Senator EAGLETON. Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson.

WELDON SPRINGS, MO.

First, I would like to ask about an area that you may not be familiar with. If you are not, perhaps you or your staff could gather some background information for me; but there is an area adjacent to St. Louis County called Weldon Springs. It is a very large and advantageously located piece of property that has a considerable amount of radioactive waste.

Very frankly, I am not quite sure what went on out there. It was a very sort of hush-hush operation, as it well should have been, I guess. But in any event, the University of Missouri is looking for a new site in the St. Louis metropolitan area for a campus, and this is a beautiful piece of property, located contiguous to the growth patterns of the county, and on one of the major highways, Highway 40, which is the highway that goes from St. Louis to Kansas City.

As I have been told, there is a dispute between the Atomic Energy Commission and the Surgeon General, as to how safe or unsafe the property is, and what steps conceivably could be taken to clean it upto use my layman's language for use as a college campus or, indeed, any other use where people would be coming and going, and hopefully not exposed to any health hazards.

I am springing this on you, I admit, from off the top of my head, and you undoubtedly may have heard of the area, but I know you won't have the facts and figures and material with you. Could you supply it to the committee, and also to me, Senator Symington, and Congressman William Hungate, individually? Such information as you can provide about this particular piece of property is germane to what we are talking about here today, but it is just a specific part. If you wish to make any verbal comment, fine.

Mr. THOMPSON. I personally, of course, have no knowledge of this particular piece of property.

I can ask the group here, but I think we would probably do well just simply to say that we will supply you with the appropriate information.

Senator EAGLETON. Fine.

(Subsequently the following information was submitted :)

WELDON SPRING PLANT

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF SITE AND FACILITIES

The Weldon Spring Plant is in Missouri about 25 miles due west of downtown St. Louis, in the St. Charles County countryside on State Highway 94, less than two miles from its junction with U.S. Route 40. The plant is located on a gently rolling plot of cleared land of about 220 acres which was acquired from the Army. This plot adjoins a much larger U.S. Army Reserve training area. Other large adjoining tracts are occupied by a University of Missouri agricultural experiment farm and by the Busch Wildlife Area.

Construction of the AEC facilities was started in March 1955 and completed in December 1958, with some further improvements. The cost of the AEC facilities, excluding the value of the land, was $62.5 million as of April 1966. There are twelve major buildings and a number of smaller buildings on the site. The major structures include four process buildings, three pilot plants, a large laboratory, a personnel service building with a cafeteria, an air-conditioned administration and engineering office building, a boiler house, and a maintenance

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building. These are all accessible by paved roads and the usual industrial util ities, including a railroad spur, are available.

This plant was operated as an integrated facility to convert uranium ore concentrates and recycled scrap to pure uranium trioxide, uranium tetrafluoride, and massive uranium metal shapes. The production steps involved physical, chemical, and metallurgical processes using, in part, highly reactive chemical reagents. The output of the several processing units varied from 8,000 to 20,000 tons per year of purified uranium metal and compounds (known as "feed materials"). Laboratory and pilot plant facilities were installed to conduct an extensive metallurgical and chemical research and development program, as well as to conduct an intensive quality control effort in support of the operation.

SHUTDOWN OF THE PLANT

By 1966, the national defense needs had changed so that the AEC had an excess of production capacity for feed materials. Since the products from Weldon Springs were intermediate and required further processing at other feed materials plants, principally at Fernald, Ohio, economy dictated that feed materials activities be centralized at that site. Since the maximum value of the plant could best be salvaged by its continued use for nuclear purposes, the AEC solicited expressions of interest of that type. Serious discussions on takeover of the plant were held with the University of Missouri and the Kerr-McGee Corporation.

Before any definite proposal had been made by any party, the U.S. Army exercised its right to reacquire the property under Public Law 84-1006. This reacquisition was agreed to on an "as-is" basis. In October, 1967 an AEC license was issued to the Army for possession and storage of source and special nuclear material present in the plant a residual contamination. This license was later amended to cover decontamination as necessary in the Army's conversion of the plant to its own uses. By the end of 1967, AEC and AEC contractor personnel had completed all close-out activities and full responsibility for the plant was assumed by the Army, except for certain radioactive waste areas discussed in more detail below.

The Army's need for reacquisition of the Weldon Spring plant, as announced to the local press at the time, was for manufacture of herbicides to be used as defoliants in Vietnam. We understand that this need no longer exists and the question of site disposal is therefore reopened.

