Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

also became concerned about Rocky Flats waste stored over the aquifer. He requested four federal
agencies—the USGS, Bureau of Radiological Health and U.S. Public Health Service, the Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration, and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife—to review the burial
ground. 334
In 1969, water samples taken from a subsurface monitoring hole after that spring's flood indicated
that small amounts of Cesium-137 were present. The NRTS Health Services Laboratory conducted further
investigations in 1969 and 1970 and found that some fission products and plutonium isotopes had leached
into surrounding soil, probably because of the flood. 335 Although it was believed that these small amounts
could not reach the aquifer, the finding stimulated operational changes. In December 1969, John Horan,
director of the Health and Safety Division of the Idaho Operations Office at the NRTS, wrote to the AEC
recommending that burial of Rocky Flats waste be suspended during the winter months, and that
plutonium-contaminated waste be segregated. 336
Early Environmental Remediation and Cleanup: 1970-1979. In 1969 Congress passed the
National Environmental Policy Act. In 1970 the AEC issued “Immediate Action Directive No. 011-21,”
regarding solid waste burial. This directive ordered segregation of high-level waste and storage to permit
retrieval of contamination-free waste containers after periods of up to twenty years. 337
The NRTS gradually changed the way it stored different kinds of waste. Rocky Flats waste was
carefully packed in drums and stacked once more, with Pit 11 reserved for this use. Waste contained in
cardboard boxes was stored in Pit 10. Approximately 90 boxes were also placed in Pit 11, but they were
stacked at the other end of the pit. Pit 11 was closed in October of 1970. That same year, TRU waste was
still placed in Pit 12. The TRU waste consisted of sludge drums from Rocky Flats. The Idaho Operations
Office decided not to bury any more Rocky Flats TRU waste in 1970 and began stacking it above ground.
It expanded the waste management area to include 144 acres and closed Pit 12 closed in November. 338
Until 1970, no buildings had been erected at the Waste Burial Ground and no waste had been stored
above ground. In 1970, NRTS built a permanent above-ground facility, then called the Interim
Transuranic Storage Area (now TSA). It consisted of a sloping asphalt pad 400 ft long, with a 1-ft-high
soil berm surrounding three sides. As the pad filled, individual cells were built and surrounded by
firewall. The stacked waste was covered first with plywood, a nylon-reinforced polyvinyl, with soil two to
three feet deep placed on top. 339
To carry out the 1970 AEC decision to move TRU waste to above-ground storage, several studies on
the waste's condition and cost of removal had to be performed first. 340 The studies, conducted in 1971,
revealed varied conditions. Some drums were in good condition, while others were corroded and leaking.
Buried plywood boxes and cardboard cartons were almost completely deteriorated. The NRTS assigned
permanent equipment and personnel to the waste management site for the first time.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 stimulated further changes at the NRTS. A training program for
operators and supervisors at the Waste Burial Ground was initiated in 1973, as was the first formal
environmental surveillance plan.
334. Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 35-36.
335. Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 41-42.
336. Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 37-38.
337. For the politics behind the federal environmental acts, see Mary Beth Norton, et. al., Vol. 2, A People and a Nation (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986). See also Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 42.
338. Card, p. 31-33.
339. Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 44.
340. Anderson, History of the RWMC, p. 42; see his Note No. 34, p. 104.
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