Nuclear Posture Review 2010 Emerges

Finally, the Nuclear Posture Review for 2010 has emerged from the bowels of the Defense Dept. On Tuesday April 6,2010. Secretary Robert Gates, speaking for the Obama Administration, introduced the new NPR in a brief cover letter; it can all be found on the DOD's public website. In his letter, Gates notes that the $5 billion of new funding for the nuclear weapons complex, to be spread over the next ten years, and which was announced recently by the Obama Admin., is actually to come from the Defense Dept.; i.e., some DOD monies are to be transferred slowly to DOE coffers.

Now, hitting just a few of the high points from the NPR Executive Summary, under the heading "Sustaining a Safe, Secure, and Effective Nuclear Arsenal", several interesting features appear, from which I quote:

"The United States will not conduct nuclear testing and will pursue ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."

"The United States will not develop new nuclear warheads. Life Extension Programs (LEPs) will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs, and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilites."

"The United States will study options for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of nuclear warheads on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the congressionally mandated Stockpile Management Program. The full range of LEP approaches will be considered: refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of nuclear components from different warheads, and replacement of nuclear components."

"In any decision to proceed to engineering development for warhead LEPs, the United States will give strong preference to options for refurbishment or reuse. Replacement of nuclear components would be undertaken only if critical Stockpile Management Program goals could not otherwise be met, amd if specifically authorized by the President and approved by Congress."

Further, the new NPR asserts that:

"The science, technology and engineering base, vital for stockpile stewardship
as well as providing insights for non-proliferation, must be strengthened."

"Increased investments in the nuclear weapons complex of facilities and personnel are required to ensure the long-term safety, security, and effectiveness of our nuclear arsenal. New facilities will be sized to support the requirements of the stockpile stewardship and management plan being developed by the National Nuclear Security Administration."

"Increased funding is needed for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory to replace the existing 50-year old facility. and to develop a new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennesee."

There is also a description in the NPR of a new policy of "no use of nuclear weapons", by the United States, against nations not possessing nuclear weapons, if such nations were to be also "in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation responsibilities". This new policy would not apply, however, to nuclear weapons armed states; i.e., for these, the previous policy which does not restrict use, or even first use, would continue in effect.

There are also remarks in the new NPR reminding us of the intention of the Obama Administration to enter into a new agreement with Russia, reducing by a small amount the size of the deployed nuclear arsenals on both sides, as well as reducing the number of allowed delivery vehicles.

Thus, and according to its own estimation, the Obama Administration moves forward toward its long-term goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. One would have to observe, however, that any motion along this line will not be so quick as to seriously discommode any of the important political players in Washington.

For more information on this topic, see my previous post entitled, "JASON's Report on LEP Strategies Revisited".

JASON's Report on LEP Stategies Revisited

As the Obama Administration moves slowly toward the formulation of a Nuclear Posture Review, for the past year the nation's nuclear weapons planners have lacked this important NPR guidance. Perhaps one shouldn't blame the Obama Administration too much for its tardiness. Weighty matters of national security are certainly involved here, but ones which could hardly have been at the forefront of the attention of a President who was, only one year ago, just a junior US senator from Illinois.

But, the matter becomes more pressing! Recently, Rep. Michael Turner (Republican, OH) released letters from the directors of the three nuclear weapons laboratories, containing their views of a report by the Jasons, dated Sept., 2009. This was a report of a study commissioned by the NNSA asking for an assessment of the likely future of the Life Extension Program; i.e., the LEP to revitalize the aging nuclear weapons in the US nuclear arsenal.

In the unclassified executive summary accompanying the full classified JASON report, the JASONs say that they believe the LEP to have been successful and that it most likely will continue to be successful. They then point out several problem areas which do need some attention. They do not say, however, that the LEP may fail sometime in the future if these problems are not solved.

Rep. Turner claims to have discovered that the unclassified executive summary to the JASON report is inconsistent with the classified full JASON report. Of course, this is not a claim which can be verfied by those not having access to the classified report. Rep. Turner has asked the Dirs. of the three nuclear weapons labs to offer their opinions on this matter, and of the JASON report generally. In January, 2010 the three Lab Dirs. responded, but Rep. Turner kept their responses confidential until just a few days ago when he released them to the public.

The three Lab Dirs. have somewhat different perspectives on this matter, which may arise from the different mandates of the three labs:

1) The job of SNL has been to develop, test, and produce all of the engineering devices necessary for the operation of all of the nuclear weapons in the US nuclear arsenal. The approach of SNL toward nuclear weapons is a systems engineering approach; SNL has nothing to do with the design, fabrication, assembly and testing of the so-called nuclear explosives package.

2) The job of LLNL has been to design, fabricate, assemble and test the nuclear explosives package part of approximately half of all of the nuclear weapons in the US nuclear arsenal.

3) The job of LANL has also been to design, fabricate, assemble and test the nuclear explosives package part of approximately half of all of the nuclear weapons in the US nuclear arsenal.

4) Whereas the job of SNL remains today as it has always been, the jobs of LLNL and LANL are changing. LLNL is becoming more of a pure research facility, albeit research into areas relating to the science of nuclear weapons. LANL is becoming a facility more attuned to practical matters of pit production, warhead refurbishment, and the furtherance of Pu science and technology.

(Once tested successfully, nuclear weapons are manufactured at separate DOE facilities, but not at SNL, LLNL, or LANL; at least, not so far.)

In his short letter to Rep. Turner, SNL's Dir. T. Hunter pointed out that the JASON report was focussed almost entirely on the nuclear explosives package and did not pertain to matters central to the business of SNL.

In his letter to Rep. Turner, LLNL's Dir. G. Miller suggested that the language of the unclassified executive summary to the JASON report was reasonably well clarified by the material contained in the classified full JASON report. He pointed out too that the LEP program had already experienced serious difficulties, an example of which was the inability to easily remanufacture the critical Fogbank material, necessary for the refurbishment of the W76 warhead. However, he also offered as his opinion that the LEP program had been successful to date and that, as a part of the ongoing stockpile-stewardship program, it would probably continue to be so.

In his letter to Rep. Turner, LANL's M. Anastasio stated that he believed that the unclassified executive summary to the JASON report did not fairly represent the classified full JASON report. He had quite a lot else to say too. He was particularly insistent that, until now, the LEP had only made use of refurbishment strategies, and only these strategies had been tested through actual use. Even so, refurbishment was not always straightforward, as had been well-learned during the W76 refurbishment. Moreover, he said, the important LEP strategies of reuse and replacement had really not yet been attempted and, therefore, had not yet been tested through use. He then described those parts of the LEP, important to him, which had not yet been attempted on any warhead; all of these LEP parts would involve reuse or replacement strategies, at least to some degree. He also quoted material from the classified full JASON report which could be construed as supporting the controversial RRW concept, and which did not offer support of the LEP. Unfortunately, one can not be sure of the meaning of this short quote, because the surrounding contextual material was absent. Finally, Anastasio opined that, although refurbishment had so far been an acceptable LEP strategy, its future was unknowable.

