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The 100-Year Plan Pantex plan to clean water By Greg Rohloff The Department of Energy's preferred option for cleaning up fouled groundwater beneath Pantex before it reaches the Ogallala Aquifer would continue pumping the aquifer and treating the contaminated water while adding additional monitoring wells and treating some contaminants at the site. The 100-year plan The catch, though, is the cleanup could take 100 years to complete. The proposal was introduced March 31. The transcript for the meeting will be posted to the Pantex Web site, www.pantex.com, on April 15. Written comments on the proposal can be submitted through April 28, with a decision expected by late May or early June on how the cleanup operations will proceed, said Dennis Huddleston, environmental projects and operations division manager at Pantex. Written comments should be sent to Brenda Finley at the Pantex Site Office, P.O. Box 30030, Amarillo, TX 79120. Additionally, a draft of the plan was to be presented last week at the Highland Park ISD Administration Building. Groundwater advisers Dr. Mindy Vanderford of GSI Environmental Inc. and Dr. Larry Deschaine of Science Applications International Corp. were to present their analysis of the cleanup needs at Pantex. Huddleston, responding after the meeting to a question raised by groundwater hydrologist George Rice of San Antonio, who is working with Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping, said that much of the contamination is 50 to 60 years old, and that cleaning is a time-consuming process that will cost an estimated $35 million, according to DOE figures. As with environmental groups, the DOE is far from pleased with the length of time that the cleanup could take. "None of us like that," Huddleston said. WW II contamination Contamination at the site east of Amarillo dates to the plant's origins as a World War II munitions plant, Huddleston said, although that contamination has largely been cleared with the removal of soil. When Pantex converted to a nuclear weapons assembly plant in 1951, some of its buildings got rid of its waste by dumping it into lined drainage ditches, Huddleston said. The last of that system of waste removal ended in the late 1990s, when the last ditches were replaced with connections to a wastewater treatment plant. Those wastes percolated into the perched aquifer that has an average depth of 276 feet below the surface. The Ogallala Aquifer has a depth of about 350 to 820 feet below the surface. The contaminants are largely industrial chemicals used in the manufacturing process at Pantex, Huddleston said. All told, the cleanup project tests for 40 substances in the groundwater, including high explosives, metals and organic compounds. The pump-and-treat system has removed 5,593 pounds of high explosives and 330 pounds of chromium, according to DOE records. The contaminants pose the greatest threat to the Ogallala near the south and east edges of the plant where the perched aquifer tends to flow downward, Huddleston said. Rice, the only non-DOE speaker at the meeting, asked that the DOE clarify its intentions about any possible property acquisitions east of Pantex, where additional contamination has occurred. However, DOE's format for the presentation did not include the possibility of responses from officials to public questions or comments. Although some contaminants have been found in the Ogallala beneath Pantex, testing has not indicated any specific plumes of contaminants, which would indicate a location in need of immediate attention. The cleanup plan calls for continued testing of the Ogallala. The plan also calls for additional testing for soil contaminants, which have included chemicals and radionuclides, so that contaminants will not reach the groundwater. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: April 10, 2008
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