Unusual plutonium levels found near UC lab
EPA officials stress no health hazard in public park samples
By Alisa Ulferts
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
About a month ago, plutonium was found in a public park next to
an elementary school near the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, an
energy lab operated by the University of California.
Hoping to head off unwarranted concern, Environmental Protection
Agency officials have since announced that the elevated levels of
plutonium pose no threat to the health and safety of the
surrounding area.
Samples taken from a public park adjacent to Arroyo Seco
Elementary School in Livermore, Calif. revealed levels of plutonium
reaching only 5 percent of the maximum level allowed by the EPA in
residential areas  but still 16 to 160 times higher than the
normal background level, according to agency officials. Background
levels are already-existing levels of plutonium from natural
sources and nuclear testing.
"It is not a health hazard," said Michael Gill, an EPA official
and project manager of the Superfund, a federal waste-management
program, at the laboratory. "But it is a higher level than what has
been expected for worldwide background levels."
Gill said it was possible that the higher levels may have come
from the air stacks at the Livermore Laboratory, even though the
laboratory routinely monitors emissions. The laboratory is owned by
the Department of Defense but is under UC supervision.
"They’ve been a little hesitant (to cooperate)," Gill said of
the laboratory officials. "They didn’t really feel there was a
problem. But we found the need to sample and go back to see if this
was just an anomaly or from the laboratory."
Reports of the plutonium were released by a local environment
group, the Tri-Valley Citizens Against a Radioactive Environment.
The group was concerned that children playing in the area could
stir up and inhale plutonium dust particles.
Officials from the laboratory deny there is a problem.
"The levels the EPA found are 20 times lower than the EPA’s own
standards for residential areas," said Gordon Yano, laboratory
spokesman. "There is plutonium everywhere because of nuclear
testing and naturally-occurring uranium in soil. But exactly how
the (elevated levels of plutonium) got there remains a
question."
Yano said it might have resulted from the laboratory releasing
plutonium into the Livermore city sewage system in the 1960s.
Before the plutonium was discovered, it accumulated into sludge
 which was then used as fertilizer in Big Trees Park, the
site where the plutonium was found. Yano insisted the level was
negligible.
"If the radiation from the natural uranium in that area is a
penny’s worth, then that radiation plus the plutonium is two
pennies," Yano said. "You’ve doubled the amount, but you still
don’t have a lot of money."
City officials are also unconcerned. Diane Daniel, a spokeswoman
with the Livermore Area Recreation and Parks Department, said the
department had no plans to close the park. "The levels of radiation
are not a threat to children in the park," she said.
The Livermore Unified School District has not received any calls
from parents worried about the radiation and classes will not be
cancelled, said a district spokeswoman.
"A lot of the people here are more used to radioactivity because
they work with it in the lab," said Janet Armentraut,
editor-in-chief of Livermore’s local paper, the Independent.
"Things around here are pretty quiet because (the parents of the
elementary school students) know more about the effects of
radiation."
Plutonium cannot penetrate the skin  although it is
poisonous if swallowed, Yano said. It is most harmful if inhaled,
damaging the lung cells and possibly causing cancer.