U.S. A-Arms Plants Badly Contaminated, Panel Says; Cleanup May Cost $100 Billion

Nearly all of the nation’s 17 nuclear weapons facilities are seriously contaminated by radioactive and other hazardous materials and will require years and billions of dollars to clean up, a National Research Council committee said Wednesday.

“There is no doubt that the contamination is pervasive,” the panel of scientists said in strongly urging the Department of Energy to “proceed apace” with the cleanup.

The committee was not asked and did not specifically address the potential health risks posed by the widespread pollution.

In all, soil or ground water at more than 3,200 sites within the 17 facilities is contaminated by radioactivity or toxic solvents such as TCE (trichloroethylene), according to the long-awaited, congressionally requested report.

At two plants--the Hanford Reservation in eastern Washington state and the Rocky Flats plant near Denver--plutonium was found in exhaust ducts, and the panel said that “similar problems may exist” elsewhere. And at the Savannah River plant in South Carolina, radioactive cesium 137 was found in streams and wetlands around the facility.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is among those where ground water is contaminated by TCE, suspected of being a carcinogen.

“Our work did not include the review of risk assessments associated with the contamination,” the report said, adding that such “off-site ground-water movement” could lead to human exposure.

Earlier this year, a Government Accounting Office study put the cost of cleaning up the plants, which are situated in 12 states, at more than $100 billion.

The National Research Council report said also that “serious deficiencies still exist” in the control of radioactive dust and that it has fire-safety concerns about the aging $9-billion weapons program, which is managed by the Energy Department.

The report further recommended that the Department of Energy streamline its “varying and complicated” chains of command. For instance, field offices were taking unilateral actions affecting the entire weapons complex, although the decisions should have been reserved for Washington, it said.

Also, the report urged the Energy Department to reconsider plans to expand its capability to process plutonium. “It is not sensible to produce more weapons-grade plutonium than is reasonably needed,” it said, urging the department to explore instead more efficient and safer ways to recover plutonium.

In an interview, Richard A. Meserve, a Washington lawyer who was chairman of the committee, praised the efforts of Energy Secretary James D. Watkins, who has stated his intentions to restore the nuclear weapons plants, the most vital of which are currently shut down because of safety and environmental concerns.

“He’s making changes. That’s a good sign,” Meserve said. “We welcome the dynamic new leadership.”

Since taking over at the Energy Department, Watkins has been unstinting in his criticism of department practices and surprisingly candid about the array of problems he confronts.

Among them, ironically, is his inability to fill the job of assistant secretary for defense systems.

President Bush nominated Watkins’ choice for that job, Victor Stello Jr., in July. But the nomination has languished in the Senate Armed Services Committee amid charges that Stello, a former senior official of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, had been too cozy with the commercial nuclear industry, which his former agency regulates.

The committee Tuesday heard another five hours of conflicting testimony on Stello’s qualifications to run the nuclear weapons complex. It is scheduled to reconvene next month in hopes of setting a date to vote on the nomination.

Stello Tuesday urged the committee to get on with his nomination. “Our country desperately needs an answer,” he said. “These facilities are in disarray. They need someone to run them. If it’s not the will of Congress that it be me, I urge you to act quickly. It’s the country that is suffering and suffering badly.”