A lot of radioactivity ends up in landfill

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A speech I gave at the IEMA meeting in Springfield on Sept. 30:

I’m not politically correct and I’m angry; angry that instead of protecting the people and lowering the limits on Ra-226-228, IEPA and IEMA chose to increase the health hazard on people of Illinois, by raising the limits on Ra-226-228 that can be dumped on farm fields and into landfills.

Morris, IL, Grundy County is a great place to live but we are in a high-risk health area. We have three nuclear power plants, one spent nuclear fuel storage site, really four storage sites altogether and several chemical plants within a 25 mile radius of Morris.

Within the city limits we have a nuclear laundry that washes clothing that is contaminated by workers in the power plants, and a leaking Environtech landfill that we can’t get the IEPA to do anything about.
We have a hospital that uses nuclear medicine. We have a cancer clinic that uses nuclear medicine and there may be others.

Morris has a population of about 12,000. I challenge anyone to name another city in Illinois or even in the United States with a population of 12,000 that has their own cancer clinic.

We have a very serious health problem in Grundy County and raising the limits on radium disposal will only make it worse.

The Morris water department filters the radium out of the drinking water. The waste from the hospital, cancer clinic, water department and nuclear laundry end up in the Morris Waste Water Treatment Plant.
For many years they spread the sludge on farm fields and they may still do that, but most of it goes into the leaking Environtech landfill in the city limits of Morris.

There is no oversight at the landfill, they police themselves; kind of like letting a fox guard the chicken house.

There are probably other towns that dump their radium contaminated sludge in this landfill and that’s another problem even though all of the cities are within the law, this is not a licensed low-level radioactive waste landfill. To allow this, is a criminal act.

I understand that the rule now states that if the sludge has 12 pCi/g or over up to 50 pCi/g it has to have special permission from IEMA and has to have 10 feet of cover over it at closure of the cell. Does anyone believe that if a cell only had eight feet to go before closure they would not dump sludge in it? In all of the documents I have read the IEPA inspector has never mentioned this. For many years Environtech dumped sludge on open surface at ground level as witnessed by several people who live near the landfill.

In Grundy County farmers can sell lots or even large acreage for homes or subdivisions. Are farmers informed of the hazards of the sludge being dumped on their farm? Is a restriction placed on their deed to keep an innocent person from being harmed?

Decaying radium gives off radon gas. IEMA should know that Grundy County is one of the hottest spots in Illinois for radon.

The IEPA came to Morris in 2006 to test a private well near the landfill. This well is in a shallow sand and gravel aquifer, the same as the landfill. Lead, antimony, and thallium should not have been found in this well. The home has plastic pipes.

According to the Illinois Right to Know Law, all of the people who get their water from this aquifer should have been warned. They were not warned. What happens to all of the radionuclides that are dumped into a leaking landfill?

No test for radionuclides have been taken for well water or on the landfill site or around the landfill... Why not? Do people have to ask for this test?

The Morris Waste Treatment plant was tested for radionuclides from 1991 thru 1999, by IEMA. IEMA never came back until April of 2009, because they weren’t asked to come back, a period of nine years, fox in the chicken house again?

In one of the early sludge tests: Ra-226 was 60 pCi/g 0 limit is 50 pCi/g; Co-60 was 467 pCi/g - limit is 500 pCi/g; Cs 137 was 49 pCi/g - limit is 11 pCi/g.

The problem isn’t just the contaminated sludge from Morris going into the landfill, but add the sludge from other towns and the radinuclides from the nuclear laundry and we have a serious problem.

There are 23 radis nuclides in the Morris sludge, and this landfill is permitted to take contaminated sludge from anywhere. By adding all of the radionuclides for one-quarter sludge test, plus 200 pCi/g of radium, I get 1022 pCi/g of deadly radionuclides.

You mentioned Wisconsin and Colorado to use as an example to raise the levels of radium, you chose Wisconsin. Had you chosen Colorado you would have found they have no laws just regulations and the state is helping with the costs of cleaning up the drinking water.

Please don’t raise the limits on radium, leave them where they are today or even lower them. The health and safety of the people demand it.

If a city has to get a license to collect, handle, transport, store or dispose of radium so be it, at least then you can be assured they are going by the rules.

This is part of the cost of running a city and keeping the people safe and healthy.

Even with today’s economy if the people were informed of the health hazards, I’m sure they would find some way to pay for the license and the extra expense.

There was not one at this meeting from Morris or Grundy government.

 

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