ONE WOMAN'S CRUSADE AGAINST NUCLEAR CRUD
Allen, Jan
One woman's crusade against nuclear crud Kay Drey knows the cleanser won't work Jan Allen Kay Drey is a St. Louis housewife who has launched a one-woman crusade against the nuclear industry. She...
...Persistence has paid off for Kay Drey — at least initially...
...Crerar's study, published in the August 1978 issues of Science magazine, found that "an extremely strong complexing agent [solvent] commonly used in decontamination operations at nuclear facilities is causing the low-level migration of radionuclides from intermediate-level liquid waste disposal pits and trenches in the Oak Ridge Laboratory burial grounds...
...Gofman, contacted at his home in San Francisco, agrees...
...Ed uses for the matter) has been building up for many years in the piping of the reactor coolant system...
...and may be contributing to the mobilization of these radionuclides from various other waste burial sites around the country...
...After reading that a chemical solvent was going to be used at Dresden, Drey became concerned that it might contain the chelating agents that Dr...
...I am concerned with the workers being around the evaporation process," Drey says...
...For the safety of the public and the workers, and for the protection of our country, can we count on you to demand that a full environmental impact statement be prepared immediately...
...Such an assessment will, she is certain, indicate the need for an environmental impact statement...
...The resulting solid radioactive wastes will be shipped to a low-level waste burial site...
...The exact magnitude I couldn't say, but there will be cancer and leukemia induced in those workers in proportion to the dose they get____ The legalized dose is simply a permit to commit murder...
...and many of those men are condemned to die of cancer later, but that has never bothered the utility companies...
...Commonwealth Edison officials and the local Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector, Jimmy Barker, point out that Dresden is now nineteen years old and has become contaminated with radioactive matter to such a degree that maintenance has become extremely difficult...
...This information was given to Drey only after repeated letters and calls to the DOE spanning several months — and then only after Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy sent letters to the DOE requesting that the Department answer her questions...
...She cites a study conducted by Dr...
...The DOE letter continued, "The accumulated radioactive solvent stored in the new facility is to be processed by first concentrating it by evaporation, and then solidifying the resulting concentrate using a new process developed for that purpose...
...Radioactive gases can be very lethal, even in minute quantities...
...It read, in part, "Once the primary coolant has been drained [of the solvent and crud], the temporary piping and equipment will be removed and the reactor primary system will be recommissioned...
...The pipes will be removed by workers, and Drey is concerned that these workers may receive Tiigh doses of radiation from the pipes as they are removing them...
...Crerar proved contributed to the movement of radioactive particles from inside containers to the environment...
...Where a man could go indefinitely in 1960, and could stay for forty-five minutes in 1969, he can now only go for a minute and a half," says a Com Ed spokesman...
...To proceed with the Dresden experiment while they remain unanswered would be egregious folly...
...Kay Drey charges, however, that the solvent being proposed by Dow may contain chelating (pronounced key-la-ting) agents which encourage the migration of the radioactive materials from storage vessels into the environment...
...Ever since Karen Silkwood's death in November 1974, I have put all my energies into investigating the policies and behavior of the nuclear industry," Kay Drey said in a recent interview...
...It's like putting roller skates on the radionuclides," she said...
...On February 6, she received a six-page letter from the DOE describing the cleaning process...
...The water from the evaporation process will further be cleaned, as necessary, through a demineralizer resin bed to remove any residual radioactivity which may have been carried in the steam...
...David Crerar, geochemist at Princeton University...
...She is quick to admit that she has no scientific credentials, but during the past four-and-a-half years she has spoken with and compiled data from some of the most respected authorities on nuclear power, chemistry, and radiation, including Dr...
...Whatever happens, she says, she will continue her struggle to have the Dresden experiment postponed...
...One of her projects is a thorough investigation into the experimental cleaning process recently initiated at Unit 1 of the Dresden Nuclear Generating Station near Morris, Illinois...
...Drey believes the answers provided by the DOE are not sufficient, so she has filed with the Council on Environmental Quality, the NRC, and the DOE a formal request for an environmental impact assessment...
...She contacted Paul Pettie, program manager for coolant chemistry and decontamination of light water reactor development at the Department of Energy, as well as representatives of Dow Chemical Co., and both agencies refused to supply her with the chemical ingredients of the solvent...
...Drey believes the use of the decontamination process at Dresden may be harmful to those who must live near the eventual burial sites...
...In an open letter to President Jimmy Carter, various Government officials, two Illinois Senators, and Illinois Attorney General William Scott, Drey stated, "These questions are of profound import...
...With NRC approval, and an $8.2 million subsidy from the Department of Energy, Com Ed's subcontractor, Dow Chemical Company, has developed a solvent and cleaning procedure which it says will remove crud and make the reactor capable of continued operation...
...They may succeed in getting some of that material out, but the price to society is high...
...Mrs...
...Crerar, who was hired by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to determine why certain radionuclides were migrating from the storage trenches at the laboratory into the environment...
...Drey contends that questions concerning plant worker safety, the disposal of the wastes after compaction, and the possibility of chelating agents in the solvent should all be answered by a formal environmental impact document...
...The cleaning process is a semi-disaster," he says...
...They [the chelating agents] dissolve these radionuclides and they go zipping through the environment...
...After writing to the DOE for a description of the procedure to be used at Dresden, Drey became increasingly concerned — this time for the workers who will participate in the cleaning...
...The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has formally accepted her petition for an environmental impact assessment, and the Department of Energy has promised to investigate...
...The Illinois Attorney General's office also is pursuing the matter...
...John Gofman, radiation specialist, heart researcher, and professor emeritus of the University of California, and Dr...
...Com Ed officials say that in order for Dresden Unit 1 to continue operations, the "crud" must be cleaned out of the pipes...
...The radioactivity is bad enough, but they are absolutely uncontainable when they are bonded to these chelating agents...
...Gofman notes that the chelating agents make radioactive particles more readily absorbed by humans and plants, while also contributing to leaching out of burial trenches...
...He adds: "The workers are going to get irradiated with some dose...
...Radioactive "crud" (the term Com , Jan Allen is a free-lance writer in St...
...In a letter to Drey, Pettie stated, "The formulation of the solvent is known to the DOE staff, but it is protected from release to the public by a proprietary agreement...
Vol. 43 • August 1979 • No. 8
