Runoff Poses Possible DangerBy Ian Hoffman Journal Staff Writer
SANTA FE — Disastrous as the Cerro Grande Fire has been for Los Alamos and its federal nuclear-weapons lab, scientists say things could get uglier. Envision floods and tons of cinder-speckled mud washing out of the charcoaled Jemez Mountains into Los Alamos' burned neighborhoods and the lab's canyons. The gushing floodwaters scour the burned EF and PHERMEX sites at the lab's Technical Area 15, both littered by pieces of chemical high explosive, toxic metals and radioactive elements. Any PCBs the fire did not convert to airborne dioxin , the runoff rinses out of a canyon behind the lab's power plant.
Back at Technical Area 16, the waters carry away high explosives from an old explosives machining building and Material Disposal Area P, an explosives and toxic metals dump. The floods blast through the most burned and contaminated canyons — Los Alamos, Pueblo and Water — picking up dozens of contaminants mixed in soils no longer anchored by plants. They flush into the Rio Grande and Cochiti Reservoir.
How real is this scenario? Quite, lab officials say. The mountains and lands of Los Alamos are likely to assume new shapes, perhaps form the beginnings of new canyons. The largest canyons probably will create large new deltas of sand and rock in the Rio Grande.
"We're really looking at some catastrophic problems for the lab and the county coming off national forest lands," said Dave McInroy, a LANL cleanup manager.
Beyond that, the uncertainties are huge. No one has gauged with any confidence the mudslide danger to Los Alamos' western side. No one is sure what kinds and what levels of contaminants will leave the lab, but lab scientists believe they will and at rates much greater than those of the last decade, if not since the Manhattan Project. So far, LANL environmental officials say the canyon contaminants are so low in concentration and so likely to be diluted by water and eroded soil that they probably will not reach humans at dangerous levels.
But toxicologists know very little about the threat of exposure to multiple contaminants, especially for sensitive aquatic and amphibious wildlife. Sometimes, low-level toxins can be synergistic in effect. They can weaken different yet intertwined biological functions in ways that, for example, could increase vulnerability to illness.
"The problem is quantifying that," said Russ MacRae, an environmental contaminant specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque. Much depends on what the U.S. Forest Service and Los Alamos National Laboratory do in the next few weeks. Both are mobilizing contractors and checking with dealers for rock for riprap, jute matting and native seed. Scientists are flying over the burned forest and lab today. A plane specially equipped for spectral imaging also was to perform two days of passes, creating a detailed map of the land's reflection of light — an indicator of burn intensity and thus erosion potential.
The Dome Fire of 1996 and the Oso Complex Fire of1998 produced spots of extraordinary erosion. Heavily burned lands lost soil at rates of 100 tons an acre or more. So far, people working the Cerro Grande Fire report seeing large, scattered splotches of intense burn on steep slopes. One lab official said he has heard post-fire runoff estimated at 100 to 200times normal.
Experts for LANL, the state Environment Department and the federal Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation, or BAER, team already are fanning out on foot to inspect the blackened territory. They will estimate erosion potential, then draw up a plan to shore up burned areas and protect the lab and town. It is the first time such an interagency rehab team has ever dealt with a fire around and inside a nuclear site, especially one with a 57-year accumulation of contaminants.
Meanwhile, lab scientists are checking many of the lab's roughly 1,000 waste dumps or spills — potential release sites, or PRSs. The fire itself has added a new slew of contaminants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, that result from incomplete burning. Some are innocuous, like those in a cup of coffee; others rank among the most carcinogenic substances. Potential release sites featuring the worst combinations of potential for erosion and heavy contamination may have to be dug up or fortified by rock, mats or hay bales.
"We're going to make every effort we can to protest those," said McInroy, a scientist in charge of regulatory compliance for LANL's Environmental Restoration Project, which prepares sites for cleanup or stabilization.
Lab environmental restoration scientists are hunkered down in a Santa Fe office, poring over maps of waste sites and the burned territory. Project leader Julie Canepa has assigned them to list the 10 or 15 most threatening potential release sites and a plan of attack. Water Canyon alone — heavily burned and draining several sites where scientists exploded various metals —contains traces of 11 radioactive elements from nuclear-weapons research, plus 95 manmade chemicals. They range from high explosives to insecticides and more than a dozen toxic metals. Fortunately, few houses lie in the canyons that are both burned and contaminated. The greatest risk for human exposure is expected to be to hikers, mountain bikers and others trekking in the canyons.
"So we have low concentrations and low rates of use," said Lars Soholt, senior risk assessor for the restoration project's SWAT team. "Our preliminary assessment is the human risk, even under these changed conditions, hasn't changed. And we think the risk associated with the (contaminated) sediments is minimal." To be certain will require intense ground inspections, tests of water and soils and computer simulations.
"It's going to take weeks to months to really clear up the picture," said Soholt. The work is intense, and some of Canepa's SWAT team lost homes and possessions in the fire.
On Tuesday, "I had them go around the room and tell their stories," Canepa said. "There's a few people who are eally affected, so I have to be careful with them. Then I have the Santa Fe people, who are saying 'Let me get back to work. I want to do something.' "
Analysis (prior to the fire) of contaminated areas around Los Alamos -- now turned to cinder with plumes carrying radioactivity.... Click HereLos Alamos Problem of Getting Rid of Contaminated Sites -- Up in Smoke
Work to Start on Containing Contaminated Run-Off
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