nuclear-news

Legal action against nuclear waste fill in South Carolina

Leaks at Barnwell nuclear dump focus of court hearing, The State, S. Carolina Feb 2 2014
BY SAMMY FRETWELL BARNWELL COUNTY, SC — In the decade since environmentalists took legal action against a nuclear-waste landfill in South Carolina, garbage trucks have rumbled onto the site every month, carrying a continuous flow of radioactive trash.

And as heavy machinery has dumped hazardous refuse into burial pits, radioactive tritium has continued to pollute a tributary of the Savannah River just downhill from the state-owned site in rural Barnwell County.

This week, the Sierra Club goes back to court in the group’s fight for tighter controls on the dump.The S.C. Court of Appeals will hear arguments Wednesday that could force landfill operator Energy Solutions to change its burial practices, which the Sierra Club calls outdated and dangerous for the environment.

It’s a fight that has cost thousands of dollars in legal fees and many late nights of research, but environmental lawyer Amy Armstrong said the case is worth pursuing, even after all these years.

At issue is the long-standing practice of dumping nuclear waste in unlined, earthen trenches that are exposed to rainfall as they’re being filled up. Concrete vaults that contain waste are designed with holes to let water drain into the bottom of the dirt trenches, just a few feet above the shallow water table.“There is no liner, it’s just dirt, so water can flow into the ground and it is carrying radioactive materials,” Armstrong said. “Tritium shows up faster in the groundwater. We don’t know what else will be showing up in the future.”…..

Low-level waste  still is hazardous, and some of it can take tens of thousands of years to break down. The landfill accepts contaminated parts of reactors and other material from nuclear power plants.

Tritium extends into groundwater from the landfill onto adjacent property and into a small creek just uphill from a neighborhood that depends on wells. The creek also is pahttp://www.thestate.com/2014/02/02/3241773/leaks-at-barnwell-nuclear-dump.htmlrt of the drainage basin of the Savannah River, a drinking water supply for the Hilton Head Island area……landfill critics point out that tritium – one of the least dangerous radioactive materials – often is a precursor to deadly radioactive contamination that moves more slowly in groundwater. Some well samples at the landfill have in the past identified Carbon-14, Uranium-238 and Polonium-210 in groundwater……

February 3, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized