It boasts a “proven record of safe, efficient waste removal,” but Chem-Nuclear’s low level radioactive waste facility in Barnwell County, S.C. is the source of a lingering “radioactive plume,” according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC).
The agency referenced the plume at a meeting of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s Nuclear Advisory Council.
According to WLTX TV 19 (CBS – Columbia, S.C.), the plume of radioactive Tritium “is moving off the Barnwell Nuclear site southwest toward the Savannah River Site.”
Awesome, right?
According to SCDHEC this isn’t breaking news, though, as “the plume that was discussed during last week’s annual meeting is the same plume that has been closely monitored for years.”
The agency notes that “Tritium was first detected in on-site groundwater monitoring wells in 1978,” and that since then “numerous sampling wells have been put in place to monitor its movement and dilution.”
“Ten monitoring locations show no evidence of a trend either up or down, six locations show an upward trend, and eleven locations show a downward trend over the most recent five-year period (third quarter 2008 to second quarter 2013),” the agency concludes.
Environmental advocates aren’t impressed – and want Chem-Nuclear to do a better job containing the leak.
Specifically they point to Mary’s Branch Creek, which has been off limits to drinking, fishing, swimming, hunting and irrigation for years.
South Carolina’s “Republican-controlled” General Assembly – including then-Rep. Nikki Haley – were aggressively lobbied seven years ago by the firm of Warren Tompkins to keep the Barnwell facility open despite questions about its safety.
Thanks in no small part to Tompkins’ efforts, Chem-Nuclear will remain open through 2038 …
23 comments
Where the Frack is Queen Jean?? Where the hell are all those fracking RINO’s and Demiclunts?? What the Fuck. Why they hell is this happening!!
Wake up Fuckers. We’re on our own.
RUN — Forrest — RUN..!!
It’s a libertarian experiment. They want to see if corporations “self-correct” in the absence of regulations.
This plume is old news. Harriet Keyserling tried to convince the world that the plume had put tritium into the Savannah and that the river was contaminated all the way down to Beaufort. How long has she been dead now? If you look at how this works, the existence of the contamination basically creates additional contamination. Hard for anyone to contain or cleanup. But it is headed to the Savannah River SITE. Which is about as inaccessible a place as any on this earth.
Looks to me like it flows to Lower Three Runs Creek and then into the Savannah River, which flows to Savannah, not Beaufort.
Sic Willie the environmental scientist. He is where I would go to get scientific information. He might as well be a Luddite.
I write all of my messages in the culvert next to Bez. I use smoke signals that are picked up across the river, and converted into text by chiseling the words in their original Sumerian into stone, and shipped to a translation center where the message is typeset and pressed into Papyrus. The manuscript is then sent by bonded messenger to an ancient monastery where a lone monk types it into a terminal program running CPM into Fidonet. From there, a second monk with a more advanced system using Linux .99 posts it on this site.
This story is about as popular as a two-headed calf at the Hampton stock yard on Sunday night. About as funny as a six-legged gator near the 301 Bridge. About as interesting as a six-breasted blue bird on a Barnwell azalea bush in April. In Nikki’s world if it don’t happen between Gervais Street and downtown Lexington – it don’t happen at all.
Or outside the front door of the Mansion…..
Next week the Gypsy Queen will announce that this is the reason she sold out the Jasper Port
She knew eventually the “plume” would reach to Savannah, turn it into a ghost town and thereby effectively render moot the fact that she sold out to Georgia
We saw this coming years ago.
Our Greedy Legislature turning SC into a waste dump for their profiteering.
Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Who is “we”?
I think he was referring to himself and me.
… and me. If you read the article it has been observed since 1978, and known to anyone who has been paying attention.
“The agency notes that “Tritium was first detected in on-site groundwater monitoring wells in 1978,” and that since then numerous sampling wells have been put in place to monitor its movement and dilution.”
With a half life of a little over 12 years, what remains 35 years later?
8 percent of poison is still poison. How much is acceptable?
I thought Libertarians believed that business has the right to do anything to get rich and stay rich. People be damned.
Libertarians aren’t generally populists. They’re usually shills for their rich massas. They are just too stupid to realize it.
Libertarians just want the rights they were promised by a God that doesn’t exist, in order to live an egalitarian lifestyle in the midst of poverty.
It has been known about for over 35 years? Someone should ask to see copies of DHEC’s annual or regular reports on the contamination monitoring at the Chem-Nuclear site or DHEC’s official reviews and responses to Chem-Nuclear’s regular assessments. How have they described the growing contamination through the decades and what has been done in these past decades to deal with this problem other than watch it?
So…………
What is the state of South Carolina going to do about it????
Play “hot potato” is what!!!!!!!!!!
What is your fix to this problem FITS???????
Good thing you are not in charge fixing the fuck-up of the drinking water in Charleston, West Virginia!!!!!!!
What would you do about that?????
It’s a diversion from the NEW plume hitting California now.
According to SCDHEC this isn’t breaking news, though, as “the plume that was
discussed during last week’s annual meeting is the same plume that has
been closely monitored for years.”
The agency notes that “Tritium was first detected in on-site
groundwater monitoring wells in 1978,” and that since then “numerous
sampling wells have been put in place to monitor its movement and
dilution.”
Read more at https://www.fitsnews.com/2014/01/17/sc-plume-dont-drink-the-water/#Miz82AR2tXDGVhi9.99
Not to mention the monitoring of upstate wells done for a long, long time in advance of the upstate plants to determine the baseline for radon and tritium, but with chicken little about, any option to sound another alarm and point at deadly radioactivity or global warming. Expect 3H as a basis for a new ground of Greenpiece solicitations.
And this aquifer is fed upstream from Savannah River Site, non?