It would seem that Pres. Obama had better take this Nuclear Posture Review bull by the horns. Otherwise, enthusiasts like Rep. Turner may soon begin to accumulate some momentum for their view that only the Reliable Replacement Warhead program makes sense for the future of America's nuclear weapons program.

[Follow-up to this post on April 7, 2010: The new NPR has emerged! See the following post for comments.]

[Follow-up to the follow-up on April 11, 2010: The Los Alamos Monitor carries a joint statement of acceptance of the new NPR from from the three nuclear weapons lab directors, which reads:

“A key responsibility of the three Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Laboratories – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories – is to provide technical underpinnings that ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of the United States’ nuclear deterrent. The recently released Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) provides the administration’s policy framework and path forward for ensuring that ‘the nation’s nuclear weapons remain safe, secure and effective.’

“We believe that the approach outlined in the NPR, which excludes further nuclear testing and includes the consideration of the full range of life extension options (refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of nuclear components from different warheads and replacement of nuclear components based on previously tested designs), provides the necessary technical flexibility to manage the nuclear stockpile into the future with an acceptable level of risk. We are reassured that a key component of the NPR is the recognition of the importance of supporting ‘a modern physical infrastructure – comprised of the national security laboratories and a complex of supporting facilities – and a highly capable workforce with the specialized skills needed to sustain the nuclear deterrent.”

Tom Hunter, SNL Director
George Miller, LLNL Director
Michael Anastasio, LANL Director

The statement also appears on LANL's public website at www.lanl.gov.

NMED Sec. Curry Asks DOE for Help

In a letter, recently, to Department of Energy headquarters, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry forcefully suggested that DOE remove the National Nuclear Security Administration from the chain-of-command, between NMED and DOE's Environmental Management unit, whenever issues regarding the cleanup of so-called legacy wastes were concerned.

Sec. Curry has previously expressed anger and frustration with NNSA. At a 7-30-08 meeting of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board, in Santa Fe, Sec. Curry proposed that NNMCAB support his demand that DOE and NNSA not fund any new programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory until first making up for accumulated shortfalls in the multi-year budgets, assigned for the cleanup of legacy wastes. The size of these budgets had been stipulated in the 2002 Consent Order, agreed to by the State of New Mexico and DOE, and were legally binding upon the parties. In fact, the NNMCAB passed a resolution (#2008-09) supporting Sec. Curry and submitted it to DOE for their approval. But, DOE did not approve!

In spite of substantial economic benefits that NNSA/DOE, and their predecessor federal agencies, have brought to New Mexico, it is necessary to keep in mind the legacy of toxic waste that 60 years of nuclear weapons operations has left behind, especially at LANL. Now, 21 years after the end of the cold-war, we need to dispose of these wastes, once-and-for-all. I am pleased to recall here that Lieut. Gov. Diane Denish has declared herself to be in favor of vigorously enforcing the Consent Order.

LANL Applies for Open Burn Permit

Following past practices, LANL/DOE continues to try to exploit the economic vulnerabilities of local New Mexico communities, in order to be better able to proceed with its business as usual.

As a part of LANL’s current application to NMED for an extension of its RCRA mandated Hazardous Waste Permit, LANL is asking to be allowed to continue with its policy of Open Burning (OB) of high-explosives residues at two burn-sites located at TA-16.

The period for public comment on LANL’s application, and on NMED’s proposed rejection of LANL’s desire to engage in OB at TA-16, will end in mid-April, following a public hearing, to begin on April 5, 2010 at Santa Fe Community College.

After measurements were made of contaminant levels in soils at TA-16, as well as related modeling exercises performed, NMED decided that LANL’s OB of explosives residues had probably resulted in the release into the atmosphere of potentially hazardous concentrations of the toxic chemicals, dioxin and furan; i.e., hazards were predicted to exist for certain sensitive local fauna.

In order to counter this view, LANL launched a public relations campaign, asking members of LANL-friendly groups from the local communities to send comments to NMED, in support of LANL’s OB application. On Monday of this week, the VFW post in Los Alamos was visited and VFW members were presented with a talk entitled, “LANL Hazardous Waste Permit: National Security Impacts”.

Yesterday (2-23-10), the Española City Council heard a talk from LANL’s Dennis Hejersen entitled, “Protecting the Environment while Continuing National Security Missions”. Upon completion of this talk, the new mayor of Española, Alice Lucero, volunteered to say that the City Council would write a letter to NMED in support of LANL’s OB application. She also expanded happily upon the economic advantage that LANL’s operations bring to Española.

At this time, LANL asserts that the continuation of its OB practices at TA-16 are essential to national security, and make possible the testing of explosives for use by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the testing of certain improvised explosives which might be of interest to insurgents. A statement of these LANL claims appears online at www.lanl.gov/environment/waste/rcra.shtml. For NMED’s point-of-view, along with related materials, see www.nmenv.state.nm.us/hwb/lanlperm.html.

It may be, however, that LANL’s efforts to tie its current explosives testing activities solely to recent US military activities in the Middle East, and to related threats from insurgents, is an attempt to craft a message having special appeal to local communities. In this regard, one needs to keep in mind that the controversy surrounding the OB of explosives residues at LANL is not new, but goes back at least to 1998. An exposition of LANL’s position on OB at TA-16, circa 2006, which makes no mention of any USA initiated wars in the Middle East, but refers only to high-explosives residues arising from tests related to LANL’s part of the NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program, may be found in the LANL publication LA-UR-06-6913, available online at www.lanl.gov. In this document, a history of the OB of explosives residues is described, dating back to 1998.

It seems to me unfortunate that LANL persists in its attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities of local communities. Fear of the toxic waste that LANL generates, emits and stores, and uncertainties about LANL’s nuclear weapons mission are both real in these communities, but are minimized by appeals to patriotism and reminders of the economic benefits brought by continued local LANL/DOE operations. This is a theme which I’ve addressed earlier in this blog; viz., “Community Survey Report for Northern New Mexico”, and “Concerns of Northern New Mexico Citizens Probed”.

Nuke Control Issues Today

Early in February, 2010, the Obama Administration announced its intention to pump more $billions into the NW program; thus, approximately doubling what had been NNSA's expected NW budget for 2011. A commitment was also made to the continuation of these large increases into the foreseeable future. It has been speculated that these monies will constitute a quid-pro-quo for obtaining the support of key NW friendly senators when the CTBT is submitted for ratification, as well as for their help in gaining Senate approval of a new version of the recently defunct Start treaty. In the following, I wax on a bit about these, and related, matters.

First, a few comments on "Nuclear weapons at a crossroads as Obama enters office", from the Issues and Events section of the January 2009 issue of Physics Today:

1) The extent and type of modernization of the Russian and Chinese NW programs is still not widely known to the general public. However, the case of the USA is certainly different. In this regard,it seems clear that the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), that has engaged the DOE since ~1995, can be construed as a type of NW modernization program, albeit one largely accessible only to the USA; i.e., since, presumably, neither Russia nor China can compete successfully with the USA in the SSP arena! DOE's SSP includes the construction of ever larger and faster computer systems at LLNL, LANL, and SNL for the simulation of NW performance, as well as the construction of the NIF at LLNL, the DAHRT facility at LANL, and the sub-critical test facility at NTS. An integral part of the SSP has also been the design of the RRW, and NNSA's plans for modernization of the nation-wide NW complex.

