Radioactive Waste Water Leaks at Troubled Nuclear Arms Plant

The operator of the government’s problem-plagued nuclear weapons complex in South Carolina said Thursday that it had discovered a break in an underground pipe that carries slightly radioactive waste water to a treatment plant.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. said it temporarily reduced operations at the Savannah River Plant chemical separation facility so that it could replace a 10-foot section of the pipe and inspect other underground pipes of similar construction.

The company said the waste water that leaked from the broken pipe was high in acid content with “minute amounts” of radioactivity and posed no danger to workers or the environment.

Joe Odum, chief supervisor with Du Pont’s environment and energy department at Savannah River, said in a telephone interview that workers first detected a problem early this week when a liquid accumulation was noticed on the surface. The leaking pipe is 8 inches in diameter and is 9 feet underground.

It was determined Wednesday that a small section of the pipe had broken off, but it was too early to estimate how long it would take to fix the problem, Odum said.

The incident is the latest in a series of technical problems that have arisen at Savannah River, the site of three U.S. Energy Department nuclear reactors that produce tritium, a radioactive gas needed to make most nuclear weapons. All three reactors are shut down because of safety and technical problems.

Odum said the pipe leak had no direct affect on the tritium-producing reactors.

The chemical separation plant at Savannah River separates plutonium from used reactor fuel rods. The plutonium is then shipped to the Rocky Flats Plant at Golden, Colo., where it is shaped into triggers to be used on nuclear warheads.

Once the plutonium is separated from the high-level radioactive waste in the used fuel rods, the liquid waste is taken to a tank farm at Savannah River.