Cold War Poison / The Paducah legacy

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.)
June 26, 2000, Monday MET/METRO
SECTION: NEWS Pg.01a
HEADLINE: Cold War Poison; The Paducah legacy;
Toxins altering life in fragile ecosystem
Reassurances breed skepticism
BYLINE: JAMES R. CARROLL and JAMES MALONE, The Courier-Journal
SOURCE: STAFF
DATELINE: PADUCAH, Ky.

Nearly every creature that swims, walks or flies near the Paducah 
uranium plant carries unseen poisons that have escaped from the 
nuclear-fuel factory.

 From the furtive mink to the darting sunfish to the soaring redtailed 
hawk, nature's denizens now have new, lifelong companions - chemical 
and radiological contamination, reports obtained by The 
Courier-Journal show.

Toxic chemicals have entered the Western Kentucky food chain, and 
abnormalities similar to birth defects have already shown up in at 
least one species.

A half-century of emitting, burying and dumping waste from the vast 
plant built to safeguard America has caused ecological damage for 
miles around, a 10-month investigation by the newspaper has found.

Streams, ponds, underground water, soil, plants and animals have been 
contaminated with some of the most dangerous chemicals known, 
including plutonium and dioxin.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Kentucky officials and the company 
that leases and runs the plant say environmental conditions at the 
site are improving. They note that polluted areas on plant grounds 
and in a surrounding wildlife area, which is used for hunting, 
fishing and camping, are marked and roped or fenced off.

And they have assured workers and the public that the contaminants 
pose no ''imminent'' danger.

''When I walk around that place, I am not worried for my health,'' 
said David Michaels, the assistant secretary of energy for the 
environment, safety and health. ''At present, it (the threat to 
public health and workers) is extremely low. And I'm comfortable and 
confident saying that.''

''I would not be afraid to live there,'' said Robert Logan, 
commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection.

But the official judgment on the contamination is being met with deep 
and mounting skepticism from many plant workers, environmentalists 
and residents - because much remains unknown about the extent of 
pollution and about past operations at the secretive plant, which was 
once part of the government's Cold War nuclear weapons complex.

''They are putting a soft spin on everything, the same as they've 
always done,'' said Merryman Kemp, a businesswoman who has lived in 
Paducah since 1965.

A member of a citizens' advisory board on the plant, she is worried 
that contamination is more widespread than is being admitted.

''I've been buying bottled water. I've quit eating the fruit off the 
two trees in my back yard,'' said Kemp, who lives about 10 miles from 
the plant. ''I'd like to move.''

BEYOND THE FENCE

Records show pollution didn't stay within plant

For nearly a year, The Courier-Journal has examined thousands of 
pages of public and secret government records obtained - through 
state and federal freedom-of-information laws - internal plant 
documents and files from lawsuits, and has interviewed state, federal 
and plant officials, scientists and community leaders. The findings 
include these:

= Fish studied by University of Kentucky scientists for at least 12 
years show increasing contamination with various toxic metals. A 1998 
UK report found that Big Bayou Creek and other streams near the plant 
contain 50 to 100 times as much lead as they did a decade earlier.

= Dioxin - the potent chemical that caused cancer among the residents 
of New York state's Love Canal neighborhood and was so prevalent in 
Times Beach, Mo., the town had to be destroyed - was found in soil 
samples from five drainage areas outside the plant fence in the early 
1990s.

The levels at Paducah weren't on the scale of Love Canal or Times 
Beach, but they exceeded standards the state had set for the Energy 
Department. The contaminated soil is now stored at the plant in more 
than 11,000 55-gallon drums, most of which are buried.

= Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which cause cancer and other 
diseases in animals and possibly in humans, have been found at levels 
ranging from traces to significant concentrations in fish, hawks, 
mice, rats, mink, raccoons and a bobcat.

= Incomplete records suggest that almost 9 ounces of highly 
radioactive plutonium were released into the air and water and buried 
at the plant, greater than the amounts released at most other 
Department of Energy nuclear sites. Traces of plutonium and neptunium 
were found in soil samples 11 years ago as far as nine miles from the 
plant, and traces of neptunium were found in apples, but there 
apparently was no further investigation.

= Streams that flow off site are now believed to be carrying small 
amounts of radioactive material into the Ohio River, the DOE recently 
conceded. Though diluted by the Ohio's huge flow, radioactive 
substances may build up in sediment and enter the food chain.

