NucNews: Radioactive groundwater skyrocketing in Denver 9/16/98
Peace through Reason
Denver Post Online, September 16, 1998
EPA cleanup of Shattuck not working, city claims
By Mark Eddy
Denver Post Environment Writer
Sept. 16 - Levels of radioactivity in groundwater flowing
from beneath the Shattuck Superfund site have
skyrocketed in the last four years, tests conducted by the
city of Denver show.
"Clearly, the EPA remedy at the Shattuck site is not
working,'' said Theresa Donahue, manager of Denver's
Department of Environmental Health. Ten wells were
tested on the Overland Golf Course, just west of the
radioactive waste dump at 1805 S. Bannock. Two of the
worst wells are within a half-mile of the South Platte
River and "significantly'' violate standards set by the
EPA, Donahue said. Standards exceeded
Uranium concentrations at one well have increased by 75
times since 1994 and all 10 had contamination levels that
exceeded EPA's cleanup standards for Shattuck.
EPA, which along with the state health department
ordered in 1992 that 50,000 cubic yards of soil - enough
to cover a football field 30 feet deep - contaminated with
radioactive uranium and radium and heavy metals be
buried at the site at 1805 S. Bannock St., confirmed that
its tests also showed increases in radioactivity. But, that
doesn't mean the controversial cleanup, which should be
completed by the end of the month, isn't working, said Jim
Hanley, EPA's project manager for Shattuck.
"I don't think that anyone expected that the remedy would
be completely effective on Day One. I expect that most
people thought that the contamination migration away
from the waste would attenuate over time and it would
take a number of years before it actually goes down,''
Hanley said. The city has jumped the gun with its claims
that the cleanup is a failure, he said. "I'm sort of surprised
at the city's interpretation here. I don't think there's any
requirement for us to be in (compliance) immediately.''
Experts at the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment haven't examined the data yet, but they are
trying to figure out "if we have an issue out there,'' said
Howard Roitman, director of the Hazardous Materials
and Waste Management Division.
"We're looking seriously at the issue. But right now based
just on what Denver's put out, we can't give an assessment
on it - but we are working on it,'' he said. The soil was
contaminated during operations at the 6-acre site from the
1920s through the 1980s when several companies
processed uranium, radium and vanadium. The Shattuck
Chemical Co. was the last to operate at the site and is
responsible for the cleanup.
The city as well as several neighborhood groups fought
the EPA's decision to mix the contaminated soil with
flyash and entomb it in a monolith on the site - which is 4
miles from Downtown Denver, a block from houses and
just two blocks from the busy South Broadway business
district. The city and neighbors wanted it moved to a
remote, federally licensed facility in Utah and the EPA
originally agreed, but officials at the agency reversed
their decision and ordered the soil buried on-site. Soil
from nine other similar sites in Denver was all moved to
Utah.
The test results released Tuesday are a followup to those
conducted earlier this summer when the city discovered
that a storm sewer pipe draining into the South Platte
River was contaminated with heavy metals, just as it was
before the Shattuck site was cleaned up. EPA hasn't
monitored groundwater, which isn't used for drinking
water, or outflow from the storm sewer pipe since 1994
and was unaware of the contamination until the city sent
the agency initial findings this summer, the agency
confirmed.
After the city's tests showed heavy metals are still leaking
into the storm sewer, Denver and the EPA took samples
and tested for heavy metals and radioactivity in both the
storm sewer and monitoring wells on the golf course.
Although heavy metals are leaking into the river,
radioactivity in the storm pipe is within federal standards,
the tests show.
The city hopes to force the EPA into a complete
evaluation of possible groundwater contamination and to
ultimately move the contaminated soil out of Denver. The
latest tests show again that the EPA botched the cleanup,
Donahue said. own tests, Hanley said.
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Geneva Hagen
If anyone knows which breweries are based in the Denver area, these are
probably good brands to avoid!
G