August 7, 2005
Atomic Waste Mishandled, Records Show
By MATTHEW L. WALD
NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - The operator of a Florida nuclear plant appears
to have shipped radioactive waste to ordinary landfills, municipal
sewage treatment plants and some unknown locations in the 1970's and
early 80's, according to internal documents and government records
obtained in lawsuits.

Florida Power and Light said that in 1982 it had mistakenly made a
shipment to a landfill, but the documents appear to show numerous
shipments to multiple locations. In addition, while the company
conducted a survey and cleanup in the one known location, it found
only one kind of radioactive material, and nuclear experts involved in
the lawsuits say there must have been other isotopes for which no
tests were conducted. The overall level of contamination is difficult
to determine.

Plant workers used a sink to wash mops, rags and other heavily
contaminated materials, believing that the drain was connected to the
plant's radioactive waste system, but instead it drained into a
sanitary sewage system, according to the documents. The contaminants
were then hauled away with sludge. According to documents cited by the
plaintiffs, at one point the plant in St. Lucie County was shipping to
regular landfills materials that were 10 times as radioactive as what
it was shipping to a low-level waste dump.

A spokeswoman for Florida Power and Light said the company had
mistakenly made two such shipments in the early 80's, but had
disclosed it at the time and removed the waste afterward.

"It's a 23-year-old event," said Rachel Scott, the spokeswoman. "It
was thoroughly investigated at the time by both the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and the Florida Department of Health, who determined that
there was no health issue."

Samples were tested in a lab and only one isotope, cobalt-60, was
found, Ms. Scott said. Cobalt-60 is a material that becomes
radioactive when neutrons from the reactor core are captured by atoms
of metal. But the plaintiffs say records show that at the time St.
Lucie's fuel was leaking fission products, like strontium and cesium,
into the cooling water and thus contaminating the plant. Such
contaminants would have been present in the mops and similar
materials, they argue.

According to documents obtained by the plaintiffs, however, a week
after the cleanup was completed at a dump site the company found
contamination at a level 20 times what was proposed by the State of
Florida, and thousands of times higher than what the Environmental
Protection Agency allowed for agricultural land; the surrounding area
is used for cattle and citrus.

A state document quoted by the plaintiffs says that some contaminated
material was transported to a "cow pasture." Another state document
refers to daily sludge being "removed by Portolet to unknown site."

The company has concealed the shipments from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, according to the lawsuits.

The parents of Zachary Finestone, an 11-year-old who grew up in the
area and was diagnosed with cancer in March 2000, filed suit in
Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2003.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in January.

The parents of Ashton Lowe, who had brain cancer when he died at age
13 in May 2001, filed suit in 2003 in the same court. That case is
scheduled for trial early next year.

The parents' lawyer, Nancy La Vista, said she planned to argue that
tests of the boys' baby teeth showed abnormally high levels of
radioactive strontium, which is produced when atoms are split and that
when ingested binds to human bones. Older people have strontium in
their bones that was created from atmospheric nuclear testing. But,
Ms. La Vista said, "These kids were all born after Chernobyl, after
Three Mile Island, and after atmospheric testing."