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A Field Trip to Fernald
So when a curator asked me to participate in a show in Cincinnati, I jumped at the opportunity. In 1952 the Feed Materials Production Center (FMPC), or the Fernald Installation, opened just 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, in Hamilton County, Ohio. The government installation was run by National Lead of Ohio. The complex was a vast facility that stretches over a thousand acres. The plant refined uranium and manufactured reactor fuel and targets. During the Manhattan Project era uranium refinement was a booming business. But as time went on uranium refinement became less needed as the atomic industry began to down-size as result of it's own fiscal gluttony. It was not until the 1980's when the Reagan administration increased production of the nuclear arsenal and advocated further use of nuclear energy that FMPC again began to flourish. By 1985 FMPC had become the nation's only primary uranium processing plant. I Every year, hundreds of tons of enriched uranium (in gaseous form) were converted to crystals, then was blended with magnesium granules. The mixture then was heated to more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in massive furnaces. The material ignited, deoxidizing the compound and changing the crystals to a pure metallic state. The molten uranium was then cast into 300- to 400- pound "derbies." Finally the derbies were tooled, polished, and worked into various sizes, rods, and tubes. The increased need for refined uranium pushed FMPC back into full-time operation. The push catalyzed increased production and began to show the signs of a decaying facility. In December 1984, the Fernald plant announced that during the previous three months, over 375 pounds of uranium had escaped from the bag house filtration system into the atmosphere. Nearby wells were tested and found to have radiation levels 36 times higher than normal. II
In September of 1984 the bag house underwent major servicing since many of the old bags were worn-out. The bags they ordered and used as replacements were too short. Not only that but they were wool, so when they were exposed to hot moist air from the furnaces they shrank! In addition, the rubber seals that held the bags into place were also the wrong size! After two months of use the bags began to tear and dislodge, allowing radioactive emissions up the stacks. When the radiation alarm began to constantly go off in November, management of the plant already under the stress of keeping up with production demands quickly became annoyed. With the belief the monitor was malfunctioning, the management turned down the alarm's sensitivity so it would not go off as much. This would become one of many incidents that eventually led to the plants permanent shutdown. The highly publicized incident lead to further DOE and EPA investigations. In 1988, Richard Shank, director of Ohio's environmental protection agency, estimated that the Fernald site released 298,000 lbs. (a figure the DOE later raised to 383,000 lbs.) of uranium wastes into the air since the plant started. In addition the plant is estimated to have discharged 167,00 lbs. of wastes into the Great Miami River over 37 years. III Records released in September 1988 showed that when the operation began in 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission told National Lead of Ohio to dump radioactive refuse into pits dug in the soil.III At the time, dumping wastes in the ground was a common practice employed by most military operations. When rainwater caused the pits to overflow, the AEC ignored a Fernald contractor's suggestions for fixing the problem. Approx. 12.7 million lbs. of waste have been placed in six storage pits. The largest pit, pit #3, was began in 1959 and was closed in 1977 and contained 237,053 cubic yards of waste. The smallest pit, pit #6, began in 1979 and was closed in 1987 and contained 11,556 cubic yards of waste.IV The contents of the waste pits is somewhat of mystery. Some of the waste dates back to the Manhattan Project. In June of 1985 DOE released a report stating the unlined pits contained waste that overtime emitted an estimated 1,750 curies. It is believed over time the pits may have leaked, but the extent of the contamination, if any, is not known. A panel of the National Academy of Sciences warned as early as 1957: "Unlike the disposal of any other types of waste, the hazard related to radioactive wastes is so great that no element of doubt should be allowed to exist regarding safety."V In 1958, National Lead warned that liquid was leaking through concrete storage tanks that had cracked. The silos contained residues from refining at FMPC and left-over elements from an ore supplier, African Metals Corporation.IV The AEC's solution, instead of creating new tanks, was to keep the liquid levels in the tanks below the crack lines. In January 1984, the DOE reported that the deteriorating concrete silos contained nearly 10,000 tons of radioactive radium.IV Radon gas from these silos was the major source of radiation exposure to people in the surrounding area. Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas produced when uranium decays.VI The cracked tanks were used for over thirty years. Finally in 1996 the cracks were temporarily repaired with bentonite clay to eliminate the threat of continued release of radon gas.VII The contents of the silos eventually are to be removed and stored long-term at a DOE Nevada dump site.