2) Yes, the USA has yielded the "high ground", with respect to the control of NW's, since it failed to ratify the CTBT, but also since it elected not to abide by the strictures of the NPT's Article VI. In particular, the USA continues to behave as if the continued possession of NW's is a key element of its national defense policy. In this regard, the promotion of the SSP also appears as a key to the USA's ongoing NW modernization program.

3) While the subject of more funding for the national laboratories is being broached, it seems worthwhile to recall that, in the first year (2005-2006) of the for-profit LANS-LLC's new contract to manage LANL, the LANL Director and LANS-LLC CEO received a salary of ~$400K, plus a bonus of ~$1000K. Thus, the LANL Director's take-home pay effectively tripled; i.e., when compared to the previous Director's salary, which had been set by the not-for-profit UC. LANS-LLC also increased the number of middle managers at LANL while reducing the number of non-managerial staff. But, overall salary expenditures at LANL still increased. Descending farther down the pay scale,in June, 2005, ~300 senior LANL employees, almost all involved in NW work of one sort or other, were allowed by DOE to start collecting their full UC pensions while continuing to receive their full LANS-LLC salaries; i.e., an example of so-called double-dipping. Thus, for such LANL employees, after June 2005, personal income from NW work approximately doubled. (Although DOE initially appeared to resist the double-dipping, they quickly caved when NM's senior senator intervened.) In this way, NW work at LANL has become more remunerative for some employees, lucrative for the owners of LANS-LLC, and more costly for US tax-payers.
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And now, a quick look at what some others have been saying about NW control:


Reducing the nuclear threat: The argument for public safety [EXCERPTS]
By Richard Rhodes /The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists /14 December 2009

Article Highlights:

1) Public health, a discipline that organizes science-based systems of surveillance and prevention, has been primarily responsible for controlling the effects of infectious disease.

2) A similar campaign around public safety could help end the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons.

3) Such a push would help create unity in common security and a fundamental transformation in relationships between nations.

In 1999, for the first time in human history, infectious diseases no longer ranked first among causes of death worldwide. Public health, a discipline which organizes science-based systems of surveillance and prevention, was primarily responsible for that millennial change in human mortality. One-half of all the increases in life expectancy in recorded history occurred within the twentieth century. Most of the
worldwide increase was accomplished in the first half of the century, and it was almost entirely the result of public health measures directed to primary prevention. Better nutrition, sewage treatment, water purification, the pasteurization of milk, and the immunization of children extended human life; i.e., not surgeons cutting or doctors dispensing pills.

Public health is medicine's greatest success story and a powerful model for a parallel discipline, which I propose to call public safety.

Where nuclear weapons--the largest-scale instruments of man-made death--are concerned, the elements of such public safety have already begun to appear: fissile materials control and accounting, cooperative threat reduction, security guarantees, nuclear arms control agreements and treaties, surveillance and inspection, sanctions, and forceful disarming if all else fails.

Reducing and finally eliminating the world's nuclear arsenals may be delayed. just as progress was stalled during the George W. Bush administration by those who argued that there were good nuclear powers and evil nuclear powers and who sought to disarm powers considered to be evil. But, nuclear weapons operate beyond good and evil. They destroy without discrimination and Whether one lives or dies is entirely a matter of
distance from ground zero. The complement of that destructiveness must then be unity in common security, just as it was with smallpox, and a fundamental transformation in relationships between nations.
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The Obama disarmament paradox [EXCERPTS]
By Greg Mello /The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists /4 February 2010

Article Highlights:

1) The latest federal budget request includes a large increase in spending for nuclear weapons.

2) Such an increase contradicts President Obama's speech in Prague last April, during which he seemed to signal a commitment to significant nuclear disarmament.

3) Now it's a question of whether Congress will reject the Obama budget request--a strategy it used to keep President George W. Bush from pursuing new nuclear weapon programs.

Last April in Prague, President Barack Obama gave a speech that many have interpreted as a commitment to significant nuclear disarmament.

Now, however, the White House is requesting one of the larger increases in warhead spending history. If its request is fully funded, warhead spending would rise 10 percent in a single year, with further increases promised for the future. Los Alamos National Laboratory, the biggest target of the Obama largesse, would see a 22 percent budget increase, its largest since 1944. In particular, funding for a new plutonium "pit" factory complex there would more than double, signaling a commitment to produce new nuclear weapons a decade hence.

So how is the president's budget compatible with his disarmament vision?

The answer is simple: There is no evidence that Obama has, or ever had, any such vision. He said nothing to that effect in Prague. There, he merely spoke of his commitment "to seek . . . a world without nuclear weapons," a vague aspiration and hardly a novel one at that level of abstraction. He said that in the meantime the United States "will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and to guarantee that same defense to our allies."
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Reducing the role of nuclear weapons [EXCERPTS]
By Joshua Pollack /The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists /30 October 2009

In his April 5, 2009 speech in Prague, President Barack Obama pledged to "take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons." In particular, he promised to "reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same." This was not merely an idealistic gesture. Bounding the role of the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal will be essential to the administration's efforts to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The most straightforward expression of a U.S. nuclear defensive policy--pure deterrence, with no element of coercion--would be 'no-first-use' guidance, deciding that nuclear weapons are only to be used in response to nuclear attack against the United States, its allies, or its forward-deployed forces."In principle, the Bush administration also sought to reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. Nevertheless,
the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review found nuclear deterrence to be broadly applicable to a range of threats, including "large-scale conventional military force." Moreover, the review, whose list of potential adversaries included several without known nuclear arsenals, concluded that the "unique properties" of nuclear forces could enable the United States to "hold at risk classes of targets important to achieve
strategic and political objectives." This ambiguous formula was just as suggestive of coercion as of deterrence. The Bush administration also struggled to persuade other countries to follow its lead on nonproliferation, as evidenced by the failure of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

This outcome wasn't entirely coincidental.

How Americans conceive the role of nuclear weapons illuminates the role of nonproliferation in the eyes of a skeptical world. If Washington considers its nuclear arsenal suitable for coercing potential adversaries, then stopping the spread of nuclear weapons becomes an adjunct to the already considerable power of the United States. If, on the other hand, nuclear weapons come to play a strictly defensive role
for the United States and its allies, then nonproliferation can be more readily appreciated as broadly in the common interest of humanity.

Given the prominence of the United States in the international system, the role of U.S. nuclear weapons will strongly influence the Obama administration's chances of finding support for strengthened nonproliferation measures at the May 2010 NPT Review Conference in New York. If U.S. nuclear weapons are flaunted as instruments of coercion and emblems of might, then the states that have failed to observe the NPT's rules--North Korea and Iran--are likely to receive more sympathy from the "non-aligned" camp than otherwise would be the case. Their illicit activities will seem like natural responses to an overweening superpower that behaves as if it were a dissatisfied actor.

