Shpack Landfill

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Shpack Landfill
Superfund site
250px
Rusting chemical waste drums at Shpack Landfill site in May 2003.
Geography
Town Norton
County Bristol
State Massachusetts
Shpack Landfill is located in Massachusetts
Shpack Landfill
Shpack Landfill's location in Massachusetts
Information
CERCLIS ID MAD980503973
Contaminants Base/Neutral and Acid Extractable Compounds
Dioxins/Dibenzofurans
Halogenated SVOCs
Inorganics
Metals
PAH
PCBs
Persistent Organic Pollutants
Pesticides
Radioactive waste
VOCs[1]
Progress
Proposed October 15, 1984
Listed October 6, 1986
Superfund sites

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Shpack Landfill is a hazardous and radioactive waste site in Norton, Massachusetts. After assessment by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it was added to the National Priorities List in October 1986 for long-term remedial action. The cleanup of the Shpack site was completed in 2012 at a cost of $78 million. The US Army Corps of Engineers directed the excavation and disposal of Shpack radioactive wastes. The US EPA oversaw and directed the clean up of chemical and hazardous wastes under the federal Superfund program.[2] The site covers 9.4 acres (3.8 ha) with 6 acres in Norton and 3.4 acres (1.4 ha) in the adjoining city of Attleboro. A high tension power line right of way runs through the Shpack site.

The Shpack site operated as an open burning backyard dump. Between 1946 and 1965 it accepted domestic and industrial wastes including low-level radioactive wastes.[3][4][5] The source of the radioactive waste consisting of uranium and radium was Attleboro-based Metals & Controls Inc. From 1940 through the 1960s Metals & Controls manufactured radium tipped, luminous, aircraft switches and circuit breakers. Approximately seven curies of radium were removed from the Shpack site during its remediation. The Shpack site's predecessor, the Finberg Field town dump in Attleboro, was also found to be contaminated with radium-bearing aircraft switch components, lead and other heavy metals[6] After the Finberg Field dump closed in 1946 waste disposal began at the new Attleboro town dump and adjacent Shpack dump. The Finberg Field town dump was converted into a children's playground in the 1960s.

Natural, depleted and enriched uranium were major contaminants at the Shpack dump. The amount of enriched uranium excavated from the Shpack dump was cumulatively significant. Over the course of a decade tons of uranium were discarded as low level residue on nuclear fuel manufacturing wastes such as rags, filters and sludges. These uranium discards were considered normal operating losses in that the waste being discarded contained quantities of uranium that was technically or economically unrecoverable. Historically Metals & Controls normal operating losses are reported to have been approximately eight tenths of one percent.

Uranium discarded at the Shpack dump came from Metals & Controls. In 1952 Metals & Controls became the first non-government owned facility to process enriched uranium for the Atomic Energy Commission. Metals & Controls initial uranium work was performed by its General Plate division. General Plate was a two thousand employee manufacturer of precision rolled gold and silver plate, tubing, electrical contact material and clad metals. When Metals & Controls began fabricating uranium half its revenue came from its General Plate division and half from its Spencer Thermostat division. By 1959 almost half of Metals & Controls' revenue came from its nuclear division.

In 1954 Metals & Controls had forty full-time employees fabricating uranium and reactor fuel for the US Atomic Energy Commission. Metals & Controls early uranium work included fueling the Navy's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus. After the Nautilus' launch in 1955 Metals & Controls was awarded a series of contracts making it the nuclear Navy's largest supplier of reactor fuel. Metals & Controls made history by fueling the Navy's first ballistic missile firing submarine, the George Washington; the Navy's first nuclear powered surface ship, the Long Beach; and the Navy's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the Enterprise. In addition to manufacturing Naval reactor fuel, Metals & Controls fabricated uranium for Atomic Energy Commission weapons contractors including the University of California's Lawrence Radiation Lab, Los Alamos Laboratory and the Rocky Flats Plant.