= Underground, three plumes of water contaminated with 
trichloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen, and radioactive technetium 
are spreading northward from the plant, and one is believed to have 
reached the river. Traces of contaminants have penetrated as far as 
14 stories below ground.

The Paducah plant is not the worst of the sites on the nation's 
Superfund list - a sort of Fortune 500 of environmental problems - at 
least based on what is now known.

But there are gaping holes in the Energy Department's data about 
pollution. For example, the DOE acknowledged last summer in its plan 
for attacking surface-water contamination that ''documentation 
pertaining to specific releases from the (plant's) storm sewer system 
currently is not available.''

In a February letter, the Environmental Protection Agency called the 
lack of information on the ''primary pathways for contaminants . . . 
completely inappropriate.''

A former top Energy Department official said he thinks the agency is 
concealing dangers to workers and the public. The DOE thinks it can 
get away with this, charged Robert Alvarez, a consultant who was 
formerly a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, 
because it perceives Paducah as comparatively remote, geographically 
and politically.

''I would apply what I call the East Hampton test to this,'' said 
Alvarez, referring to the swank summer resort of the rich and 
powerful on New York's Long Island.

''If you found this in East Hampton, do you think there would be 'no 
imminent danger?' ''

209 TROUBLE SPOTS

'The place is unique,'

U.S. energy official says

Over the decades, contaminants spread from the plant through 
wholesale dumping and discharges of radioactive and other hazardous 
waste into the air and water.

So far, 209 contaminated sites have been located on plant grounds and 
nearby land. Earlier this year a contractor strung 11 miles of rope 
to warn of radioactive debris dumped in the neighboring West Kentucky 
Wildlife Management Area.

Wendell Seaborg, who became the DOE site manager in Paducah this 
year, said, ''The place is unique in my experience because there was 
contamination in an area where the public had access.''

Paducah veterinarian Johnny Myers, who runs retrievers in the 
wildlife area, said concerns about the contamination contributed to a 
50 percent drop in attendance at a recent dog field trial.

He worries the area will be closed if the government doesn't clean it 
up. ''We have a gold mine here,'' he said.

David Evans has the same fear. Evans said he has trained dogs in the 
wildlife ara for years and has not been concerned about pollution.

He worked at the plant for seven years and his father worked there 
for about 30 years.

''If they show me proof of a danger, then I'd be thinking about it,'' 
he said. ''My major concern is that it could close. It's the only 
area available to work dogs.''

Disposal practices considered acceptable in the 1950s, 1960s and even 
into the 1970s were looser than they are today. Indeed, the dumping 
dated to the operations of the Kentucky Ordnance Works, an ammunition 
plant, on the same site during World War II. It left chunks of TNT 
behind.

The TNT, spread over ''a few acres'' in the wildlife area, is now 
fenced off. It is ''pretty stable'' but would ignite if heated, said 
Gary Chisholm of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' district office in 
Louisville. ''You just don't want kids or hunters picking the stuff 
up or walking home with it. ''

After the uranium plant opened, radioactive and hazardous waste, 
including uranium and asbestos, went into what had been a dump for 
construction debris, according to an Energy Department draft report 
dated June 1, 2000.

Air and water pollution were not much of a concern in the plant's 
first decades, either. All kinds of chemicals flowed into the streams 
from what eventually totaled 19 pipes and ditches. For example, in a 
report released in February on past practices at Paducah, the Energy 
Department said tritium, a radioactive substance used in nuclear-bomb 
triggers, had been found in 1991 in five drainage flows.

The report also said contaminated gases were released for decades. 
''The magnitude of these unmonitored releases is unknown,'' the DOE 
said. Past estimates of how much radiation reached the public are 
clearly ''questionable, '' it said.

The DOE estimated, however, that 66 tons of uranium spewed from the 
stacks between 1952 and 1990. Although uranium is a millionth as 
radioactive as plutonium, it's also a toxic metal that can harm the 
kidneys.

The agency also said radioactively contaminated emissions apparently 
had been discharged into the air at night, when they were less 
visible.

Dumping, burying and discharging wastes on the plant grounds, plus 
major leaks under buildings, created another path of contamination - 
into the ground water.

The underground plumes of polluted water have become well-known to 
hydrologists and geologists nationwide as ''the mother of all 
plumes,'' said Jack Stickney, a geologist with the Kentucky 
Geological Survey.

The chief contaminants in the plumes are trichloroethylene (TCE), a 
degreasing solvent that can break down into even more toxic 
substances such as vinyl chloride; and technetium, a radioactive 
element.