But if it is known that U.S. nuclear weapons exist only for deterrence, then the U.S. case stands to receive the more understanding reception. Less is likely to be made of the failure of the recognized nuclear weapon states to move rapidly toward disarmament. As the de facto guarantor of security, prosperity, and the status quo across a globe-spanning network of alliances, the United States in particular could not be expected to drop its defenses while potential adversaries are seeking nuclear
weapon capabilities of their own.

The Obama administration's own Nuclear Posture Review, to be delivered before the NPT Review Conference, offers a timely opportunity to deliver on the president's promise to constrain the role of U.S. nuclear forces. The fulfillment of that pledge cannot rest too much on actual changes in force structure, since bureaucratic and political realities always weigh heavily upon formal review processes. (The inertia is compounded by the timing of U.S.-Russian nuclear diplomacy, which is currently focused on renewal of arms control mechanisms rather than seeking profound shifts in force posture.) Instead, the administration can alter the role of nuclear weapons by issuing a clear and authoritative definition of their purposes. We shouldn't consider this step merely a matter of "declaratory policy," as if it were solely for external
consumption; rather, it should be taken as a basic choice of defense policy, the point of departure for future guidance to planners.

Naturally, the most straightforward expression of a defensive policy--pure deterrence, with no element of coercion--would be "no-first-use" guidance, deciding that nuclear weapons are only to be used in response to nuclear attack against the United States, its allies, or its forward-deployed forces. The United States refrained from making no-first-use pledges during the Cold War because of the need to counteract Soviet conventional superiority. Subsequently, it adopted a policy of "calculated ambiguity," explained by the need to deter chemical or biological attacks with nuclear weapons. Despite the implausibility of such a disproportionate retaliatory threat, this concern remains the primary obstacle to a nuclear no-first-use policy. Even so, it does not prevent a deterrence-only policy.

If the Obama administration determines that conventional forces and defensive systems suffice to deter or neutralize chemical or biological attack, then it can readily adopt a nuclear no-first-use policy. Or, if the administration determines that nuclear weapons should continue to play a role in deterring chemical or
biological attack--notwithstanding their lack of credibility for this purpose--then it can take the advocates of calculated ambiguity at their word, establishing a policy of no first use of weapons of mass destruction. The appropriate statement could be issued as an Executive Order, giving it the force of policy.

Either nuclear no-first-use or the second-best alternative will face opposition from advocates of traditionalism in nuclear strategy, which prizes flexibility over all other considerations. But neither idea would face insurmountable obstacles. Certainly, if the role of nuclear weapons cannot be constrained by issuing an authoritative policy statement, then seemingly very little can be achieved in this area at all.
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For a look at the current status of the world's nuclear forces consult the Federation of American Scientists web-site:
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/index.html

For non-proliferation issues consult the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/

For short film clips of actual US nuclear weapons tests:
http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/films/testfilms.aspx

Metals in Groundwater and RACER

In this post I follow up on a question introduced earlier; viz., how likely is it that RACER will help the citizens of Northern New Mexico to check up on LANL's stewardship of the local environment?

In attempting again to answer this question, I first reproduce here a history of high metal concentrations in the groundwater at LANL's Technical Area 49 (TA-49), as revealed by the Water Quality Data Base. Although this history was presented in the fall of 2008 at meetings of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board, no formal response by LANL to the problems revealed here has ever been offered.

Introduction

In two earlier white-papers I discussed (in the summer of 2008) data excerpted from the Radionuclides in Groundwater section of LANL’s online Water Quality Data Base (WQDB). These short papers were intended to serve as non-technical introductions to the WQDB for members of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board (NNMCAB).

In this latest of an ongoing series, I describe data from the Metals in Groundwater section of the WQDB. After a few general remarks, I discuss the high levels of chromium(3) being measured in Regional Well 28 (R-28), and then react to a recent study, by geologist Bob Gilkeson, in which past high levels of lead(4) in deep wells at TA-49 were considered.

General Remarks

The data tabulated in the Metals in Groundwater section of LANL’s online Water Quality Data Base describe the results of measurements of the concentrations of approximately 24 non-radioactive metals, made at about 430 locations distributed over the DOE/LANL site, and in its immediate vicinity, during the past 40 years.

These data are a record of the concentrations of metals, measured at wells or springs, in units of mg/l (micrograms per liter). In contrast to the case of Radionuclides in Groundwater, discussed earlier(1,2), uncertainties in the measured values of metal concentrations in groundwater are not tabulated, nor are values for the estimated Minimum Detectable Amount (MDA). Even so, measured concentrations are often accompanied by a < sign, perhaps denoting that the data recorded is, in some sense, a “non-detect”(5). However, in no case do values of measured concentrations appear with a minus sign, which would indicate that the sample value was less than the value of a corresponding blank(6). In the following, we will not refer to tabulated data, if it is preceded by a < sign.

A user of the WQDB might wonder how measured values for the concentrations of individual metals translate into estimations of health risks.

In order to address this question, we consulted the EPA’s online standard for metals in drinking water, and found the following EPA benchmark information relating to health risks; i.e., the Primary Drinking water Standards(7), for metals in groundwater. These standards set values for the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) as:

Metal MCL (mg/L) ...... Metal MCL(mg/L)

Antimony 6 ............... Copper 1300
Arsenic 10 ................. Lead 15
Barium 2000 ............. Mercury 2
Beryllium 4 ................ Selenium 50
Cadmium 5 ................ Thallium 2
Chromium 100 ........... Uranium 30

Also, EPA’s Secondary Drinking Water Standards(8) for metals in groundwater are:

Metal MCL (mg/L) ...... Metal MCL(mg/L)

Aluminum 50 ............. Manganese 50
Copper 1000 .............. Silver 100
Iron 300 ................... Zinc 5000


Chromium (Cr)

The subject of chromium in groundwater at LANL is interesting because it appears to be almost unique. It seems that chromium may be one of only a few substances contaminating the aquifer beneath the Pajarito Plateau, for which LANL aggressively assigns itself the blame(3, 9-11). Moreover, until recently, it seems that this contamination had been found to exist, primarily, in only one deep well.

The well in question, R-28, was drilled into the regional aquifer below Mortandad Canyon at the end of 2003, and a single well-screen was installed(12). This screen was intended to sample the groundwater at depths between 934 ft and 958 ft bgs, near the top of the underlying aquifer.

The first data from this well(13) was collected on 5-20-05 and, while showing essentially normal values for the concentrations of most metals, showed a dissolved chromium (Cr(VI)) concentration of 375 mg/L, which was roughly four times the EPA’s MCL. Previously, at other deep wells located all over LANL, levels of dissolved chromium were usually no more than ~5 mg/L, and had never been found to exceed ~20 mg/L. Evidently, this data from R-28 was a very surprising circumstance, since it led, seven months later, to a report from LANL to NMED, and ten months later to a LANL(9) public announcement.