RADIATION HAZARDS WITHIN THE PLANT

During the final stages of shutting down AEC production in the plant, the process vessels were flushed and drained in an attempt to recover the valuable uranium. Equipment which could be used at Fernald was transferred to that site. The many pieces of equipment left in place are likely to be internally contaminated with uranium which could not be removed by the flushing process. There are also places external to the process equipment, but within the buildings, which have traces of contamination from maintenance operations, leakage. or spillage during the ten years of operation.

Generally, the potential hazard encountered with uranium is low relative to almost all other radioactive materials. The penetrating radiation from uranium is of such low intensity that under current occupational radiation exposure standards, the working areas in an operating plant such as Weldon Spring can be continuously occupied. Protective clothing and respiratory protection would not ordinarily be required except in the immediate vicinity of visible amounts of loose contamination or in an area subject to leakage of corrosive chemicals. Conversion of the plant to some other nuclear application by properly trained personnel would require little or no decontamination. However, conversion to a non-nuclear use, with no further administrative controls or radiation training for the new personnel, involves different decontamination goals and criteria.

Over a period of years AEC radiation protection staff have developed criteria for unconditional release of materials with slight, but not hazardous, levels of contamination. These criteria have been used on an ad hoc basis a number of times, such as for the cleanup and release of the Middlesex, New Jersey, sampling plant, and were provided to the Army for guidance in connection with possible Weldon Spring decontamination efforts. Except for this, the AEC has

We now understand that reservations are being expressed about high cost estimates for completing decontamination of the plant, and that some of these costs are attributed to decontamination criteria from the Surgeon-General of the Army which are more restrictive than the AEC criteria. Without knowledge of the scope and methods of the decontamination plans and the rationale and method of application of the criteria, we cannot offer any detailed comments. As a general comment, the complete removal of equipment from any industrial plant of several acres of floor area would be highly expensive regardless of contamination complications.

RADIOACTIVE WASTE AREAS

The AEC has remained responsible for four basins, covering approximately 26 acres north of the plant buildings. These basins excavated out of the native impermeable clay, were used to clean up plant liquid wastes by permitting gravity settling of suspended process residues. The radioactive content of the residues, estimated at 150 tons of uranium, 76 tons of thorium, and 1.5 tons of slightly enriched uranium, is dispersed through about six million cubic feet of solids on the bottoms of the basins. Because of the compaction of the solids and their low radioactivity concentration, the occasional run-off of accumulated rainwater in these basins shows no radioactivity above acceptable levels. This type of basin is widely used in the chemical and minerals processing industries and the compacted bottom sludges are usually considered as the final storage of the solid wastes.

The AEC has also remained responsible for a quarry about four miles from the plant site. This quarry has been used for burial of contaminated solids and radioactive residues from Weldon Spring and from the demolition of an original Manhattan Project (Destrahan Street) feed materials plant in the city of St. Louis. Surplus thorium residues from a General Services Administration storage site were also disposed of into the quarry. Continuing surveillance of nearby wells and streams has shown no spread of radioactivity from this quarry. Before the AEC took over this quarry, it was used by the Army to dispose of explosivecontaminated rubble, and the Army has retained and used the right to make such use of the quarry. The quarry and the settling basins are both fenced to prevent trespass.

SUMMARY

The residual contamination in the Weldon Spring processing buildings, and the radioactive wastes in the adjacent settling basins and the quarry four miles away, are not a hazard to their environment. The buildings could be adapted to some other nuclear use with little or no decontamination, but decontamination would be required for a non-nuclear use. In either case, substantial costs could be involved for equipment removal due to the size of the plant.

Senator EAGLETON. Fine. Now, back on the track here.

Mr. THOMPSON. Nobody has any other particular knowledge, I think, in the group we happen to have here this morning. Senator EAGLETON. Fine.

OCEAN DUMPING

Under what regulatory authority has the AEC disposed of radioactive wastes at sea, in the past?

What criteria are used to determine dumping sites? The Corps of Engineers, I think, came before this committee in recent days, and had something to say about this subject matter.

Mr. THOMPSON. I have mentioned that we did, prior to 1960, utilize commercial seas-disposal services, and that these services were all licensed under the Division of Licensing and Regulation, which is a part of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Because of the fact that, at about that time, it became apparent that it was economically advantageous to use land disposal, a general shift

occurred to people using land disposal and, since 1960, no licenses for sea disposal have been issued.

There do remain some licenses still in effect. A number of those that have been issued, have been terminated as the people have dropped out of this sort of work, but there are a few of these licenses still in existence.