In 1956 Metals & Controls built a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) building to house its rapidly expanding nuclear division. Over the next five years this building grew to 210,000 square feet. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Naval reactor vessels arrived in Attleboro by rail and were fueled in a specially built high bay at Metals & Controls. In 1959 when Metals & Controls merged with Texas Instruments its Attleboro fuel plant employed one thousand people and was the largest such facility in the world.[7][8][9][10]

Metals & Controls uranium work for the Atomic Energy Commission was closely related to company co-founder, Vannevar Bush. Bush was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and co-founder of Raytheon Manufacturing. In late 1938 he resigned from Metals & Controls and Raytheon's board of directors after being named President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In January, 1939 the Carnegie Institution under Bush's direction conducted the first experiments in America where the uranium atom was split. News of these experiments quickly made their way to the White House. Carnegie trustee Frederick Delano was the uncle of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1941 President Roosevelt appointed Bush Chairman of the newly created US Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). The OSRD was formed to coordinate US scientific research for military purposes including development of the atomic bomb. It was Bush President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to provide unlimited wartime funding for the atomic bomb project. Although much of Bush's World War II work was top secret, he was featured on the April 3, 1944 cover of Time Magazine under the caption "Vannevar Bush General of Physics."

Vannevar Bush's influence in Washington during the war and immediately after was enormous. Widely hailed as a hero for developing the atomic bomb, in 1946 Bush's World War II assistant, Carroll Wilson, was selected by President Truman as the first General Manager of the newly created US Atomic Energy Commission. As Commission General Manager Wilson was put in charge of operating and expanding all of the facilities and production plants built during the $2 billion World War II bomb project. Wilson's uncle, Frank J. Wilson, was head of the US Secret Service from 1936 to 1946.

In August, 1950 Carroll Wilson resigned as General Manager of the Atomic Energy Commission. As Commission General Manager Wilson had put the Commission plants and factories on a growth path and laid the foundation for a sixtyfold expansion of the size of the US nuclear arsenal during the 1950s. When Wilson took control of the Commission's operations in 1947 it was producing (4) nuclear weapons per year. In 1950 when Wilson left the Commission this number had risen to (260) a year. In 1959 the US produced (7,000) nuclear weapons.

After Carroll Wilson left the Atomic Energy Commission Vannevar Bush arranged for Wilson to become a member of Metals & Controls board of directors. While continuing to serve on Metals & Controls board Wilson was hired as President of Climax Uranium Mining In 1950 Climax began operating a large uranium ore mill in Grand Junction, Colorado. All of the uranium produced by Climax was sold to the Commission. From the early 1950s to the mid-1960s the Climax mill gave away 300,000 tons of radioactive mill tailings for construction projects contaminating 4,000 residential properties in Grand Junction.

In October, 1952 Vannevar Bush rejoined Metals & Controls board two weeks before the first US hydrogen bomb test. At the time Bush was also a director of America's largest company, AT&T and its largest drug company Merck Pharmaceuticals. Bush's interest in guiding corporate policy at Metals & Controls was related not only to his controlling stake in the company, but also to its uranium work. Six months before Bush rejoined Metals & Controls board it began fabricating enriched uranium for the Atomic Energy Commission.

Metals & Controls early uranium work was limited in scope involving about twenty employees. By 1954 this uranium fabrication had doubled size and Carroll Wilson was hired as Vice President and General Manager of the newly created nuclear division. As the Commission's General Manager, Wilson had previously overseen more than five thousand employees primarily focused on building nuclear weapons. Wilson's hiring was part of a larger corporate plan where Wilson would grow the nuclear business and ultimately become head of the company. In order for this to happen company President Victor Vaughan was demoted and sent to Versallies, Kentucky to oversee the operation of a new manufacturing plant. After Germany's surrender in May, 1945 Vaughan went to Germany in June, 1945 as a member of the Technical Industrial Intelligence Committee,

The Shpack dump was shut down in 1965 by a court order after neighbors went to court to stop the burning of wastes.[11] A series of spectacular chemical waste fires involving hundreds of barrels of chemicals at the adjoining Attleboro town dump was the basis for the neighbors legal action.

Geology

The geology beneath the Shpack dump consists of glacial deposits 3–5 metres (9.8–16.4 ft) thick overlying bedrock. Portions of the Shpack dump are also underlain by 1–2 metres (3 ft 3 in – 6 ft 7 in) of peat associated with long standing wetlands. Bedrock under the site belongs to the Carboniferous Rhode Island Formation and is part of the regional Narragansett Basin sequence. Basement under the Shpack site is folded and fractured sandstone, greywacke, shale and conglomerate. Groundwater in the area is produced from bedrock and shallow overburden aquifers.[12][13] The water table is at or just below the surface and fluctuates seasonally. Sami-annual fluctuations in the Shpack dump water table and its concave shape may have "pumped" and concentrated micron sized uranium particles in the peat layer beneath the Shpack site. The area is generally low and swampy.[12] Almost all wastes at the Shpack dump were below the top of the water table. Shielding provided by groundwater reduced surface radiation levels and concealed most of the buried radioactive materials.

