KAFB gets kudos for clean up of radioactive waste sites

While the Department of Energy (DOE) is balking at cleaning up its radioactive waste sites like the 2.6-acre Mixed Waste Landfill at Sandia National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) in Albuquerque is doing quite the opposite. KAFB has committed to cleaning up 4 sites totaling 43.2-acres of radioactively contaminated land used for training in nuclear emergencies since the early 1960s.

Four of the 8 sites will remain open for training exercises. The sites contain radioactive thorium and its decay products which, according to the KAFB, pose an elevated risk to human health and the environment. The contaminated land will be cleaned to unrestricted land usage meaning that corners won't be cut on clean up. Clean up of the 4 sites is estimated to cost $12-$13 million.

Cleaning up the sites to residential standards added $2.2 million to the price tag. But according to KAFB officials it's small change compared to protecting communities over the long-term. Officials stated they will not implement "stewardship," signs, fences and other low cost restrictions to help protect people from getting exposed to contamination. The DOE and Sandia is banking on the opposite, low cost "solution" for waste buried at the Mixed Waste Landfill, refusing to clean up the site though it is adjacent to the City of Albuquerque and likely to result in increased risk to human health and the environment over the long-term. Their preferred plan is to designate the area for industrial land use in hopes the less time spent around the landfill the lower people's risk of getting cancer.

Jerry Sillerud, Environmental Engineer, KAFB, added, "This [clean up of sites to a residential land use standard] eliminates any future concerns."