TCE, the Energy Department's Michaels said, is ''probably of greater 
concern than the radioactivity in some cases.''

A June 1999 investigation conducted for DOE found severe 
contamination in the ground at four places around a repair and 
machine shop at the plant. The sites pose risks of cancer and 
toxicity that ''exceed the accepted standards'' of the state and the 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the investigators wrote.

They found TCE, PCBs, neptunium, cesium, beryllium and other toxic 
metals. In two of the areas - one a fifth of a mile long and another 
a sixth of a mile long - more than 6.3 million cubic feet of soil was 
estimated to be contaminated, enough to fill about the first 17 
floors of the 102-story Empire State Building. One boring found toxic 
metals in soil below the water table at levels as much as 400 times 
normal.

Contaminants also have been spread in other ways, according to three 
current employees who filed a whistle-blower lawsuit last year. They 
allege that radioactive salt was used to melt ice on roads, employees 
tracked contamination off the site to their cars and homes, and 
vehicles transported radioactive materials right into the heart of 
Paducah.

New standards, monitoring and controls, as well as technological 
improvements, have decreased pollution from the plant, although it 
still occurs and sometimes exceeds what is allowed under permits from 
the state.

Earlier this month, the state cited United States Enrichment Corp., 
which leases and operates the plant, for high levels of toxic 
chemicals at three discharge points outside the plant fence. The 
releases, checked during March and April, were six to 27 times the 
state-allowed toxicity.

USEC must determine what is causing the high readings and report to 
the state by mid July.

INCREASING EFFECTS

'Nearly every fish . . . shows signs of contamination'

The contamination reaches into nearly every organism near the Paducah 
plant that has been tested.

Fish, for example, have been studied for at least 12 years. And the 
contamination in those fish is generally rising, UK studies show.

''Nearly every fish we looked at shows signs of contamination,'' said 
Wesley Birge of the University of Kentucky's School of Biological 
Sciences.

A 1998 report on stoneroller minnows near the plant found that 
''metal pollution in the Bayou Creek system, especially Big Bayou 
Creek, now exceeds by a considerable margin that reported in 1988.''

At one site of plant effluents, not one minnow embryo survived.

The report said a host of metals - beryllium, cadmium, chromium, 
copper, lead, nickel, silver and zinc - are moving downstream and 
were found in the fish at levels higher than in 1988. A study of the 
underwater vegetation minnows eat found high metal concentrations.

The DOE's annual environmental report for 1998 noted that 
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), ''the highest potential ecological 
concern to fish-eating birds and mammals,'' were present in sunfish 
and stonerollers at twice the level in fish from a less polluted 
creek farther from the plant, meaning the PCBs were coming from the 
plant. Copper, lead, selenium and uranium also were found in the fish.

The DOE report said PCB levels in fish in Little Bayou Creek 
''continue to be low.'' But fish the state recently sampled in the 
area had almost 10 times the state PCB standard for fish that can be 
safely eaten, said Albert Westerman, a branch manager in the Kentucky 
Division of Environmental Services.

Another UK study in 1998 found that PCBs were moving through the food 
chain. Some red-tailed hawks contained enough of those chemicals to 
perhaps decrease the hawk population in the plant area. A 1997 
Clemson University study showed that white-footed mice and marsh rice 
rats collected around the uranium plant also contained PCBs. The 
contamination also showed up in the livers and kidneys of minks.

PCBs also have been found in raccoons and a bobcat. Copper, iron, 
manganese and zinc have been detected in rabbits. The muscles and 
livers of some deer have revealed exposure to silver, beryllium, 
nickel and vanadium.

Radioactive material, too, has been found in animals on the site and 
around the plant. A 1990 DOE inspection report states that trace 
quantities of neptunium were found in deer, rabbits, and squirrels. 
Other annual environmental reports tell of finding uranium, 
strontium, technetium and, starting in 1993, plutonium in deer.

The 1998 UK minnow study found so much toxic metal in the water and 
sediment of streams near the plant that ''metal pollution may pose a 
threat to environmental health as far downstream as the Bayou Creek 
confluence with the Ohio River.'' Such spreading contamination should 
be given ''high priority,'' the study said.

The implications for life in the Ohio River are obvious, said Birge, 
one of the authors of the minnow study.

''There's little doubt the Ohio River is receiving contaminants,'' he 
said. ''That means you will see further downstream sediment 
contamination in fish.''

Most ominous are the abnormalities found in one type of tiny insect.

