Burial Operation

A very significant risk at the Spring Valley site is the now-demonstrated reality that many chemical munitions, glass carboys, and cylinders were buried when the project was abandoned at the end of the war. The District of Columbia s research sought to identify possible burial sites as well as determine the potential amount of chemicals that may have been buried. 

Because the remediation efforts at Spring Valley did not address all of the areas of concern reflected in the Historical Report, serious questions remain over the adequacy of the search for unexploded ordnance as well as the survey for residual contamination from the toxic substances used in the research. There are five areas of research findings that bear on the issue of whether or not a potential for more buried chemical weapons munitions exists  

Gases and shells were produced in extremely large quantities. 

There was a printed newspaper story of a large-scale burial operation. 

There is a lack of evidence that the leftover munitions were turned over to other departments or moved elsewhere— and now three large burials a mile apart, have already been found. 

---

Pipe Anomalies Burial Operating Labor Material Equipment... 

Standard burials are acceptable when contamination levels are low enough to allow bodies to be handled without wearing additional protective equipment. Cremation may be required if remains cannot be completely decontaminated. Although arsenic vesicant agents are destroyed at the operating temperature of a commercial crematorium (i.e., above 1000°F), the initial heating phase may volatilize some of the agents and allow vapors to escape. Additionally, combustion will produce toxic and potentially volatile arsenic oxides. 

This work demonstrated that AAR could give reasonable dates from smaller samples of bone than were necessary for radiocarbon, and had a time depth of at least 70 000 years, and possibly more if one of the more slowly racemizing amino acids such as alanine was used. The key paper came in 1974 (Bada et al., 1974), which published dates of between 6000 and 48 000 BP for various samples of human bone from the Californian coast (Table 8.1). The SDM (San Diego Museum) samples from site W-2 were from a shell midden near La Jolla excavated in 1926. Subsequently, it appears that 19 individual burials were recovered in a rescue operation from this site, known as La Jolla Shores SDM-16755 is thought to refer to more than one individual (La Jolla Shores I and II), with a third (La Jolla Shores III) identified as SDM-16740 (Taylor et al., 1985 Table 8.1). Site W-34 was located between Del Mar and Solano Beach, from a shell midden which had been largely destroyed by coastal... 

Biodegradation is promoted by enzymes and may be either aerobic or anaerobic. Operative in all environments, burial, surface exposure, waterways, in vivo, etc., and may lead to complete removal from the environment. 

At the DOE s Sandia National Laboratory ER Site 228A in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an SGS was used to sort 1352 yd of soil contaminated with uranium from burial pits. The unit cost of 154/yd was based on the operation s actual costs of 220,040. These costs included 29,000... 

Burial of transuranium and low-level waste in shallow pits and trenches has occurred since the early days of the Manhattan Project. In the United States, 14 burial sites have been operated by the Department of Energy, 12 of which are presently active and six state-owned sites have been operated by licensed commercial firms. Three of the commercial sites are presently active (figure 1). 

This case study illustrates how combinations of pipeline burial, insulation, heating, and methanol injection can be used to prevent hydrates. The selection of the hydrate prevention scheme(s) is then a matter of balancing capital against operating costs. 

In addition to the exemptions established in regulations, NRC issued guidance on concentration limits for disposal of residual thorium or uranium from past operations with no restrictions on burial method (NRC, 1981). There wouldbe no restrictions on burial method if the concentrations were less than (1) 0.4 Bq g 1 for natural thorium or uranium with its decay products present and in activity equilibrium, (2) 1.3 Bq g 1 for depleted uranium, and (3) 1 Bq g 1 for enriched uranium. These concentration limits were intended to provide criteria for remediation of contaminated sites to permit unrestricted use by the public, but they could be applied to waste disposal as well. 

There are no known whole tire disposal methods without adverse effects. Disposing of the tires above ground creates the hazards of mosquitoes and fires. The alternate disposal method is landfilling or burial, which is also not without problems. In landfills, tires require a large volume because about 75 percent of the space a tire occupies is void. This void space provides potential sites for gas collection or the harboring of rodents. Some landfill operators report that tires tend to float or rise in a landfill and come to the surface, piercing the landfill cover. 

Subsidence structures are common. They are formed by the gradual lowering of rock strata, forming basin shapes. Two major processes operate during subsidence burial of older rock beds and accumulation of new sediments at the surface forming new rock beds or lenses that eventually get buried as well, the water stored in them becoming trapped (Fig. 3.7). 

Low-level radioachve waste (LLRW), which may contain uranium, is disposed of at DOE facilities and at commercial disposal facilities. Since 1963, six commercial LLRW facilities have operated, but only two were in operation in 1995. A 1992 report listed the total volume of LLRW buried at all 6 sites to be approximately 50 million cubic feet (Murray 1994). Only a small fraction of the LLRW contains uranium. The method of disposal for commercial and DOE LLRW has been shallow land burial, in... 

The synthesis of reduced (i.e., organic) carbon and the oxidized form of the electron donor permits a photo autotroph to use respiratory metabolism, but operate them in reverse. However, not all of the reduced carbon and oxidants remain accessible to the photoautotrophs. In the oceans, cells tend to sink, carrying with them organic carbon. The oxidation of Fe forms insoluble Fe " " salts that precipitate. The sedimentation and subsequent burial of organic carbon and Fe ... 

Low-level wastes (LEW) contain a negligible amount of long-lived radionuclides. Produced by peaceful nuclear activities in industry, medicine, research, and by nuclear power operations, such wastes may include items such as packaged gloves, rags, glass, small tools, paper, and filters which have been contaminated by radioactive material. Disposal in near-surface structures or shallow burial is practised widely. 

This operation is also called the burial (inhumatio), because the Spirit is being lowered into the Earth like the dead. Also, this work progresses very slowly, and therefore requires a longer period of time. 

---