Where Have You Gone?

The U.S. Air Force is investigating whether radioactive waste is buried at more than 80 former and current air bases across the country, including the site of a new federal prison in central California.

Air Force health experts believe the radioactive material, generated by nuclear-weapons maintenance in the 1950s and 1960s, poses "no immediate public health risk as long as these burial sites are not disturbed," according to the Air Force's written responses to questions posed by The Wall Street Journal. It is far from certain, however, that the sites are undisturbed: Many of the former bases were decommissioned and cleared for public use years ago.

For example, the $100 million, maximum-security penitentiary in Atwater, Calif., east of San Francisco, occupies the former Castle Air Force Base, once part of the Cold War-era Strategic Air Command. The recently built prison is on a part of the base near where munitions were kept -- and where investigators from the Air Force Safety Center suspect nuclear weapons were maintained and stored.

The radiation investigation is one of several lingering environmental sores afflicting the Pentagon as it unloads dozens of military bases around the country. Since the radiological sites haven't been monitored in years, military officials aren't certain where such waste is buried and whether the dumping areas pose a danger. The matter has gained new urgency as the Air Force seeks to have more bases converted into parks, schools and other uses, potentially exposing more civilians to risk.

Burial of radiological waste in shallow trenches or sealed pipes was the "prescribed" disposal method in the 1950s and '60s, the Air Force says. It was assumed low levels of radioactivity wouldn't penetrate the soil cover.The buried materials included wipes, gloves, protective clothing and tape used to clean and maintain so-called unsealed nuclear weapons -- early devices in which the nuclear material was kept separate from the trigger.

The Air Force says it lost track of the burial sites because of poor record keeping and is trying to identify and inspect the lands for safety concerns. The Air Force says its real-estate managers learned about the buried waste a few years ago. But an internal Air Force survey from 1972, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, indicates many of the radioactive dumps were well documented at least three decades ago. The report, entitled "Burial of Radioactive Waste in the USAF," named 46 bases where the service knew radioactive waste was buried, including Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, and others on the list of 80 bases the Air Force may investigate.

In most cases, the report recommended digging up the waste for proper disposal by licensed contractors. The report also recommended amending Air Force procedures on such sites, "to prevent their return to civilian control without some consideration of the radioactive contamination." Last week, the Air Force told federal, state and local officials in California it will dispatch technical teams to the Castle site next week to brief officials there about possible radioactive waste. Teams also will re-evaluate buildings, at Castle and elsewhere, to be sure they still are suitable for public use, according to an Air Force fact sheet distributed in some local communities.

Atwater and Merced County officials said no prison inmates are housed in former base buildings, although the prison uses some old Castle facilities for storage and maintenance.

In Washington, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the investigation, referring questions to the Air Force. The Air Force also is looking at the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force Base, in upstate New York. The Air Force has told the base-conversion agency that experts will investigate a former weapons-storage area, now occupied by a Canadian company, Nexia Biotechnologies.

Lenny Siegel, director of the nonprofit Center for Public Environmental Oversight, which monitors military cleanups, praises the Air Force for disclosing the current investigation. But it would have been more timely a decade ago, when many of the bases were closed and the cleanups began, he says.

The Air Force, in its written responses to questions, says the delay was caused by lax record-keeping in the 1950s and 1960s. But community leaders think there's more to it. "We're very suspicious they're still trying to cover things up," says Angel Martinez, an organizer with Southwest Workers Union, a nonprofit group that has battled the Air Force for years over cleanup of the former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. Kelly's radioactive waste site -- buried beneath the sixth fairway on the base's golf course -- was on the Air Force's list in 1972 and is among the 80 bases where radioactive waste may be buried. A 1999 "Public Health Assessment," by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, found the buried site at Kelly didn't pose a public-health threat. But Ms. Martinez says many of the poor, mostly Hispanic residents living nearby worry about what they see as elevated rates of cancer, diabetes and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, as possibly linked to radioactivity or other contaminants. "We're fighting for them to clean up the base as a whole," she says, "but they say it's too expensive to dig all that stuff out. They look at the cost more than anything else."

