Contamination at Sandia National Laboratories
Posted by Timothy Wheeler on June 09, 1999 at 14:24:57:In Reply to: Sandia posted by Joan Seeman on June 08, 1999 at 22:29:14:
Joan,
Your posting is a little confusing, but maybe you're just not familiar with the location of Sandia National Laboratories.
Sandia is located on Kirkland Airforce Base in Albuquerque, about 60 miles or so south of Santa Fe. No surface or groundwater contamination at Sandia would affect Santa Fe.
With regard to contamination at Sandia, Sandia has been conducting an Environmental Restoration project to identify and remediate contaminated sites. However, you should understand that the size of these sites and the level of contamination of these sites (some involving radioactive materials and wastes, others involving hazardous wastes) are a far cry from what exists at sites such as Rocky Flats and Handford. Sandia's Environmental Restoration project is miniscule compared to what is being done (or contemplated) at some other DOE sites. The Environmental remediation project at Sandia generates low-level radioactive waste as a result of its clean up activities. The radioactive waste is shipped to licensed low-level waste repositories in either Utah or at Hanford. I do not believe that Sandia is a superfund site.
I am not aware of any reports of contamination (either actual or suspected) of the Rio Grande via surface water or of the Albuquerque-Belen aquifer via groundwater as a result of any of Sandia's Environmental Restoration sites.
Wastewater from Sandia's processes and facilities is discharged into the Albuquerque sanitary sewer system. Such effluents are regulated by:
· The Clean Water Act (33 USC 1251),
· DOE's Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment (DOE 5400.5)
· The City of Albuquerque's Sewer Use and Wastewater Control Ordinance (Chapter XIII, Article IX, Section 8-944 H), and
· The NRC's regulations for radiological levels in wastewater (10 CFR 20).Sandia must file a wastewater permit application with the City of Albuquerque, and Sandia maintains a network of monitoring stations to assess the quality of wastewater, surface water, and groundwater at Sandia facilities and sites. The City of Albuquerque also performs its own monitoring for wastewater contamination flowing into its treatment facility.
The DOE's Draft Site-wide EIS for Sandia Laboratories/New Mexico is currently out for public comment. If you can get to a DOE reading room maybe you could get a copy. There should be more detail in that document regarding these issues.
Tim