Blocks Donated to Refuge Are Tested for Radioactivity

Radiation safety officers are testing concrete blocks that UCLA donated to an animal refuge because the university may have skipped a required test for radioactivity when the blocks were salvaged from a nuclear reactor, federal officials said Tuesday.

The huge blocks, which once shielded the core of a university reactor, were declared non-radioactive two years ago and donated to the Wildlife Waystation east of Sylmar for construction material. But there is concern that UCLA, in decommissioning the reactor, failed to conduct one safety test required before the blocks could be given away, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Tuesday.

Radiation safety officers from UCLA last week began the testing at the animal refuge in Little Tujunga Canyon because they could not document that all 22 blocks were measured for fixed contamination, according to the NRC.

Agency officials said it was uncertain whether UCLA lost records of the tests or failed to conduct them.

But Emilio Garcia, an inspector at the NRC’s western regional office in Walnut Creek, said initial tests have turned up no readings above federal safety limits.

“The amount of radioactivity that is left there does not constitute a public health and safety issue,” Garcia said.

Garcia said he had no qualms about relying on UCLA to conduct the tests. “We don’t have any reason to suspect at this point that they’re lying to us,” he said.

James E. McLaughlin, director of radiation safety at UCLA, said he has “no reservations” about the safety of the blocks, adding that he is not convinced that the type of testing now being done “was required for all the blocks” under NRC rules.

Martine Colette, director of the Wildlife Waystation, said she understood the concrete blocks “were approved for release as absolutely safe, and I still have that feeling.”

Two of the blocks are being used for erosion control, and the other 20 are stored in a salvage area, McLaughlin said. He said all tests so far have been negative, but that equipment will have to be brought in to lift the 5,000-pound blocks and gain access to all surfaces.

It was not the NRC but an anti-nuclear group that first raised the issue of the missing test records. The group, Committee to Bridge the Gap, led the successful fight several years ago to shut down the research reactor on the Westwood campus.

Officials said some of the blocks shielding the reactor core were disposed of at a commercial radioactive waste dump at Richland, Wash. But 22 were declared non-radioactive and hauled to the Waystation, which cares for homeless lions, bears and other dangerous or exotic animals.

According to NRC officials, three types of tests are required before such nuclear components can be released for unrestricted use. They said UCLA records showed that two types of tests--for removable contamination and for radiation levels three feet from the blocks--were performed for the 22 blocks. Missing are the results of tests for fixed contamination--which occurs when atoms of the concrete, under neutron bombardment, become radioactive.

In an inspection last winter, NRC officials criticized UCLA’s record-keeping but did not specifically note the lack of data for fixed contamination. The issue was raised instead during the summer by Dan Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, Garcia and Hirsch said in interviews.