The Crawfords were outraged. They with other residents formed the Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH).VII FRESH along with a number of former Fernald employees filed a $300 million class action lawsuit against National Lead of Ohio. NLO in its initial response denied any wrong doing to the complainants. Ohio Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze Jr. put the DOE on notice that the state of Ohio might bring suit against the department if it failed to comply with state occupational and environmental standards. Continued questions by the press led to a disclosure by NLO management that the Fernald facility had on occasion reprocessed materials from other nuclear facilities. Materials that included trace elements of plutonium. Plutonium is a man-made highly radioactive and carcinogenic material used for nuclear weapons.XI Companies are required to have special containment facilities for the handling of plutonium; Fernald had no such facilities. The management did claim however, that they had notified employees when they were handling materials with trace levels of plutonium. Already concerned citizens and employees were further alarmed about their health when in February of 1989, two out of eight EPA inspectors tested positive for accelerated levels of uranium in their urine.X The EPA inspectors were having a staff meeting in one of Fernalds offices, when apparently they inhaled a small amount of uranium oxide. Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste was outraged and banned EPA employees from entering the facility until safety could be guaranteed. In May of that same year it was discovered that a licensed veterinarian had headed the medical operations at Fernald. David Howel had held the job for more than three years.XI Under Howel¼s administration the medical operations department regularly conducted urine tests, to check employee exposure to life-threatening radio-nuclides. Earlier that year it was discovered that six out of 7,300 employees had high levels of uranium in their urine.XII Never before had citizens challenged a contractor working for the DOE. NLO defended themselves by stating that they were just following orders from the government. Testimony was heard from cancer victims, residents that had lost members of their family to cancer, and from radiation experts from around the country. An eight person jury recommended in a non-binding verdict that NLO and DOE should pay $136 million in damages to local residents.XIII The jury also ruled that NLO violated at least four federal laws in its operation of the plant. On the last day of June 1989, The DOE promised to pay $73 million to settle the claims of the complainants. XIV The settlement was the first time the government acknowledged that a weapons production plant may have harmed large numbers of its neighbors. The End...
The Fernald plant operated for the US nuclear complex until the summer of 1989. At that point production was suspended and all efforts went towards beginning a massive clean-up effort. The Feed Materials Production Center was renamed the Fernald Environmental Restoration Management Corporation. It changed names again in 1996 to Fernald Environmental Management Project (FEMP) when it entered a five year, $1.9 billion clean-up contract with the Fluor Daniel, Inc. XVI At this time it is not known if the site can be completely cleaned-up. FEMP is now a US EPA Superfund site. Currently it is generating and storing mixed waste and expects to generate and store mixed waste in the future. Mixed waste contains both radioactive and hazardous materials. New technologies for dealing with mixed waste are being tried at FEMP, such as sealing waste inside glass containers and mixing contaminated soil with cement. The question of health risks for residents living near FEMP continues to be an unanswered question. It was assumed that high incidents of lung-cancer could be attributed to leaking Radon gas from the above mentioned cracked silos. Yet no concrete study of these occurrences has taken place and one may not be possible. In 1998, the Center for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that there is not enough reliable data to do an accurate epidological study. The report estimated an additional 80 deaths might occur for residents that lived near the Fernald Plant during its operation. XVII Increased rates of melanoma, prostrate, and urinary cancers were found in a preliminary analysis conducted by University of Cincinnati researchers. In June of 1999, CDC released another report stating that radiation released from the plant could cause an elevated incidence of leukemia among residents who lived within 6.2 miles of the site while it was operating. In November of 1999, I had the chance to go Fernald. I drove threw the rolling hills, and admired the clean winter landscape. The plant sits in a valley with adjacent dairy farms. Cows leisurely graze in a field next to a vast fenced area where signs read "Soil Contamination