At that time, it was said that the probable source of this contamination was effluent water from a cooling tower, attached to a power plant, formerly situated at the head of Sandia Canyon. It seems that this water had contained dissolved chromate (Cr(VI)), added as a corrosion inhibitor, which had somehow found its way into groundwater at the newly drilled R-28. It was estimated that during the period of time from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, between 58,000 and 230,000 lbs of dissolved chromium had been dumped(10) into Sandia Canyon.

This view was supported somewhat by the fact that a number of alluvial (shallow) wells in Sandia, Pueblo, Los Alamos, and Pajarito Canyons had shown a record of sporadic high levels of chromium in filtered(14) groundwater samples. For example, in the Pueblo Canyon alluvial well APCO-1, chromium concentrations were as high as 5300 mg/L, on 3-29-95; in the Los Alamos Canyon alluvial LAO-2 the concentration was 400 mg/L, on 12-21-93; and in the Pajarito Canyon alluvial PCO-3 the concentration was 740 mg/L, on 6-7-93, all in filtered samples. However, it was also true that these high levels of chromium were neither persistent in time, nor were they spread out in space; i.e., they existed for periods of time of no more than a few months, usually did not recur, and they were observed only at isolated locations. Other nearby alluvial wells did not show these sharp chromium concentration spikes. Perhaps most importantly, in no case had such high chromium concentrations been measured in alluvial wells during the past five years.

However, it may have seemed odd that no other deep wells in the vicinity of R-28 had ever shown signs of elevated chromium levels; e.g., the old test well TW-3, in Los Alamos Canyon, had never registered high levels of chromium. Also, none of the Los Alamos County water supply wells, PM-1, PM-2, and PM-3, in place since 1977, and PM-4 and PM-5, in place since 1988, had ever shown signs of elevated chromium. These water supply wells are, in no case, more than two miles from R-28, and surround it. PM-1 and PM-3 are in Sandia Canyon itself, PM-4 is in Cañada del Buey, PM-5 sits between Tenmile Canyon and Cañada del Buey, while PM-2 is in Pajarito Canyon. These last three wells are all to the south of Mortandad Canyon.

Finally, it may have seemed odd too that no intermediate depth wells had ever shown elevated chromium levels; e.g., MCOI-8, MCOI-4, and MCOBT-4.4, all in Mortandad Canyon, and all located within 1 ½ miles upstream of R-28, had no history of high chromium concentration.

Subsequently, many studies have been performed, based on computer simulations, in an attempt to better understand this situation. LANL scientists now believe that there is a plume of groundwater, contaminated by high levels of dissolved chromium (~400 mg/L (+/-) 25 mg/L), confined to an area centered on R-28, and extending no more than one-half mile in any direction; see Fig. 4.2-1 of ref. 3. It is problematic as to how these high levels of Cr(VI) have been maintained, essentially without change, for at least the past three years.

Based upon these observations, it is reasonable to speculate that there is a large source of chromium located somewhere upstream of R-28. And, in fact, a source of sedimentary chromium is known to exist in a wetland at the head of Sandia Canyon, adjacent to, and downstream from, the site of the old power plant cooling tower; see Fig. 1.0-1 of ref. 3.

Presumably, this chromium is in its reduced state, Cr(III), which is largely insoluble in water, for values of pH near neutral. Further, evidence exists that this source of chromium is being mobilized by outfalls from a large sewage treatment plant which sweep regularly through the wetland(15).

In order to further test this hypothesis, LANL has planned for several new wells to be drilled in the immediate vicinity of R-28. The latest news(14) is that, in the first of these wells to be completed, SCI-2, perched water has been detected at a depth of 509 ft bgs, and a filtered sample of this water shows a chromium concentration of ~500 mg/L.

Lead (Pb)

The subject of lead in groundwater at LANL is also of some interest. During the period 1959-1961 LANL conducted underground weapons tests at MDA-AB (TA-49). These were the so-called hydronuclear tests, described by Bob Thorn(16). Residues of these tests included a variety of toxic materials(17), among which was an estimated 200,000lbs of elemental lead (Pb).

The tests were conducted in unlined earthen shafts, dug to depths of between 30 and 100 ft. These shafts were disrupted by the test explosions and, one assumes, toxic residues were mixed into the adjacent tufa and soil. What has become of these residues, the mobility of which has been unrestricted by any artificial barrier, over the past 50 years? I alluded to this subject in a previous publication(1). This subject has also been discussed by Bob Gilkeson, in a recent study(4).

Bob quotes data(13) taken from the WQDB, describing the history of Pb concentrations measured in the old test wells DT-5A, DT-9, and DT-10, located at MDA-AB. He points out the very large excursion in the record of Pb concentrations recorded at DT-5A, during the period 1992-1995; i.e., to a level of ~9000 mg/L, which is 90 times the MCL. It seems that DT-5A is located in the middle of a cluster of five shafts, once used for hydronuclear tests, and is no farther than 1000 ft from any one of those shafts.

Bob notes also that, during this same period, excursions were recorded in Pb concentrations from DT-9 and DT-10, although to values of less than 100 mg/L. But, those two wells are both located outside of the cluster of shafts, and at a distance of several thousand feet from the nearest shaft. Meanwhile, at the old test well TW-3, located in Los Alamos Canyon, approximately five miles distant from MDA-AB, no excursion in Pb concentration was ever seen.

Enquiring minds ask for an explanation of these phenomena. After all, if what was measured at DT-5A, DT-9, and DT-10 were Pb residues from old hydronuclear tests, residues which had somehow become mobile for a period of a few years during the early 1990’s, then such residues could become mobile again, at some future time.

It appears that LANL may actually favor an explanation of these facts based on a theory(18, 19) of “ … well sampling and well construction issues rather than from LANL contamination.” This appears to be a peculiar theory, on the one hand, because it assumes something which is not much in evidence; viz., that either the drilling fluids, or the well casing and/or the well screening materials used in the construction of DT-5A were rich in Pb, but not so for DT-9 and DT-10, and not at all so for TW-3. On the other hand, this theory is also peculiar since it does not attempt to account for the pronounced time-history of the Pb concentrations that have been observed. At the same time, LANL personnel deny the presence in groundwater of Pb residues from old hydronuclear tests at MDA-AB(19).

However, it is also true that LANL’s point of view finds support in other data found in the WQDB. These data are the records of the concentrations of other common metals, found in the groundwater at these four wells. In Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4, I plot the histories of measured concentrations for iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), and lead (Pb), at the old test wells DT-5A, DT-9, DT-10, and TW-3, respectively.

Interestingly, excursions in Pb concentration, appearing during the 1993-1994 time period, are accompanied by excursions in both the concentrations of Fe and Zn. Moreover, at DT-9 and DT-10, the excursion in Pb concentration is much smaller than the excursions in both the concentrations of Fe and Zn. At TW-3, concentration histories show a series of fluctuations, but do not show a dominant excursion in the concentration of any metal during the 1993-1994 time period(20).

