Seven years before a uranium leak was discovered at a Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory this summer, the toxic radioactive material trickled out of a pipe buried below the plant on Bluff Road.
That 2011 leak, unknown to many Lower Richland residents, sent uranium levels soaring to amounts not typically found in the area’s soggy soil, in one spot exceeding safe drinking-water standards.
But Westinghouse hasn’t cleaned up the polluted site — and it doesn’t plan to for at least 40 years — despite evidence the contamination will spread into creeks, ponds and groundwater, according to a June report by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If Westinghouse obtains a new 40-year operating license this year from the NRC, the cleanup would occur no sooner than 2058, when its Bluff Road plant would be shut down, federal records show. The NRC’s June environmental assessment says the contaminated soil is below a uranium recovery and recycling building on the Westinghouse site.
Sammy Fretwell – The State – August 16, 2018.
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