Radiation is a known cause of some types of cancer; the causes of ALS are unknown. In public-health terms, the Air Force says its "worst case" estimate for radioactivity exposure at undisturbed burial sites is less than 0.4 millirem per year. That is a small fraction of the 25 millirems per year the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deems dangerous, the Air Force says, and the 15 millirems per year the Environmental Protection Agency considers hazardous.

Some businesses occupying the former base sites were shocked to learn the Air Force is raising these questions now. In Plattsburgh, Nexia's chief executive officer, Jeffrey Turner, said he wasn't aware there was a radiological-waste probe. Daniel Wieneke, president and chief executive of Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corp., which operates the thriving industrial park on Lake Champlain, said, "We'll have to look at the risk-assessment values and proceed after the Air Force does its investigation. It is late in the game to have this come on, very late in the game."

In addition to the Castle and Plattsburgh bases, the Air Force plans on-site investigations at three other decommissioned installations: March Air Force Base in Riverside, Calif.; Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, N.H.; and Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. The Air Force said it believes radiological material may be buried at the five sites, based on documents and interviews with retired personnel. It is weighing whether to expand inspections to the list of 80 or so active and inactive bases where nuclear weapons were once handled.

I'm curious- how does one reach such a state both paranoia, and complete cognitive dysfunction? How many years of education does it take for someone to fear " wipes, gloves, protective clothing and tape used to clean and maintain so-called unsealed nuclear weapons -- early devices in which the nuclear material was kept separate from the trigger."

Here's a thought- let's advertise a meeting for those that are concerned- walk them into the auditorium, lock the doors...and then burn the place down.

I suspect the average American IQ would be boosted by a small but measurable amount.

Apes.

Interesting. I posted this to let the Californians know that they could be an experimental storage location at Castle.

I was assisting in the grading of an exercise, Broken Aero, at Mather in 1990, and we had unexpected real world reading on two separate stapexes from air samples. It shut down the exercise. There is a current cleanup operation at Mather on each end of the runway. They had an operational bullpen and 52's there until 1989 when they were moved to different bases to include Castle even though it was being closed. The WSA (Weapons Storage Area) was closed in 1992.

The problem is not the gloves or miscellaneous items listed, but the possibility of buried waste that has a half life of about 10,000 years.

"many of the poor, mostly Hispanic residents living near by worry..."

Phrases like these make me skeptical, they are usually buzzwords for "liberal agenda".

However this is something that should be investigated, if there is any truth to it. It's not too hard for me to imagine the government (between the 1950's and now) acting like Homer Simpson with his box of donuts on the panel at the nuclear power plant going: DOH!

The problem is not the gloves or miscellaneous items listed, but the possibility of buried waste that has a half life of about 10,000 years.

If the half-life is that long, the amount of radioactivity being emitted must be pretty low. Quantity of radioactivity and half-life have an inverse relationship.

In public-health terms, the Air Force says its "worst case" estimate for radioactivity exposure at undisturbed burial sites is less than 0.4 millirem per year. That is a small fraction of the 25 millirems per year the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deems dangerous, the Air Force says, and the 15 millirems per year the Environmental Protection Agency considers hazardous.

Less than 0.4 millirem sounds like it would be almost indistinguishable from background radiation. In other words, not a problem. Some radiation is necessary for health. Taking into account some of the other things mentioned in this article, it sounds to me like certain groups have a political agenda, and damaging the reputation of the Air Force is one of their goals.

"We're very suspicious they're still trying to cover things up," says Angel Martinez, an organizer with Southwest Workers Union, a nonprofit group that has battled the Air Force for years over cleanup of the former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. Kelly's radioactive waste site -- buried beneath the sixth fairway on the base's golf course -- was on the Air Force's list in 1972 and is among the 80 bases where radioactive waste may be buried. A 1999 "Public Health Assessment," by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, found the buried site at Kelly didn't pose a public-health threat.

