Tritium Lab Makes Plans for Departure
Three phases are involved in process, which should have the facility cleaned by early 2002
Clare Curley / Berkeley Voice 5oct01

A smokestack jutting out of the far end of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory grounds -- which has been emitting byproducts of tritium research for years -- is on its way out.

The stack ducks underground and then resurfaces and connects to a long trunk that runs along the roof of the site's National Tritium Labeling Facility. Plans were already in place for its removal, but now it's seen as the beginning of a long closure process at the facility.

The National Institutes of Health, which funded the facility, announced last month it will withdraw its annual $1 million, citing lagging research interest and fewer high-level research publications.

Closure will include three phases: shutting down the lab, decontamination and decommission, and environmental maintenance and cleanup.

Still in its planning stage, most of the process has yet to be worked out.

"We're not going to be out there with rags and shovels quite yet," said Gary Zeman, the lab's radiation control manager. "I'd like to be sure everything we do is safe before timely."

Building 75 -- the gray, 1,600-square-foot concrete facility tucked in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus -- will remain.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen found in most elements, which enables researchers to track the path of medicine inside the body.

Since the mid-1990s, the lab has been the focus of some environmentalists concerned about tritium's beta-emissions, which can be harmful if inhaled or ingested. In a year, the lab typically uses enough tritium gas to fill a one-gallon container. Of this, about 2 percent goes into a labeled compound, 80 percent is recycled, and 17 percent is disposed of as radioactive waste.

Lab officials have maintained the levels of exposure in the environment are too low to pose any risk and are acceptable to EPA standards.

The first step in closing the lab will entail transporting a supply of radioactive tritium in a small stainless steel container to another Department of Energy facility. In the past, supplies have been sent to Livermore and a Savannah River lab in Georgia.

Next, waste materials, chemicals or smaller quantities of tritium will be shipped out, possibly to a federal repository in Washington or a commercial site in Utah.

Cleaning the lab itself will takes months and probably won't be completed until sometime next year. Lab equipment, benches, furniture and appliances will be tested for tritium levels to determine whether they will be cleaned, stripped or disposed of. This will extend to floors, walls, duct work and fans.

A community-based task force was formed two years ago and has been monitoring the surrounding soil, trees and ground water, a process that will continue for years.

The EPA requires testing of the area within a couple hundred feet of the site. While employees are tested regularly for tritium levels, there is no testing of deer and other wildlife in the area.

The NIH is expected to fund most of the cleanup. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, so tritium levels in soil and elsewhere will decay over time.

Because space is at a premium, the NIH expects the facility will eventually be occupied by other researchers at the site. "They should be available for any type of lab use," he said.

Local environmental activists were elated by the announcement last month that the lab was closing. A handful of residents attended a recent City Council meeting to thank members for their input. Over the years, the city has spent thousands of dollars on studies of health risks at the site. One report was followed by increased ventilation at the facility.

"I would say in 41/2 years we've had at least 10 major meetings discussing the facility at great length," said Berkeley Councilman Kriss Worthington. "We kept asking for information, which they kept refusing to give us."

According to Zeman, the lab will seek community input throughout the cleanup process, but some activists say that isn't enough.

The city's Environmental Commission vice chair, L A Wood, still worries about the proximity of the campus to the site.

"This is only the beginning," he said. "We should be asking for a federal investigation (of the area). We need to protect students."

Though the city's Toxics Department has been in touch with the lab, Berkeley itself has no regulatory authority over the site.

Lab spokesman Ron Kolb said the NIH will help find jobs for the lab's four full-time employees.

"The laboratory is unique," he said. "This will mean a stop to (NTLF) research, but much of the labeling activity will continue."