To my best knowledge, there were no sea disposals that we know of in the calendar year of 1968 and, to our best knowledge, only one in

1969.

Senator EAGLETON. Following up on that, is the AEC the sole regulatory authority of this kind of operation, or do you work in consort with other governmental agencies or, finally, do other governmental agencies make the ultimate decision and you just act in an advisory capacity?

Mr. THOMPSON. Because it involves the disposal of radioactive wastes, it is a responsibility of the Atomic Energy Commission. Senator EAGLETON. Solely and exclusively?

Mr. THOMPSON. To my best knowledge. I know of nobody else that has ever been involved in it, and I have followed it fairly closely for about 10 years.

BURIAL PRACTICES

Senator EAGLETON. When disposing of radioactive wastes by burial, what long-term monitoring is conducted regarding environmental effects?

Mr. THOMPSON. I think probably I would like to ask Walter Belter to answer that in more detail, because he has followed that and is in charge of that area.

Mr. BELTER. As far as long-term monitoring, each of the commercial burial sites, and I believe you are referring to the commercial burial sites, or are you referring to operations at the AEC sites?

Senator EAGLETON. Well, I take it what we are interested in is methodology, and the differences, if there be any, which this has raised. What criteria are used in determining disposal sites?

Mr. BELTER. Yes. In either type of operation, these burial sites are under very careful control in areas which are restricted from public

use.

There are monitoring wells that are drilled around the burial sites, and there are periodic samples taken of the water in these wells, which are sampled for radioactivity, to determine whether any of the radioactivity is migrating out of the burial ground.

Depending on the size of the operation-for example, the AEC site at Hanford, Wash.-there are over 600 monitoring wells in that

area.

At the commercial burial grounds, the number of monitoring wells will vary, from one or two wells to several wells, depending on the location and the local geology and hydrology of the site.

The environmental criteria on which these burial grounds are selected are principally geologic and hydrologic in nature. In the case of commercial burial grounds, all proposed industrial sites must pass the licensing review process of the Atomic Energy Commission, who utilize the expertise of the U.S. Geological Survey, in evaluating these sites for acceptability from a geologic and hydrologic stand

In some cases, there have been well pumping tests at the sites, to determine the extent of ground water available at that location, the direction and flow of ground water, and this information is then used to determine whether the site is suitable for the disposal of low-level solid waste materials.

In summary, it is these types of environmental evaluating along with postoperational well monitorings that the Commission uses in concert with other Government agencies, like the U.S. Geological Survey to evaluate the suitability of land burial sites.

As was mentioned in Dr. Thompson's testimony, in the monitoring of burial grounds, there has not been any radioactivity above natural background detected in the ground water surrounding the burial sites.

DEEP-WELL INJECTION

Senator EAGLETON. The Commission has been using deep-well injection for disposing of radioactive wastes.

What experience has the Commission had in monitoring the environmental effects of the materials disposed in the deep wells?

What information can the Commission provide which would help industrial and commercial organizations in the deep well disposal of toxic materials?

Mr. THOMPSON. I believe I would like to ask Mr. Belter.

Mr. BELTER. To respond generally to that question, there has been only one deep-well operation licensed by the Atomic Energy Commission. This is a uranium mill near Grants, N. Mex. I believe it is the Anaconda Corp. mill.

This well was installed primarily for disposal of chemical wastes. There was a problem with nitrates that existed in the liquid waste effluent, which I understand were being detected in some focal wells as a result of seepage from ponds used for mill effiuents. This served, then, as an incentive for going to deep-well disposal.

There was some radiocative material in the effluent, principally radium 226, but I believe it was primarily a chemical waste problem. That is the only deep-well operation which has been licensed by the AEC to date.

We have looked at this technique in our research and development program, as far back as 1958, both for the disposal of low-level and high-activity liquid wastes. We have concluded, with the assistance of noted geologists and geophysicists, from groups like the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the American Petroleum Institute, that for deep-well injection of high-activity wastes, we would first have to separate this waste stream into two parts.

There are enough suspended solid and colloidal materials in our high-activity liquid wastes that we would have to pretreat the wastes and remove the solids before injecting the liquid affluent into the well. This, then, would create a separate waste disposal problem, and as Dr. Thompson has summarized, the state of solidification technology for high-activity wastes, and disposal in selected geologic formations of the solids, are such that we believe this type of system has more practical merit at the present time.

As far as low-level wastes are concerned, the technique may have some application, depending on the type of geology or hydrology that would exist at a certain site. But, even here, a word of caution is in