will remain a constant threat to drinking water, public health, and the environment.6
The ‘Just Moms St Louis’ group wants responsibility for the site passed from the EPA to the US Army Corps of Engineers and for it to be managed under its ‘Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program’.7 That call has also been made by St. Louis-area members of Congress and both of Missouri’s U.S. senators.2
Underground smouldering is common, especially in abandoned coal mines. At least 98 underground mine fires in nine states were burning in 2013, according to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Perhaps the most notorious was the fire that began in 1962 and burned near and beneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, for more than 50 years. Only a few people remain in a town that once had 1,000 residents.1
References:
1. 10 Oct 2015, ‘Underground fire outside St. Louis has burned since 2010, nears nuclear waste dump’, www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-st-louis-underground-fire-20151010-story.html
2. Editorial Board, 10 Oct 2015, ‘Editorial: Help residents near West Lake and Bridgeton landfills breathe easy’, www.stltoday.com/news/editorial-help-residents-near-west-lake-and-bridgeton-landfills-breathe/article_44e99f34-a0f3-5fd5-a861-276c7e28ffa9.html
3. St Louis County, Oct 2014, West Lake Landfill Shelter in Place / Evacuation Plan, https://cbsstlouis.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/3062_001.pdf
See also Kevin Killeen, 5 Oct 2015, ‘St. Louis County Releases Disaster Plan for West Lake Landfill’, http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2015/10/05/st-louis-county-releases-disaster-plan-for-west-lake-landfill/
4. Attorney General’s Office, 3 Sept 2015, ‘AG Koster releases new expert reports concluding radiation and other pollutants have migrated off-site at Bridgeton Landfill’, www.ago.mo.gov/home/ag-koster-releases-new-expert-reports-concluding-radiation-and-other-pollutants-have-migrated-off-site-at-bridgeton-landfill
5. Blythe Bernhard, Oct 2015, ‘School districts prepare for West Lake Landfill emergency’, www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/school-districts-prepare-for-west-lake-landfill-emergency/article_a6effa70-f92b-584c-8a7c-cb59d85a6b38.html
6. http://moenvironment.org/program-areas/radioactive-landfill-fire-risks
7. www.stlradwastelegacy.com/our-missio/
More information:
Missouri Coalition for the Environment: http://moenvironment.org/program-areas/radioactive-landfill-fire-risks
Just Moms St Louis: www.stlradwastelegacy.com/
EPA: www3.epa.gov/region07/cleanup/west_lake_landfill/index.htm
13. Esther Inglis-Arkell, 27 March 2015, ‘How To Fight Fire With Nuclear Bombs’, http://io9.com/how-to-fight-fire-with-nuclear-bombs-1694002958
14. Daily Mail, 8 Aug 2013, ‘Nuclear submarine set alight by worker who wanted to go home early will be scrapped because of military budget cuts’, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2386909/Nuclear-submarine-USS-Miami-set-worker-scrapped-military-budget-cuts.html
UK: Waste transport ship fire
A ship carrying intermediate-level radioactive waste from Dounreay to Belgium which caught fire and began drifting in the Moray Firth, near Scotland, raised new concerns about plans to move waste and fuel from Dounreay to Sellafield by sea.
The MV Parida was transporting a cargo of cemented radioactive waste when a fire broke out in a funnel. The blaze was extinguished, but 52 workers were taken from the Beatrice oil platform by helicopter as a precaution. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said the platform was evacuated because the ship may have crashed into it, but not out of any concerns about radioactive contamination.(1)
Questions were asked about why this ship set out given the severe weather warnings. Highlands Against Nuclear Transport said the incident was a warning about transporting radioactive cargoes by sea, and called for proposals to move other nuclear waste from Dounreay to Sellafield by sea to be scrapped. Angus Campbell, the leader of the Western Isles Council, said the Parida incident highlighted the need for a second coastguard tug in the Minch. “A ship in similar circumstances on the west coast would be reliant on the Northern Isles-based ETV [emergency towing vessel] which would take a considerable amount of time to get to an incident in these waters.”(2)
Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) say the contentious plans to ship some 26 tonnes of ‘exotic’ nuclear materials (irradiated and unirradiated plutonium and highly enriched uranium fuels) from Dounreay to Sellafield have moved a major step closer following recent sea and port trials in Scottish waters undertaken by the NDA’s ship Oceanic Pintail which is based at Barrow-in-Furness.(3)
Reprinted from nuClear news No.68, Nov 2014, www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo68.pdf
1. West Highland Free Press, 26 July 2014, www.whfp.com/2014/07/25/concern-over-nuclear-waste-shipments/
Stornoway Gazette, 3 Aug 2014, www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/news/local-headlines/concerns-raised-about-radioactive-material-1-3496576
2. Herald, 30 July 2014, www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/plans-for-radioactive-waste-by-sea-are-criticised.24898732
3. CORE, 8 Oct 2014, www.corecumbria.co.uk/newsapp/pressreleases/pressmain.asp?StrNewsID=346