2 California Nuclear Labs Pose Grave Health Threats, U.S. Says

The Energy Department announced today that two national nuclear laboratories in Northern California are among those that pose serious threats to public health.

The department, in a report that for the first time ranks contamination at the 16 nuclear weapons plants and laboratories, identified significant problems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories as well as at sites in Ohio, Texas and Colorado.

Pollution from nuclear weapons plants in Colorado and Texas is serious enough to pose a significant threat to public health, according to the report.

Ranked most serious in the assessment was contamination of ground water by volatile organic compounds from the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. Also, soil around the plant has been found to be contaminated with plutonium.

Second-ranking in seriousness was leakage of waste solvents from an unlined waste pit used for liquid waste disposal from 1954 to 1980 at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Tex.

“Solvent contaminants have the potential to seep into both a potentially (isolated) aquifer, which may serve some local residents close to the northern border of Pantex, and the main aquifer, which serves the site and nearby communities,” the report said.

Leading a list of 26 secondary-level environmental problems was ground water pollution at Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, Calif., where contamination was found in the southeastern corner of the laboratory site.

In addition, Sandia National Laboratories at Albuquerque, N.M., and its branch at Livermore, Calif., were found to have liquid discharges of hazardous chemicals and problems with handling toxics from inactive sites.