nuclear-news

Radioactive material below Louisiana’s giant sinkhole

Newspaper: Officials concerned about radioactive material below giant Louisiana sinkhole http://enenews.com/newspaper-controversy-over-radioactive-material-stored-below-giant-louisiana-sinkhole November 27th, 2012

Update Here: People need to know if radioactive waste is coming up from the ground in area of giant sinkhole -Legal Expert

Title: Radioactive material handling probed 

Author: DAVID J. MITCHELL
Date: November 27, 2012

State officials are investigating how Texas Brine Co. LLC handled naturally occurring radioactive material [NORM] in Assumption Parish — where a large sinkhole was found Aug. 3 — and whether it was illegally disposed of inside the Napoleonville Dome in the mid-1990s. […]

Texas Brine officials, in a statement last week, said they did not put NORM in the caverns […]

The statement contradicts detailed comments from company officials on Aug. 10 that a small amount of NORM was disposed of in the Napoleonville Dome […]

Sonny Cranch, spokesman for Texas Brine, said last week that officials “misspoke” then in their attempt to respond to questions about NORM and that it was never put in the cavern.

Statements by Texas Brine VP Bruce Martin

“We submitted a request to DNR to place this material, this normally occurring radioactive material, that was actually about a little bit less than a cubic yard, to place it back in the well […] We did that work. That material was solid dirt, dirt with some NORM in it, and it was placed in the bottom of the well, and it would be my guess and firm belief that that’s where it sits today.”
The dirt had a radioactivity of 20 to 40 micro-rems per hour

Watch an expert discuss radioactivity around the sinkhole here

November 28, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA