Plutonium traces found in munitions tracked to processing plants

Katherine Rizzo / AP 25jan01

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has tracked traces of plutonium found in U.S. ammunition to contaminated equipment at plants in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

While plutonium is one of the deadliest substances known, so little of it tainted the depleted uranium used to make armor-piercing bullets that officials are not worried about extra health or environmental concerns.

"We have seen nothing in our studies that would indicate that this has more than an insignificant amount of impact on either personal health or the environment," said Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman.

Physicist Marvin Resnikoff, an expert who has studied plutonium contamination in the government's gaseous diffusion plants, said Wednesday that if any plutonium is in the ammunition, "it has to be the merest trace" because of the way plutonium reacts during processing.

"I can understand why there's concern," Resnikoff said. "Plutonium is an extremely toxic material. But I wouldn't necessarily dispute their finding that it's not a serious hazard.

"There is not going to be much in there."

The real danger, he said, was to workers unknowingly exposed from the 1950s to the 1970s, when plutonium contamination was kept secret by plant operators.

The government revealed in 1999 that plants in Piketon, Ohio, Paducah, Ky., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., had handled recycled uranium containing plutonium, neptunium and technetium-99, all of which are highly toxic.

"In those plants, we found trace elements in the equipment," Quigley said. "The source of the (munitions) contamination, as best we understand it now, were the plants themselves."

Countries that sent peacekeepers to Bosnia and Kosovo have recently been looking for links between the depleted uranium ammunition fired by U.S. warplanes and illnesses later contracted by veterans.

Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the European Parliament all have called for a moratorium on using the ammunition

Australia is testing its soldiers for radioactive exposure. Italy is studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukemia.

Germany sent troops to a former military compound in Bosnia to measure radiation, and reported finding no indications that plutonium was present in the ammunition found there.

NATO said Wednesday that its special committee on depleted uranium has found no link between the armor-piercing ammunition and cancer among peacekeeping troops.

The committee was informed about the plutonium traces, Quigley said.

Depleted uranium munitions were employed during NATO's 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, and in Bosnia during 1994 and 1995.