Area." DOE estimates that it will take an additional 13 years and at least another $2.4 billion to clean-up FEMP.XVI The reoccurring threat of accelerated illnesses for residents of Hamilton County, Ohio continues to transform the Fernald story, and the end may be nowhere in sight. VI Garrett, L., "Uncle Sam's Hot Spot", Washington Post. July 28, 1985, Magazine section, pp. 6+ VII Schneider,S., "Fighting Radiation Hazards in Fernald, Ohio", Science For The People. Sept./Oct. 1985, pp.18-19 VIII Magnuson, E., "They Lied to Us", TIME. Oct. 31, 1988, pp 60+ IV The United States Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management, Linking Legacies- Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production Processes to Their Environmental Consequences. January 1997 V Shrader-Frechette, K., "High-Level Waste, Low-Level Logic", The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists. Nov./ Dec. 1994, pp 40-45 VI Greenwald, J., "A Multimedia Approach to Radon", Environment. Vol. 39, No.5, pp. 5+, June 1997 VII Fernald Environmental Management Project Website- Table IV- Status of FEMP Removal Actions. Last Updated 11/22/96 (mes). http://www.em.doe.gov/cercla/t41.html VIII Hoover,A., Griffiths,L., Bork,C., "Fernald: Past, Present, Future", The Newsletter of Environmental Geology of Environmental Geology at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Submitted 12/6/95 VIII Rothstein, L., "Nothing Clean about 'Cleanup'", The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists. May/ June. 1995, pp 34-41 VIII Associated Press, "Ohio, U.S. EPAs Bar Inspectors from Fernald, Say it's Unsafe". The Columbus Dispatch. 2/15/89 VIII Associated Press, "Veterinarian Was Fernald Medical Boss". The Columbus Dispatch. pp. 6E, 5/11/89 VIII Associated Press, "Fernald Tests Find Six Contaminated". The Columbus Dispatch. 3/9/89 VIII Associated Press, "Fernald verdict May Offer Clue To Other Cases". The Columbus Dispatch. 6/19/89 VIII Associated Press, "U.S. Will Pay $73 Million in Fernald Suit". The Columbus Dispatch. 7/1/89 VIII Perlman, E., "Dancing Aroun The Dumps", Governing. Aug.1995, pp.48-51 VIII Department of Energy Report on Fernald, Department of Energy Management and Oversight of Cleanup Activities at Fernald. Letter Report, 3/14/97, GAO/RCED-97-63) VIII Melcer, R., "CDC Rejects Fernald Study", The Cincinnati Enquirer. Friday, September 24, 1999 VIII Bonfield, T., "Fernald Health Concerns Increase", The Cincinnati Enquirer. Thursday, June 24, 1999 Weblinks and related sites http://www.enquirer.com/fernald/gao_fernald_report.html http://www.em.doe,gov/acc2006/states/oh1map.html http://www.em.doe.gov/cercla/t31.html http://www.fernald.gov/aboutfer.html http://www.apis.fetc.doe.gov/dd/projects/plant1.html
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A
few years ago I got into the habit of visiting former atomic energy
sites and operational nuclear reactors. I inherited an interest in the
Atomic mythology of America from my grandfather. He worked on the Manhattan
Project at the Oak Ridge Tennessee military installation. His family
and my mother lived in the government built town of Oak Ridge for many
years. What began as a collection of articles and books, became 'vacations'
and long weekends near a facility. I travel to these facilities looking
perhaps for the past. I go with a camera and a notebook, I photograph
and make observations about not just the site but the surrounding community.
I pick-up momentos and data, like landscape paintings and old newspapers,
that I later use for installations.
After
a lengthy investigation conducted by the Department of Energy, it was
discovered that the ventilation system at the plant was operating at
sub-standard levels. Apparently the system collected much of the uranium
dust created at the plant . The waste material was vented to the facilities
bag house where 56 20-foot-tall bags filtered out the dust before releasing
it into the air. 
Over
the years many incidents occurred at FMPC but most went by widely unnoticed,
such as a 3,800 lbs. radioactive gas leak that happened in a 1966 accident.I
Following the 1984 bag room incident, public fear about Fernald's activities
became irrepressible. Fernald community residents, Lisa and Ken Crawford,
discovered that the house they were renting had radioactivity contaminated
water. The water contained uranium, strontium, barium, and beryllium,
all above safety levels set by the EPA.I
Over
the course of the last fifty years the United States has spent billions
of dollars creating an unparalleled nuclear arsenal. Concern for environmental
consequences always fell short to the zeal of atomic procreation. Now
following the end of the cold-war the nation may have to spend additional
billions (at least an estimated $230 billion) to clean-up or stabilize
hundreds of obsolete production sites. Many facilities, especially military
installations, have multiple contaminated areas, bringing the number
of sites under study of hazardous wastes to more than 26,000.XV