Military cleanup

Nuclear Waste Reprocessing. Liquid waste remaining from processing of spent reactor fuel for military plutonium production is typically acidic and contains substantial transuranic residues. The cleanup of such waste in 1996 is a higher priority than military plutonium processing. Cleanup requires removal of long-Hved actinides from nitric or hydrochloric acid solutions. The transuranium extraction (Tmex) process has been developed for... 

The third example is compact cleanup units for waste treatment, mainly in consideration of the numerous radioactive sites, stemming from cold-war military developments [106]. The Hanford, Washington, USA, site with a multitude of seriously contaminated tank wastes is among them. Due to the unknown character of most polluting species, the installation of a central waste-treatment facility is said to be not the best and most inexpensive solution. Rather, small modular units, able to be individually adapted to various separation tasks, which are inserted into the tanks and perform cleanup on site, are seen as the proper solution. 

Spent Fuel The largest single radioactive waste disposal problem is the spent fuel from military and commercial reactors. As discussed earlier, the spent fuel from commercial reactors is stored in water ponds at the reactor sites. The spent fuel storage facility consists of a cooling and cleanup system for the water along with equipment to safely transfer the fuel rods from the reactor to the storage area. A typical pool will have a volume of 400,000 gal. The water will contain 2000 ppm boron that acts as a neutron absorber and will be maintained at a temperature of <70°C. 

Incendiary and explosive devices are used in most terrorist attacks. As a result of combustion of fuel and hazardous materials, PAHs are released in high volumes. Exposure of civilians or deployed personnel to fumes containing PAHs constitutes an acute exposure scenario. Additionally, defense forces involved in extinguishing oil well fires, and cleanup tasks are exposed to low levels of PAHs over a more protracted time period. In addition, over 1.3 million civilian and military personnel are occupationally exposed to hydrocarbon fuels, particularly gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, or kerosene on a near daily basis. Studies have reported acute or persisting neurotoxic effects from acute, subchronic, or chronic exposure of humans or animals to hydrocarbon fuels (Ritchie et n/., 2001), specifically burning of jet fuels, which release PAHs in considerable proportions. 

The first major spill incident at which burning was tried as a cleanup technique was when the Torrey Canyon lost oil off the coast of Great Britain in 1967. The military dropped bombs and incendiary devices on the spill, but the oil did not ignite. These results discouraged others from trying this technique. Only two years later, however, Dutch authorities were successful at burning test slicks both at sea and on shore. In 1970, Swedish authorities successfully burned Bunker C oil from a ship... 

A 15-year study (1966 to 1980) in Palomares, Spain, reported levels of plutonium in air near the site of a crash between a United States military aircraft carrying four nuclear bombs, and a tanker aircraft following the cleanup of the contaminated area (Iranzo et al. 1987). 

Military environmental cleanup is heavily controlled by the accountants. This is partly due to the fact that the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP) sounded like a permissive budgetary authorization instead of the extension of CERCLA, which it is. State and local governments were only authorized to receive payment for a specific set of functions. This list is too restrictive to promote adequate oversight. 

Finally, environmental cleanup is not in the mission statement of any of the military branches. The head environmental officer for some branches of the service is not even a general officer. This is magnified at the DOD level because there is no Undersecretary of Defense for the Environment. ... 

Examples of the Military s Lack of Experience in Environmental Cleanup... 

This statement is not intended to belittle the military but to suggest to states, local governments, EPA contractors, or residents involved in ordnance cleanup to watch their backs. A recent example is Spring Valley, located in... 

In the past, some EOD personnel often told civilians that the ordnance recovered was inert. These innocent white lies comforted the civilians and made the military look better. However, because the emergency EOD units usually deal with the ordnance item that was unearthed and do not initiate a full-scale cleanup, this practice of deception throws other governmental agencies, like the EPA or state, off the track and can result in very bad stuff still buried. 

The military branches generally will not authorize an environmental cleanup unless there is direct proof of the problem. Often, accountants are in charge of the environmental process and are somewhat oblivious to scientific observations. Therefore, the military historical studies will sometimes make unwarranted no further action (NOFA) statements because they did not find a burial map or see shells sticking out... 

This case study is also a success story on how a local government can demand an environmental cleanup of a chemical weapons site, even after a no further action (NOFA) decision had been made by the Army and the EPA. It also confirms the wisdom of Congress in creating the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP), so that a state or local government (the District of Columbia, in this case) could hire people to oversee the military s work. 

Although written early in the state s effort to get the site cleaned up, this section presents a good example of the details needed to get the military to start a cleanup activity. As it turns out, most of the predictions made in the report were true. Likewise, the requests that the state made were necessary... 

Cleanup of chemical and explosive munitions locating, identifying contaminants, and planning for environmental remediation of land and sea military ranges and ordnance dumpsites / Richard D. Albright, p. cm. 

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