A 1992 environmental report by UK said that places where eyes form on 
the larvae of midges sometimes weren't properly defined, were fused 
together or were missing. In some cases, the eyes were forming in the 
wrong places, the study found.

''In humans, we would call it birth defects,'' Birge said.

At one location on Big Bayou Creek, a third of the larvae had eyespot 
abnormalities. At six other locations, between 6 percent and 17 
percent of larvae were abnormal.

But no studies have been done around Paducah to determine whether the 
pollution is causing genetic mutations, Birge said. That would be 
more serious, because animals pass such changes on to their offspring.

The DOE's Michaels said in an interview that the contamination is 
insufficient to have a significant impact on wildlife.

''My sense is that none of the exposures are at any level where we 
can expect any sort of genetic shift in the biota, in the flora and 
the fauna,'' said Michaels, who is an epidemiologist with 20 years' 
experience dealing with occupational- and environmental-health issues.

''I think the bigger concern is that the contamination of either 
animals or plants will lead to human disease. And that's the reason 
we try to control that.''

DIOXIN

Toxin-laced wood drew

salvage hunters to dump

One of the most deadly carcinogens known also has leached from the plant.

Dioxin was in wood preservative used on the redwood linings of 
cooling towers at the Paducah plant, according to Greg Cook, 
spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., the DOE's environmental contractor.

Records of 1986 tests on the wood show dioxin was not one of the 
substances looked for. The wood was put in landfills at the plant.

The landfills were accessible to the public and the dioxinlaced 
redwood ''attracted salvaging from the public and possibly workers,'' 
said the Energy Department's June 1 draft report.

The dioxin from the wood had contaminated enough soil at four plant 
sites by 1990 that the state required the soil to be excavated and 
put in drums. The dirt contained as much as 4.5 times the dioxin that 
the state allowed.

Of the more than 11,000 barrels of dioxin-contaminated soil, about 
3,000 are stored above ground, primarily because they also contain 
radioactive contaminants. The rest of the drums of soil were crushed 
and put into a landfill at the plant.

USEC checked for dioxin in its effluents in 1994, 1997 and 1999 and 
found nothing, according to company spokeswoman Georgann Lookofsky.

Bechtel's Cook said the Energy Department has found no spread of 
dioxin contamination, either.

Animal studies have shown that even at extremely low levels, in parts 
per trillion, dioxin causes reproductive and immunological disorders 
as well as damage to growth glands and the liver.

PLUTONIUM

9 ounces are missing; traces are in soil, water

Eleven years ago, traces of plutonium and another highly radioactive 
element, neptunium, were detected in soil 8 miles and 9.3 miles from 
the site.

The samples were taken at locations south and west of the plant. The 
wind rarely blows in those directions over the plant. No samples were 
taken at similar distances in other directions from the plant.

A 1990 internal memo from DOE's Oak Ridge office said ''the 
significance of trace quantities of transuranics in the environment 
did not appear to have been fully evaluated.''

The memo said traces of neptunium also were found in apples grown 
nearby. Radioactive substances also have shown up in vegetable 
gardens and crops near the plant. In 1992 Kentucky scientists 
detected radioactive technetium in turnip greens, beets, lettuce, 
brussels sprouts, tomatoes, corn and squash.

Plutonium, often referred to as the world's deadliest poison, came 
into Paducah in minute quantities as an accidental byproduct of 
''impure'' uranium that had been used to fuel reactors that made 
plutonium at other DOE facilities. The DOE estimated the total amount 
of plutonium at Paducah through the years at 328 grams, or 11.6 
ounces.

The whereabouts of threequarters of that plutonium, almost 9 ounces, 
is unknown, other than evidence of it in the environment.

In its February report on Paducah, the DOE acknowledged that 
plutonium and neptunium were released into surface water, especially 
from 1956 to 1970, and that the amounts were ''significantly'' 
underestimated. The department did not say by how much.

Traces of plutonium also were found in ground water outside the plant 
fence, the DOE said last October.

The February report said plutonium and neptunium also could have been 
released into the air, though such releases were ''considered to be 
insignificant.'' However, the DOE has said there was no specific 
monitoring for air emissions of those two elements.

The 11.6 ounces of plutonium that passed through the plant is what 
could reasonably be inferred from the plant's poor record-keeping. 
Alvarez said that number is just a guess. A draft DOE report obtained 
this month by The Courier-Journal, however, said a new analysis 
confirmed the accuracy of the earlier estimate.