It may be relevant that LANL will report, in its soon to be released Environmental Surveillance Report for 2007(21), that elevated levels of Pb, and several other metals, have been detected recently in Water Canyon and Threemile Canyon surface water. Water Canyon borders on MDA-AB, and Threemile Canyon borders on Water Canyon. Anon!

Conclusion

We have seen that the subject of metals in groundwater at LANL is one of minor mystery; and we have seen two examples of such mystery.

The story of the high levels of chromium in the groundwater beneath Mortandad Canyon is at least curious. Hard evidence to support the prevailing theory, that the original source of chromium contamination was the old water cooling tower at the head of Los Alamos Canyon, is only now beginning to emerge(3). Earlier, the evidence seemed to be just circumstantial. Certainly, a power plant cooling tower did dump lots of chromium into Sandia Canyon, and that chromium had to go somewhere. But, the connection between that cooling tower in Sandia Canyon, and R-28 in Mortandad Canyon, was tenuous, and seemed to be confined to the histories of chromium contamination measured in samples from select alluvial wells, mostly, but not exclusively, upstream of R-28. Also, these histories showed, for the most part, an isolated excursion in chromium concentration during the period 1993-1995; and this excursion did not recur. At the same time, similar excursions did not occur in other nearby alluvial wells.

But wait! The story of the high levels of Pb, Fe, and Zn measured in groundwater beneath TA-49 is similarly strange. This is because the histories of these three contaminants, in the three deep wells DT-5A, DT-9 , and DT-10, are ones that themselves show sharp excursions in concentration during the 1993-1995 time period, which failed to recur; see Figs. 1-4.

Could all of these isolated concentration excursions, occurring at different locations, but at roughly the same time, be just a coincidence? Or was there some, as yet, unaccounted for influence on the measurements of metal concentrations made at wells distributed over a wide area on the Pajarito Plateau, during 1993-1995?

Bibliography

1) “Summary [with Commentary] of ‘Radionuclides in Groundwater’ from LANL’s ‘Water Quality Data Base’ I.”, Ken LaGattuta NNMCAB, 7-18-08.

2) “Summary [with Commentary] of ‘Radionuclides in Groundwater’ from LANL’s ‘Water Quality Data Base’ II: History of Tritium Activities”, Ken LaGattuta NNMCAB, 8-30-08.

3) D. Katzman, “Chromium Fate and Transport for Chromium Contamination from Sandia Canyon”, LA-UR-08-4702. The story of the contamination of groundwater beneath Sandia Canyon by chromium is extensive and ongoing.

4) “Comment on the Large Plume of Lead in the Groundwater Below the LANL Legacy Waste Disposal Site MDA AB and the Deficiencies in the LANL Protection Practices …” , Robert H. Gilkeson, 8-25-08.

5) See remarks in ref. 2, relating to the proper use of the MDA.

6) See remarks in ref. 2, relating to (-) Result values.

7) Office of Water (4606M), EPA 816-F-03-016, www.epa.gov/safewater, June, 2003. The Primary Drinking Water Standard defines values of the MCL beyond which serious health effects could ensue, for the general population. It should be clear that applying a drinking water standard to groundwater, which may not be used for regular drinking, is a conservative approach.

8) Ibid. The Secondary Drinking Water Standard defines values of the MCL beyond which noticeable minor health effects could ensue, for the general population.

9) “Los Alamos National Laboratory News”, James E. Rickman, March 17, 2006.

10) “Los Alamos National Laboratory News”, James E. Rickman, December 7, 2006.

11) “Los Alamos National Laboratory News”, James E. Rickman, May 3, 2007. Quoting from this news release: “Personnel in the Lab's Water Stewardship Project recently began construction of monitoring well R-35 in lower Sandia Canyon. This regional-aquifer-monitoring well is being constructed upgradient and near Los Alamos County drinking-water-supply well PM-3. The R-35 well will act as a ‘sentinel’ that can determine whether a plume of hexavalent chromium—a component of a corrosion inhibitor used from the 1950s to the 1970s—is approaching the county’s PM-3 well.” However, R-28 was installed(12) in 2003, and the discovery of high levels of dissolved chromium in this well was made(13) in May, 2005.

12) (www.wqdbworld.lanl.gov / Chemistry/ Characterization Wells/ Completion Reports.

13) (www.wqdbworld.lanl.gov / Chemistry/ Metals/ Groundwater.

14) D. Katzman (LANL), in talk presented to the NNMCAB’s EMSR Committee, Sept. 10, 2008. He emphasized the importance of obtaining filtered water samples, when attempting to measure the concentration of Cr(VI) in groundwater. Presumably, unfiltered samples would include sediments onto which insoluble Cr(III) could be adsorbed.

15) Ibid. Katzman reported that the nitrogen detected in groundwater at R-28 is in the form of nitrate, suggesting that its origin is in sewage.

16) R. N. Thorn and D. R. Westervelt, “Hydronuclear Experiments”, LA-10902-MS, Feb., 1987.

17) D. G. Levitt, etal , “Site Characterization and Monitoring of TA-49 at LANL”, in Proceedings of Waste Management ‘03 Conference, Tucson, AZ, Feb. 23-27, 2003.

18) Environmental Surveillance at Los Alamos during 2006, LA-14341-ENV.

19) Terry Morgan (LANL), during a discussion of EM issues at LANL, Aug., 2008. Present were T. Morgan, A. Simmons, L. Bonds-Lopez, and myself.

20) Unfortunately, all entries in the WQDB for metals in groundwater, prior to 1993, are for unfiltered samples; entries for filtered samples, begin in 1993. Although in Figs. 1-4, for data prior to 1993, I have recorded the values measured for unfiltered samples, beginning with 1993-1994 the recorded values are largely for filtered samples. Most importantly, the peaks appearing circa 1993-1994 are for filtered samples.

21) Environmental Surveillance at Los Alamos during 2007, (DRAFT) Executive Summary, Table ES-4, Sept., 2008.


Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Tritium in Groundwater and the RACER Database

The Department of Energy (DOE) has sponsored the creation of an online database and data analysis tool called Risk Analysis, Communication, Evaluation, and Reduction (RACER) located at www.racerdat.com. This tool is being administered by the New Mexico Community Foundation (NMCF) and has been publicly available since early 2009. Currently, it is said that there are approximately 7 million pieces of environmental data accessible through RACER. Presumably, most of these data pertain to contamination left by the DOE's nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

RACER is also a tentative component of the DOE's newly refurbished Environmental Justice (EJ) Program. DOE says that the its EJ program aims to assist members of economically disadvantaged communities across the United States to participate in evironmental decision-making. This would be a decision-making related to the disposition of detritus from large DOE operations; in particular, to the accumulated legacy waste from its nuclear weapons program. But, whether or not RACER will prove to be useful in this regard, remains to be seen.

Quoting from a January, 2010 letter from the NMCF to RACER users:

"RACER is the first project ever in the United States where the public has full access and full transparency to environmental data at a Department of Energy site. It's giving the public a voice in a way that it never really had before."