In a nutshell, lawyers with nothing to do.

Given that a US nuclear worker is allowed 500 mrem per year exposure, and that is a conservative limit set by the NRC, I think these estimates show there is no problem. It's like asbestos, if it's encapsulated, it's existence is hurting nobody.

On the subject of Asbestos, I think common sense should prevail, but abatement is a scam set up by the government.

I think it is more than lawyers. You'll notice that the only questionable locations they expounded upon, were for over 30 years ago. Castle and Mather closed in the 90's. The "hiding" of nucleur waste at any level is not supposed to be done, and the Castle location was created during the Clinton/Gore time frame. A number of bases/posts closed during this time, so we don't know how many locations were created, or on the list of 80, during this, so called, environmentally concious administration. Especially since Gore and Clinton, who are creating quite a media blitz of their own, are still out there and representing their party while taking cheap shots at President Bush. Don't you feel that this would be another black mark against the liberal party if it was proven, and how much damage would it do to Hilary's run projected for 2004? After all, "she's the smartest woman in the world" and should have known this.

Less than 0.4 millirem sounds like it would be almost indistinguishable from background radiation. In other words, not a problem. Some radiation is necessary for health.

From what I understand the survivors of the hiroshima and nagasaki bombs lived incredibly healthy lives (once they recovered from the actual blast that is).

Radiation is not as bad as theliberals make it out to be. Your average frequent flyer gets more exposure than most radiation workers.

The problem was not in the realization that these places contained this stuff: The problem was in the inability to dispose of it.

The government has laws regarding the collection of hazardous waste: That which is collected must be separated and identified. Much of the stuff was a jumble of wastes--partially unknown and often inseparable. This being the case, the waste was stuck where it was, and the "offender" was stuck with it.

In a Catch 22 situation, the sites had/have to continually pay fines on an old mess, the condition of which they cannot rectify.

There were dozens of Broken Arrows in the 1950's and 1960's and few in the 1970's. Some are well published and documented public information, others are not. In every case the clean up involved sweeping, vacuuming, and hosing down the contaminated area. The usual method of disposal was to bulldoze an uninhabited area of the base and cover with it dirt. In some cases the pit was only 20 feet deep and/or located over ground water.

Part of the problem was that radiation detection instruments were rather crude and incapable of detecting the levels of radiation that are now easily measurable. If the contamination could not be measured it had to be considered clean. Knowledge of how contaminants move through ground water and the air had not even been developed yet.

Having said all that, I know of one case where the enviro-wacko lawyers began making a stink over measured levels of contamination. It was proved that they had been measuring naturally occuring background and not man made contamination. The jury still ruled in favor of the enviro-wackos.

I understand what you're saying, but, the event I described at Mather was not a Broken Aero, it was an exercise with a parked KC-135 as a simulation. There wasn't supposed to be any readings at all. That's why I asked them to bring out a separate stapex. We thought the first one was broken. (I almost wrote them up for not op-checking the first one) That is the point I was trying to get across. During the 90's, the president signed off a lot of disposal that was questionable, if not illegal. And for the, so called, leader of the ecologist supporting party, this is manure.

"In a Catch 22 situation, the sites had/have to continually pay fines on an old mess, the condition of which they cannot rectify."

Wouldn't it wonderful if it were true. The interesting part of all the testing and disposal of nucleur waste is that the government has been "sticking it" in so many places even they don't know where it is. And fining them is almost impossible becaue of it. It's kind of like auditing the GAO. Don't try, anyone is out of their league.
But that is the gist of this article as Free Republic is geared around the central California area, and Merced is about an hour north of Fresno, FR's home. I thought it might be interesting to them.

The University of California did radiation research starting in the 1950s, and kept a colony of beagles as research subjects. Some dogs were injected with Strontium-90 (a radioactive iodine-like chemical that goes straight into the thyroid) and observed. The last of these radioactive dogs died in the 1970s at the ripe old age of 18. Isn't that something like 126 in people years?

The dangers of radiation are overrated.

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