Some barriers have been installed at Fairmont Brine Plant
From Article by Esteban Fernandez, Times West Virginian, October 26, 2023
FAIRMONT — It might be time to retire the Chernobyl moniker from the Fairmont Brine Processing Plant, according to officials of West Virginia’s environment protection profession.
Speaking at the Marion County Commission meeting Wednesday were:
1. Jason Frame, director of the W.Va. Department of Health and Human Resources’ Office of Environmental Health Services,
2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on-scene coordinator Christine Wagner
3. Marion County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Director Chris McIntire
They spoke to commissioners about what steps their respective departments are taking with regards to the site. There was also a member from W.Va. Department of Environmental Protection present, but they did not address the council.
“I’m very happy to work with these folks and I’m very glad that they’re up front with everything and showing us what’s happening in the community,” McIntire said. “We will have a solution for this problem and we’re working very hard to get there and reaffirm to our public here in Marion County that we don’t have a Chernobyl in Marion County.”
Although attention grabbing, the name conjures an inaccurate picture of what is actually going on at the site, according to Frame.
The situations are different because a Chernobyl-like situation deals with fusion products, which involve high activity, short lived isotopes, typically from Uranium. The Fairmont Brine Processing Plant involves low activity, long lived isotopes, which refers to how much radiation an isotope emits as it decays, meaning how many particles it shoots off in a set amount of time.
The more particles it decays per unit of time the more active it is. That’s why the concern at the plant is over material that takes a long time to decay but consistently emits radiation over that long period of time. At Chernobyl, the opposite was true. Radioactive material shot more particles off but over a shorter period of time..
He emphasized that all agencies involved are not downplaying the seriousness of the plant’s contamination, but that the nature of the contaminants is one of the things shaping the agencies’ response.
“When you’re talking about a reactor, which is what Chernobyl was, a reactor accident, you’re dealing with very high activity, short-lived fusion products that are capable of acute radiation injuries,” Frame said. “What we’re dealing with at Fairmont Brine is a naturally occurring low level of radioactivity which presents a long term health threat. A more accurate description of what the agencies involved are doing is making sure that the long term health threat is ultimately remediated.”
However, family medicine specialist Dr. Kenneth Hilsbos, of Fairmont, raised some concerns over the term that Frame and Wagner used to describe the isotopes, namely the phrase “naturally occurring.” Hilsbos said. that the second highest source of radioactivity in the U.S. outside of the nuclear energy industry is oil and gas drilling.
“These have not been changed by a technological process, but they have been concentrated by a technological press and by the passage of time,” Hilsbos said to the commissioners. “So, it’s not really the same as what’s in the Earth.”
Hilsbos later said in a phone call that he doesn’t have a major problem with the TENORM acronym which the agencies are using. It stands for Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material that the environmental agencies are using. However, the issue that he does have is that it’s industry jargon, that despite whatever the agencies’ intentions, it may not be immediately clear to a layperson how dangerous the radioactive contamination on site is. Another issue is the use of the word “normal” within the acronym, which obscures the human role in concentrating this material.
“Coal inside a coal mine is normal in that sense, but it’s not normal to it settling in people’s lungs where it causes harm,” he said. “I think it’s not really normal as soon as you start messing with it.”
Hilsbos was clear in saying that he didn’t think the agencies were trying to use “normal” in the colloquial sense, however the presence of the word carries an implication that it’s normal and not a big deal. He’d rather see the material be called what it is, which he said is concentrated radioactive stuff.
Yori Gorby, lead scientist at the Athens, Ohio-based FreshWater Accountability Project, is encouraged that the EPA is working on the plant. Gorby worked at a nuclear facility in Washington state for about 20 years and his expertise is in the transport of heavy metals and radionuclides. He agreed that the situation in Fairmont is different from Chernobyl since the contamination isn’t due to any kind of nuclear reaction process. That said, the contamination he sees is reminiscent of the type found at other department of energy sites where nuclear material has been produced.
“This is one of the hottest sites that I’ve been on in terms of field contamination,” Gorby said to commissioners. “I’ve worked in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Lab. This for me represents a really serious topic. It should not be dismissed or diminished in any way by saying that these are naturally occurring. This is a disaster at that site. I am happy that we do have experts now stepping up to address it and I do thank you for your efforts.”
Commission president Ernie VanGilder functioned as the public’s agent to the officials from the EPA, DEP, DHHR and Homeland Security, asking directly when the site would be secured. Wagner said the bidding process will close Thursday. She said she’ll be able to report what the results are by next week.
In other commission business, Mike Rohaly finally received funding from the Marion County Commission. The commission voted to provide $5,000 for his mine simulator. It’s a big step for Rohaly, who said the neighboring county commissions have been in a holding pattern, waiting to see if MCC will open its coffers for his project. It’s been roughly four months since he began the process with Marion County. He hopes this will start a domino effect.
The commission also provided roughly $31,000 to the Ministers Run Water Association out of the county’s ARPA funds. The next meeting is November 8, 2023.
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SEE ALSO: Fairmont Brine Processing Plant ~ EPA begins sealing off what’s been dubbed ‘Fairmont’s Chernobyl’ ~ Esteban Fernandez | Times West Virginian, October 20, 2023
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