Continuing from the same letter (but paraphrasing somewhat):

Do you have questions about what chemical or radionuclear contaminants may be present in the Northern New Mexico environment?

For example, is the soil on the Pajarito Plateau contaminated with chemical residues from high-explosives tests conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory?

Has laboratory analysis confirmed the presence of radionuclides along your favorite hiking trail in Bandelier National Monument?

Have tritium levels in local groundwater ever exceeded national drinking water standards and, if so, where and when did this occur? (end of paraphrase)

Prior to the appearance of RACER, much of the groundwater data that it contains could be found in LANL's Water Quality Data Base (WQDB). However, the WQDB itself was withdrawn from public access in early 2009.

In my opinion, the extent to which RACER's data will act to "give the public a voice" is doubtful. Nevertheless, as an example of the kind of questions that could be raised by perusing this data, I've copied here a white-paper which I wrote in mid-2008, while a member of the DOE-sponsored Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board. The paper was concerned with tritium activities in groundwater on the Pajarito Plateau, and was based entirely on data taken from the WQDB. No response to the questions raised in this paper has ever been offered by representatives of LANL, or of the DOE.


RADIONUCLIDES in GROUNDWATER: A HISTORY of TRITIUM ACTIVITIES at LANL

Introduction

In an earlier communication(1), the first of a series, I presented a brief summary of the contents of LANL’s online Water Quality Data Base (WQDB). This was intended to serve as a non-technical introduction to the WQDB for members of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board (NNMCAB). Although no feedback was evoked from NNMCAB members, reaction to this overview from LANL staff was quick, and in the course of a long face-to-face conversation I was presented with many critical LANL thoughts(2).

In this, the latest installment in my ongoing study of the WQDB, I react to some of these criticisms, while I present a WQDB based history of tritium concentrations measured all around the LANL site, beginning in the 1960’s, and extending to the present day. I continue to hope that my efforts will help to inform the future work of the NNMCAB.

Throughout the following, some paragraphs are repeats taken, with minor modifications, from my earlier paper(1).

Data tabulated in the WQDB (www.wqdbworld.lanl.gov) is a record of the activities of specific radionuclides, at particular locations (wells or springs), usually in units of pCi/L (picocuries per liter). Uncertainties in measured values of activities are also usually tabulated, as well as the estimated(3) Minimum Detectable Amount (MDA). In many cases, the listed MDA is greater than the measured value of the activity, and its associated uncertainty. If so, then the measured activity is accompanied by a < sign, indicating that the measurement is thought to be of a “non-detect”(4). Often values of measured activities appear with a minus sign, indicating that the measured activity was less than the activity of a corresponding blank sample and, therefore, also of a non-detect(5).

Note that, generally, for activities recorded prior to 1995, no value at all for the MDA appears in the WQDB. In the following, I will not refer to data preceded by a < sign, or by a minus sign.

History of tritium activities

Keep in mind, while perusing the following, that the DOE sets the upper bound for acceptable values of tritium activity in drinking water at approximately 20,000 pCi/L.

Tritium, a beta emitter and essential to the weapons program, has been found to be widespread in groundwaters of the Pajarito Plateau. Levels in the alluvial wells of Los Alamos and Mortandad Canyons have been very high, until within the last ten years, when levels have subsided. For example, at LCAO-2 a value of 190000 pCi/L was measured on 8-13-70, but levels have decreased since then to a value of 64 pCi/L, returned on 1-15-08. At MCO-3 a level of 12000000 pCi/L was measured on 3-24-87, while the level was 5400 pCi/L on 7-12-04. Levels measured at drinking water wells have been moderately high until as recently as the 1980’s when they were found to be at 5900 pCi/L at PM-1 on 9-10-81, and 4200 pCi/L at PM-3 on 3-30-82. However, the measured levels at drinking water wells have now subsided to values of less than 1 pCi/L.

Levels measured at some wells of recent origin are also high; e.g., at the intermediate depth regional wells, such as R-6i, levels were 4300 pCi/L on 11-17-05, and 3800 pCi/L on 1-23-08. Levels measured at a few deep regional wells are a bit high. For example, a level of 195 pCi/L was returned from R-28 on 11-29-07, and a level of 28 pCi/L was returned from R-15 on 2-25-08.

Since 2001, levels returned from the Buckman wells have all been below 2 pCi/L. Prior to these recent measurements, there were only a very few measurements recorded. These occurred in 1973, and returned levels of approximately 100 pCi/L.

The highest recorded values of tritium activity are depicted in Fig. 1. Here, the history of detected tritium activity is displayed for the three sites, MCO-3, LAO-1, and PM-1. The first two of these sites are alluvial wells (shallow wells), one in Mortandad and one in Los Alamos Canyon, and the third site is a Los Alamos County drinking water well (deep well).

The similarity between these three histories is striking. The measured values of tritium activity were very low prior to 1970, jumped to high values, often suddenly, remained at a constant level for up to 2 decades and then, beginning around 1990, subsided slowly at a rate which was characteristic of the site.

In fact, this same behavior can be seen to have occurred at many other LANL locations. For example, Fig. 2 records the histories of tritium activities at the Mortandad Canyon alluvial well MCO-5, the Los Alamos County drinking water well PM-3, and the deep characterization well DT-10, located at TA-49. It seems that all these histories suggest a series of events in which some source of tritium contamination first appears around 1970, persists at a constant intensity until about 1990, and then subsides, either gradually or abruptly.

Looking back at Fig. 2, the decrease of the measured tritium activity with time, between 1987 and 2007, is very close to an exponential, with a resident half-life which I estimate to be about 7.6 years. Similarly, assuming an exponential decrease in tritium activities for the DT-10 and PM-1 histories too, I arrive at a value for the resident half-life in these two wells of about 12.3 years. Returning now to Fig. 1, I estimate the resident half-life of tritium in LAO-1 to be about 7.9 years.

Thus, it seems reasonable to conjecture that the deep wells PM-1 and DT-10, whose tritium resident half-lives I estimated to be 12.3 years, show time histories which reflect the natural decay rate of tritium (T1/2 = 12.3 yrs., for the beta decay of 3H), and suggest that the natural residence time for waters in the vicinity of the relevant well screens in these wells is much greater than 12 years. On the other hand, the shallow wells MCO-5 and LAO-1, have tritium resident half-lives which I estimated to be 7.6 to 7.9 years, suggesting that there is an exchange of waters in these wells with the surrounding area which takes place over a period of approximately 7 years.

The behavior of all of these histories of detected tritium activities is interesting, and has led to some prior well-informed speculation. In a August, 2005 paper(6), it was suggested by scientists working under contract to the DOE that this behavior could be traced to the contamination of groundwater by the Omega West reactor(7), formerly located at the head of Los Alamos Canyon. This reactor operated continuously from 1956 until 1992, when it was shut down for servicing, and soon thereafter decommissioned.