Plutonium is so dangerous that inhaling as little as 3 millionths of 
an ounce - the weight of just one of 6,250 equal slices of an aspirin 
tablet - would guarantee fatal lung cancer in a human being.

Put another way, the 11.6 ounces of plutonium known to have passed 
through the Paducah plant was enough to kill more than 4.1 million 
people - more than all the men, women and children in Kentucky - if 
they each had inhaled just that speck.

''You can expect that there was probably some exposure to the public 
from these radionuclides that was avoidable,'' said Edwin Lyman, 
scientific director at the Nuclear Control Institute, a non-profit 
research organization based in Washington.

''It doesn't matter how little plutonium there is in the body; no one 
wants it there. Once you inhale it, it's there for a long time and 
gets incorporated into the bones.''

This creek is closed off - though the gate was open in May - because 
of radiation. And that's not the only problem in streams: University 
of Kentucky scientists found the lead level multiplying.

Caption: Hummingbirds, insects, raccoons and turtles are among the 
creatures that live in a wildlife area contaminated by toxins 
spreading from the plant.

GRAPHIC: BY JAMES MALONE, THE COURIER-JOURNAL   *****

*****   The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.)
June 26, 2000, Monday MET/METRO
SECTION: NEWS Pg.09a
HEADLINE: Cold War Poison; The Paducah legacy;
Cleanup: Elusive, terribly expensive
Current plan excludes some enormous tasks
BYLINE: JAMES R. CARROLL, The Courier-Journal
SOURCE: STAFF
DATELINE: PADUCAH, Ky.

By the time the 3,400-acre Paducah uranium-plant site is cleaned up, 
people will most likely have set foot on Mars.

The United States will most certainly have had a woman president.

And cancer will likely have been conquered.

The U.S. Department of Energy, or whatever it's called by then, says 
that in 2070 it will still be watching over at least parts of the 
vast complex.

The Energy Department or contract employees will be cutting the grass 
and fixing fences, and, more important, monitoring the barren 
property for residual contamination from operations begun 118 years 
before to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and power plants.

The stark fact is that the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant isn't 
likely to be cleaned up, in the way most people understand the term, 
by the 2010 deadline. And it's not going to be anything more than an 
industrial site for decades to come.

The DOE has estimated it will cost $ 1.3 billion to eliminate all the 
contamination. Federal investigators recently questioned that 
estimate after finding that it left out much cleanup work. And state 
officials privately say that figure could more than triple.

Putting a final price tag on the cleanup will be impossible until 
officials know exactly what is on the site; whether it is spreading; 
what danger it poses; and what can be done to stop the contamination 
and to mitigate any environmental effects.

''There has been no thorough, independent review of the extent of 
air, land and water contamination,'' said, an environmental lawyer 
and director of the Kentucky Resources Council. And that's the only 
way to know that the cleanup would fully protect off-site areas, he 
said.

Further complicating matters is the fact that significant portions of 
the contamination can't be attacked until the plant closes. Also, 
there are questions about the effectiveness of some cleanup methods.

''You're dealing with waste materials that will continue to be a 
significant environmental problem well beyond our lives,'' FitzGerald 
said.

DEADLINES, DOLLARS

Critics say DOE budgets too little time, money

The 2010 deadline the state has set for the Energy Department to 
clean up the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant is the date by which 
Kentucky wants contaminated scrap metal and other waste removed, 
vacant buildings knocked down, buried waste hauled away and sources 
of pollution attacked.

Yet even if all that happens - a question mark in itself - the whole 
cleanup job at Paducah is very likely going to take much longer.

Right now, the scope, cost and length of the cleanup at Paducah are 
only partially known. All of those factors - but especially cost - 
are going to dictate the pace of the cleanup work.

The DOE estimates that repairing the vast environmental damage will 
cost $ 1.3 billion. That includes removing or containing 
contamination of the ground water, surface water, soil and buried 
wastes, as well as treating and disposing of 52,000 drums of mixed 
waste, and decontaminating and demolishing two large, unused 
buildings.

The state puts the number at $ 2 billion, adding in the cost of 
treating and removing 37,000 cylinders of depleted uranium now stored 
at the site. In the end, though, some officials in Frankfort say, the 
final cost of cleanup could be as much as $ 4 billion.

''Dollars are what's gonna talk,'' said Rob Daniel, director of the 
state's Division of Waste Management, who said spending will need to 
be ''well over $ 100 million a year.''