Geography

The Shpack dump consisted of 9.4 acres that straddled the border between Norton and Attleboro. Approximately 6.0 acres in Norton were owned by the Shpack family who operated it as an open burning dump. This land was purchased by the town's Norton Conservation Commission in 1981 using $16,000 donated by Texas Instruments. In 1981 the US Department of Energy designated the Shpack dump as the highest priority site for remediation in its Formally Utilized Sites Program (FUSRAP).Approximately one third of the Shpack dump was located in Attleboro and operated as part of the Attleboro town dump. The site is bounded in the north by Peckham Street/Union Road, by Chartley Swamp in the south and east, and by the ALI landfill in the west.[14][15]

History

The Shpack dump was on land owned by Isadore and Lea Shpack. Lea Shpack was from Canada and Isadore Shpack was a Russian immigrant and retired New York City municipal trash employee. Shpack allowed companies and individuals to dump wastes on his property in an effort to fill in the swamp. He salvaged scrap metals from the dump and planned to raise an orchard and cultivate vegetables on the reclaimed land.[8][16] At the time Shpack operated his dump chemical and hazardous waste disposal was not regulated by the state of Massachusetts or the US Environmental Protection Agency. The disposal of radioactive waste, however, including uranium was regulated under the material licensing requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.

The owner and operator of the Shpack dump was never issued or applied to the Atomic Energy Commission for a source or special nuclear material uranium license. Shpack's lack of a Commission license made it illegal for him to receive, possess or acquire any type of uranium. NRC investigation report 078-154 documents that Metals & Controls and Texas Instruments workers brought up to half a dozen truck loads of waste per day to the Shpack dump from the company's nuclear fuel plant. Over the course of a decade many tons of uranium averaging seven percent enrichment were discarded at the unlicensed Shpack dump. The decade long use of the Shpack property to dispose of nuclear fuel manufacturing wastes contaminated with uranium residue posed a significant health, safety and environmental threat. Isadore Shpack and many of his neighbors all died of cancer.

The Shpack dump's unlicensed status meant uranium discarded there constituted an illegal transfer of nuclear material to an unlicensed party. These illegal transfers were historically significant. The former head of the US World War II atomic bomb project, Vannevar Bush, and the first General Manager of the US Atomic Energy Commission, Carroll Wilson, were both corporate officers of Metals & Controls when radioactive waste dumping occurred at the Shpack site.

completely unregulated dumping and is reported locally to have accepted any type of waste which was refused by the neighbouring municipal landfill.[17]

The ALI landfill was originally Attleboro's municipal dump from the 1940s until 1975. In 1975 it was purchased by Attleboro Landfill Inc. which continued to use it as a landfill until 1995.[18]

Discovery of contamination

In 1978 John Sullivan, a 20-year-old local resident and college student became curious about why snails in the area were losing their shells. As Sullivan worked on this project he suspected there was a significant environmental problem that was being buried beneath the rising mound of trash at Attleboro Landfill.

Several months later a truck load of nuclear fuel skidded off the highway in Rhode Island during an ice storm. The shipment of nuclear fuel was going to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and had come from Texas Instruments in Attleboro. Six months later he visited the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public document room in Washington DC and spent a week reviewing thirty years of Metals & Controls and Texas Instruments files. The un-redacted documents included Atomic Energy Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection reports, blue prints, waste disposal manuals, licenses and manufacturing flow charts. On his last day in Washington Mr. Sullivan phoned Hilbert Crocker from the public document room. Crocker was the Region I Nuclear Regulatory Commission's head of inspection and enforcement for fuel facilities. T

Crocker and Sullivan discussed the Shpack dump and Sullivan's belief that radioactive waste had been illegally discarded there. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chief agreed to visit the Shpack dump within 90 days if Mr. Sullivan would send a letter requesting such a visit. One week later the state of Massachusetts ordered the town of Norton to clear the surface of the Shpack dump and coverit with two feet of clean fill. The town of Norton was given a thirty days to complete these actions.

