Liquid waste disposal was taken seriously in the 1940s.
Steve Stow dispels popular myths about Clinton Laboratory's liquid radioactive waste disposal in the 1940s.
Stow, a retired geoscientist and environmental spearhead at ORNL, explained recently to Friends of ORNL in his lecture, titled "And Some of the Cowboys Wore White Hats: Disposal of Liquid Nuclear Waste at Clinton Labs in the Very Early Years," that just as there were "good guy" cowboys that helped establish law and order in the West, at Clinton Laboratories -- later renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory – scientists were conscientious about properly disposing of radiological wastes, as opposed to the "Wild West" conventional wisdom, and they advanced the frontiers of environmental science.
The new uranium and plutonium operations at the Laboratory were generating waste as early as March 1943, and the researchers were encountering novel challenges to proper waste disposal and treatment. While legend says the early scientist were simply dumping the waste, historical record shows planning and preparation for the waste began in the Laboratory's earliest years.
"There is no Rosetta stone that unlocks the early waste disposal practices in the 1943 to 1945 timeframe. It's the weight of the evidence across hundreds of documents, not just a single document," Stow says.
When Stow was compiling his historical analysis on Clinton waste disposal, he came across a document from 1949 written by Frank Browder, chemical engineer in the early days, that said, "It is long been known that discharge of radioactive waste constitutes a potential health hazard and that the necessity for what it means to remove the radioactive poisons and liquid waste has been apparent for several years."
That prompted Stow to look back in the files. William Kirst, a chemical engineer, emphasized the need for plans before disposing of the liquid waste. He proposed a tolerance or exposure limit of one tenth of a Roentgen per 24 hours of waste that could enter Clinch River. Kirst's process manual was sent in March 1943: Ground was broken at Clinton Laboratory in February 1943.
As scientists addressed the disposal challenges, their discoveries gave rise to new areas of study, including health physics, environmental science, laboratory safety, waste minimization and biomonitoring.
Howard Curtis, chief of biology at the time, suggested a study of White Oak Lake because of downstream human consumption of the water. With 12 rabbits and 30 mice, Curtis conducted one of the first biomonitoring studies, analyzing the effects of exposure to radioactive water. Curtis' studies included the Clinch and Emory rivers, and later the Tennessee River. When an active precipitate was discovered in the creek system, the ORNL medical department, which taken over responsibility for all liquid waste, proposed a fence be built to prevent humans and animals from accessing the water.
Martin Whitaker, the Laboratory director in 1943, officially communicated with Arthur Compton (1926 Nobel Prize in Physics), head of Metallurgical Lab at Chicago on status of tanks and other waste progress at Clinton Labs in October 1943. Kirst called for tanks to be built near the plutonium separation facility with storage capacity of 176,000 gallons of waste storage per tank. The tanks were designed with a coating to prevent leaking, and the "gunite" tanks themselves never did leak.
While the waste management was not perfect, Stow's research reveals scientists were actively working to improve the safety, health and well-being of the Laboratory and surrounding areas.
"All this while there were no state or federal regulations regarding waste disposal at Clinton Labs and while the single purpose of Clinton Labs was understanding production and separation of plutonium to help bring an end to the war," Stow says. "We assumed things were done in haphazard and careless fashion, but now know differently."
Writer Shelby Whitehead was a summer 2018 intern from the University of Tennessee's School of Journalism and Electronic Media science writing program.