So far, the nearly $ 400 million in federal money spent on cleanup at 
the site has cleaned up almost nothing. According to the Energy 
Department, much of that spending went to finding out what 
contaminants are at the site, and to trying to contain the most 
serious threats to worker and public health, like treatment of the 
plumes of ground water fouled with trichloroethylene and radioactive 
technetium.

Critics say too much time has been lost, allowing contaminants to spread.

''The problem is serious,'' acknowledged Wendell Seaborg, the DOE's 
site manager at Paducah. ''We may have tried too hard to know too 
much when we got started.''

Now, under pressure from a very dissatisfied and impatient Kentucky 
delegation in Congress, the Clinton administration has begun 
funneling more money to Paducah with the aim of achieving noticeable 
cleanup at a site that has been sickening workers and contaminating 
the soil, water, air, animals and plants for almost five decades.

The first visible result of that increased spending is the start of 
the removal of Drum Mountain, a vast, 8,000-ton pile of crushed and 
contaminated barrels. The work began Friday.

But congressional investigators and Kentucky officials say still more 
money is needed to meet the 2010 deadline. The General Accounting 
Office, the non-partisan auditing arm of Congress, says that $ 124 
million a year is needed, almost $ 50 million more than will be spent 
this year.

''2010 is realistic with a significant increase of federal funding 
for the cleanup job and increased focus from the Department of 
Energy,'' said Jack Conway, who heads Gov. Paul Patton's interagency 
task force on the Paducah plant.''

GLARING OMISSIONS

Cleanup plan leaves out some enormous problems

Even if the 2010 deadline is met, the plant site would not really be clean.

The plant continues to produce radioactive waste and other 
contaminants, and the cavernous buildings and huge gaseous-diffusion 
equipment would eventually have to be cleaned and removed - at an 
estimated cost of $ 1 billion.

And as long as the plant continues to operate, it may be impossible 
to reach the source of the contaminants leaking into the ground 
water. That source is believed to be under a building still in use.

Federal and state officials also have deep disagreements - some of 
them being fought out in court - over how ''clean'' the Paducah site 
should be.

The Energy Department and the state, for example, disagree over what 
level of radioactivity would be acceptable after the site is cleaned 
up. The DOE wants to leave some waste that the state wants removed.

There are numerous other items that are not reflected in the Energy 
Department cleanup plans but were found earlier this year by 
investigators from the General Accounting Office:

= The 496,000 tons of uranium hexafluoride stored in canisters on the 
site need to be converted to a more stable form and removed. The cost 
to build and operate a conversion facility is estimated at $ 1.8 
billion to $ 2.4 billion. The conversion process itself would take 
almost 25 years.

= Sixteen unused buildings and structures have to be cleaned and 
removed. There are no cost or schedule estimates for such work.

= A million cubic feet of scrap metal and waste stored all over the 
plant must be treated and removed.

John Volpe, the state's top radiation-control official, said the 
buildings, scrap and waste could be cleaned up by the 2010 deadline - 
if the DOE put that work on a fast track.

WILL METHODS WORK?

Intended technology is unproven, GAO says

The GAO auditors also said some cleanup projections relied on 
unproven technology - for example, a plan to inject a gummy gel into 
the ground to intercept contaminated water underground.

If this new treatment doesn't work as planned, it actually could 
change the trichloroethylene (TCE), one of the two major contaminants 
in the water, into vinyl chloride, an even more toxic substance.

Another project calls for injecting steam underground to force the 
TCE back to the surface. Environmental Protection Agency officials 
told congressional auditors of problems with this technology at 
another site and said they weren't sure whether the geology under the 
Paducah plant would let it work there.

Existing efforts to remove contamination have already fallen short.

The ''pump and treat'' system that brings contaminated water to the 
surface, cleans it, then puts it back into the ground, didn't halt 
the flow of TCE and radioactive technetium to the Ohio River, nor did 
it stop the underground contaminants from spreading into surface 
streams.

Even if some of these technologies ultimately succeed, options for 
future uses of the site appear limited.

''This will never be an industrial site that will be . . . cleaned up 
where the general public would be interested in it,'' said Ric Ladt, 
chairman of the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization, who 
emphasized he was speaking only for himself and not for his federally 
funded economic-development organization.

The property could remain a uranium-enrichment plant, become some 
type of metal-recycling facility, or a place for heavy manufacturing 
that could use some of the buildings or materials already there, Ladt 
said.

Other possibilities include wastewater treatment or power generation, 
he said.   *****