Sullivan lived a mile from the Shpack dump. After reviewing Texas Instruments and Metals & Controls documents in Washington he discussed his concerns with officials in Attleboro and Norton. Sullivan's father was Attleboro's Personnel Director and his mother was a city school teacher. Attleboro's Civil Defense Director at the request of the Mayor, lent Sullivan a Geiger Counter so he could check the Shpack dump for radioactivity before it was covered with clean fill. Sullivan went to the Shpack property and spoke with Lea Shpack. She gave him permission to enter the former dump site. Surface radiation levels hundreds of times higher than naturally occurring background were quickly found.[4][16][19][20] Sullivan wrote to Hilbert Crocker at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and told him of the discovery. The Commission then carried out its own six-month investigation that included a week spent at the Shpack site, numerous interviews and laboratory analyses of samples collected. Hilbert Crocker and his team confirmed more than 50,000 square feet of the Shpack dump's surface was contaminated with radioactive materials.[21] The offsite release of nuclear materials documented at the Shpack site came close to meeting or met the NRC criteria defining an extraordinary nuclear occurrence. Extraordinary nuclear occurrences are the most serious type of accidents or nuclear events defined under US nuclear regulations.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission laboratory analyses confirmed the Shpack dump was extensively contaminated with radium and uranium. The types of uranium found included natural uranium, depleted uranium and enriched uranium. Certain surface soil samples collected by the Commission were up to thirty percent uranium by weight. The conclusion of the Commission's investigation was that the most probable source of the radioactive materials found at the Shpack site was Metals & Controls work for the Atomic Energy Commission.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Shpack dump investigation was followed in 1980 by a complete site characterization performed by personnel from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Like the Commission Oak Ridge found the Shpack site had widespread uranium and radium contamination. The types uranium found included Uranium-235, Uranium-236 and Uranium-238.[21] Some samples collected by Oak Ridge had enrichment levels as high as 93%.[13] Oak Ridge also found uranium at the Shpack site contained up to one half percent uranium-236. Uranium-236 is produced when uranium-235 absorbs a neutron during its use in a nuclear reactor. The Atomic Energy Commission reprocessed fuel from the reactors it operated to recover plutonium and uranium. The recovered uranium contained uranium-236 and was mixed with new uranium before being sent to the Commission's contractors engaged in uranium fabrication.

As a result of the Oak Ridge work the Shpack dump was designated the highest priority for remedial action under the U.S. Department of Energy's Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).[13][15] FUSRAP is the US program to remediate sites "where radioactive contamination remains from contracting activities directly connected to the Atomic Energy Commission."[14]

Further surveys of the site uncovered extensive contamination with chemical wastes which had been dumped "in both bulk and containerized forms." The metal drums which originally contained the wastes had been emptied, burned and left on the surface of the site.[13] Contaminants included volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals (e.g. nickel, cadmium, copper, lead and mercury), dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).[15]

Cleanup action

In 1980 the Department Of Energy conducted an emergency cleanup of the site and removed approximately 900 lb of radioactive waste.[15] In 1986 the site was listed as a Superfund site by the EPA.[8] Further studies of the site were carried out during 1992-1993 although no remediation action took place.[15] During 2000-2002 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - which had taken over the FUSRAP program in 1998 - performed "fieldwork" to prepare for a radiological survey and in 2004 the EPA put forward a cleanup plan. The project, estimated to cost $43 million, proposed the removal and disposal of 35,000 yd³ (26,759 m3) of radioactive soil by the Army Corps of Engineers, with a second phase during which the EPA would remove the chemical wastes.[11] Work was expected to begin in early 2005 and be completed by 2006.[22]

Remediation eventually commenced in August 2005 but ceased in July 2006 due to lack of funds. During this time, the Army Corps of Engineers removed 2,700 yd (2,500 m)3 of contaminated soil.[23][24]

Potentially Responsible Parties

On August 15, 2006 the EPA issued special notice letters to fourteen Potentially Responsible Parties (PRP).[25] A PRP is "any individual or company potentially responsible for, or contributing to a spill or other contamination at a Superfund site." In 2009, the following parties signed a consent decree to undertake remediation at the site:[26]

Under the terms of the decree the PRPs would be responsible for funding the remainder of the cleanup at an estimated cost of $29 million. The Town of Norton would not be held financially liable for cleanup costs, but would instead provide access to the site.[20]

Texas Instruments (TI) subsequently filed a complaint alleging that liability for the disposal of radioactive materials relating to its work for the Atomic Energy Commission was subject to indemnity by the Department of Energy. The U.S. Department of Justice then commenced a lawsuit against TI on behalf of the Corps of Engineers, which TI settled in November 2012. TI agreed to pay $15 million towards remediation of the site, without acknowledging liability. The payment went to the Corps of Engineers.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. – via Highbeam Research (subscription required)
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External media

  • Shpack Landfill Update (September 13, 2012) - Locally produced video from Norton Community Television studios.

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