During the shut-down it was discovered that there was a leak of a significant size in a pipe buried underneath the reactor. This was a pipe which transported primary coolant water between the reactor and its external cooling tower. [Evidently, there was no provision made in the reactor design for a secondary coolant system, so that the primary coolant system could be completely contained within the reactor building, as is the case for all existing NRC licensed commercial power reactors.] At that time, it was said that it was not known for how long that the leak had existed.

[As is well-known, a fission reactor’s primary coolant should be completely isolated from the environment, since it contains a build-up of tritium produced by absorption of neutrons emitted by the 235U fuel. In cases where the fuel cladding has developed cracks or holes, highly radioactive fission products may also be released into the primary coolant. Among these is 99Tc.]

The radionuclide 99Tc, an electron(beta) emitter, is a common product of the fission of 235U, and does not occur naturally on the earth, except in the minutest of quantities. In fact, 99Tc is normally found in groundwater at activity levels as high as 1 pCi/L only in the immediate vicinity of a water cooled nuclear reactor. There, it can be ejected into the coolant during fission of the uranium fuel in the core, and may be released into the environment with coolant water effluents.

During the period 1956 to 1994 the Omega West reactor operated at the head of Los Alamos Canyon and occasionally deposited its wastes, containing 99Tc, directly into the canyon(8). Thus the presence of technetium in groundwater downstream of the now decommissioned Omega West reactor is a probable remnant of the operation of that reactor.

The high concentrations of 99Tc in the alluvial well LAUZ-1, in Los Alamos Canyon, and in the alluvial wells MCO-5, MCO-6, MCO-7, MCO-7.5, MT-1, MT-3-, and MT-4, in Mortandad Canyon, and in the intermediate wells MCOI-4, MCOI-5, and MCOI-6, in Mortandad Canyon, can be taken as evidence of contamination by effluents from that reactor. For example, 99Tc has been detected in groundwater taken from LAUZ-1 at levels of up to 38 pCi/L; in groundwater from MCO-7.5 at levels up to 23 pCi/L; and in groundwater from MCA-5 at levels up to16 pCi/L.

The regional wells R-22 and R-34 have shown the presence of 99Tc in groundwater taken from the aquifer underlying Mortandad Canyon, at levels of 5 pCi/L. However, there have been no detections of 99Tc at locations removed from the Pajarito Plateau. In particular, this radionuclide has not been detected in the Buckman wells.

Conclusion

Based upon the evidence presented, it is arguable that a major contribution to the past contamination of groundwater by tritium, beneath certain parts of the Pajarito Plateau, was made by a leak in the Omega West reactor primary coolant system, and that this source of contamination had been ongoing for as long as two decades(6).

[Oddly, during all this time, measurements of tritium activity in groundwater were also ongoing and evidence of the contamination of groundwater by tritium was persistent. It may seem difficult now to imagine how such data could not have been seen, at the time that it was being collected, as evidence for the existence of a major reactor leak. However, for as long as two decades, apparently nothing was done to put a stop to this potential hazard. Perhaps the hazard was judged to be of no great significance for the public health.

In this context, it is interesting to note that the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR), an arm of the United States Public Health Service, issued a report(8) in April of 2005, in which they found no evidence of impacts to public health from LANL operations, over the period 1980 to 2001. However, no mention is made in this report of the very high tritium activities, recorded during the period 1980-1995, in the groundwater of alluvial wells located in Los Alamos and Mortandad Canyons. Concerning tritium, the ATSDR only reports, without comment, measurements of tritium activities in certain biota; e.g., 27,000 pCi/L in honey from Mortandad Canyon, sampled in 1980; 11,000 pCi/L in elk bone, sampled in 1994-5; and 17,000 pCi/L in “produce”, collected in 1999. The ATSDR is unalarmed by these values since the DOE sets a standard for the tritium contamination of biota at approximately ten times its standard for tritium in drinking water.]

Bibliography

(1) “Summary [with commentary] of “Radionuclides in Groundwater” from LANL’s “Water Quality Data Base”, K. LaGattuta, NNMCAB, 7-18-08.
(2) Meeting called at LANL by Lorrie Bonds-Lopez to inform me of my errors: in attendance, besides myself, were Ms. Lopez, Ardyth Simmons, Terry Morgan, and Mike McLaughlin (briefly present), Aug., 2008.
(3) As pointed out by LANL’s Terry Morgan, the Minimum Detectable Amount (MDA) or, Minimum Detectable Activity, is the result of a “calculation”. It seems to me, however, that this calculation is only an approximation to some exact theory of error, and must be problematic to some degree. Therefore, it is fair to refer to it as an “estimate”. Note that, prior to ~1995, Results appearing in the WQDB are unaccompanied by any value at all for the MDA.
(4) The level at which the recorded activity of a particular radionuclide is said to be a “detect” is somewhat arbitrary. In fact, at various times this level has been set at the MDA plus one standard deviation (SD); at other times, a “detect” has been assigned as the MDA plus two SD’s; and at still other times, a “detect” has been set at the MDA plus three SD’s. For cases in which a measured activity is close to the MDA, it is necessary to ask: Is this value, returned by some analytical laboratory, a real measure of the activity of a particular radionuclide, or a measurement error of some sort? The answer can best be couched in terms of probabilities. Generally, as a measured value approaches the MDA from above, the probability of its being a real value and not an artifact should approach zero. But, the probability of a measured value of activity at, or even below, the MDA, being a real measure of activity, with non-zero probability, depends upon one’s estimation of the reliability of the precise value of the MDA. (The SD is an accepted measure of the most probable variation from the mean found in a lengthy data series. For the data recorded in the WQDB, the SD could be taken as the tabulated Uncertainty.)
(5) If the measured activity of a sample (S), inside a container, is less than the apparent measured activity of the empty container (C), then a negative value appears in the Results column of the WQDB; i.e., since Result = S-C. The data errors accumulated over the course of a lengthy series of sample measurements are partly due to the variable influence of the individual sample containers upon the measurement process.
(6) In, “A Vadose Zone Flow & Transport Model for Los Alamos Canyon, Los Alamos, New Mexico”, by Bruce A. Robinson, etal, published online, August 26, 2005. In this numerical simulation of tritium transport beneath the Pajarito Plateau, the authors estimate the source concentration of tritium in the Omega West reactor’s primary coolant water to be ~18 x 106 pCi/L. They also describe the history of detected tritium activities from LAO-1, and from LAO-3, both alluvial wells in Los Alamos Canyon.
(7) “Lab completes Omega West reactor decommissioning”, LANL Public Affairs, July 30, 2003.
(8) In, “LANL Public Health Assessment”, ATSDR/US-HHS, April 26, 2005. It seems that the ATSDR undertook this study, in part, because of worries expressed to it by members of the general public, living around Los Alamos, about possible deleterious health effects arising from past LANL operations. It is interesting to note a passage appearing on p94 of this Assessment: “Three underground storage tanks were used to hold liquid radioactive wastes produced when the Omega West reactor was active. Usually, when the tanks were full, their contents were emptied and transported to the TA-50 Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility. Occasionally, when the tanks were full, liquid waste water was discharged directly into Los Alamos Canyon.”



Fig. 1

Fig. 2