Environmental Matters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky

Although Kentucky has never had an operating nuclear reactor, it has a closed commercial radioactive waste-disposal facility in Maxey Flats, Kentucky. The Maxey Flats site is located in Fleming County, Kentucky. The site is located on a “flat” surrounded on the east, west, and south by steep wooded hillsides and is connected to a ridge on the north.  Today, the 900-acre site of the former commercial radioactive waste disposal facility consists of the original 252 acres and approximately 550 acres of buffer zone area.  To see a Kentucky Environmental Quality Commission’s tour of Maxey Flats, please go to: http://www.eqc.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/F8E6D774-F53C-4B1F-96E6-B24B2171A0AD/0/maxeyflats.pdf.

Some historical background may be helpful in understanding how Kentucky found itself owning a former commercial radioactive waste-disposal facility.  In 1960 the Kentucky General Assembly passed legislation granting the governor power to enter into agreement with the federal government for the transfer of regulatory powers concerning atomic energy in Kentucky.  In 1962 Kentucky became the first of the old Atomic Energy Commission’s “Agreement States.” See the agreement at http://nrc-stp.ornl.gov/special/regs/kyagreements.pdf.  According to the Kentucky Environmental Quality Commission, Kentucky wanted to license a commercial radioactive disposal facility to spur economic development in eastern Kentucky. 

In 1962 the Nuclear Engineering Company (NEC) bought 252 acres of land on Maxey Flat and submitted an application for a license to bury radioactive waste there. Kentucky granted the license in January 1963.  The 252 acre site contained a series of 52 unlined trenches that are an average of 360 feet long x 70 feet wide x 20 feet deep.  About 6,000,000 ft³ of low level radioactive waste was dumped at Maxey Flats from 1963 to 1977.  In addition, the facility used “Hot Wells” to store “Special Nuclear Material” (SNM).  SNM is defined by Title I of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 as plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium enriched in the isotopes uranium-233 or uranium-235. The definition includes any other material that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determines to be special nuclear material, but does not include source material.   (See http://www.nrc.gov/materials/sp-nucmaterials.html for more information on SNM.)   

When the concrete burial trenches were full of radioactive waste, NEC capped them with dirt rather than concrete or steel.  Due to rainfall in the area, the soil collapsed into the trenches and the trenches filled with water like a series of giant radioactive bathtubs.  Because the water that filled the trenches became radioactive, it had to be disposed of.  NEC installed an evaporator and disposed of about 6 million gallons of radioactive water as steam from 1973 to April 1986.  

In 1973, the Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources (KCHR) reported the detection of radionuclides outside the disposal trenches. In 1974, the U.S. Geological Society began collecting water-level and precipitation data to assess the basic hydrologic system at the Maxey Flats site.  Three years later, commercial disposal operations at the facility ceased in December 1977 because of increased concern about the migration of radionuclides away from the site. Approximately 4.8 million cubic feet of low-level nuclear waste is buried at Maxey Flats according to the U.S. EPA.

U.S. EPA declared the former commercial nuclear disposal site a Superfund site in 1986, and the Record of Decision is at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/rods/fulltext/r0491097.pdf .  U.S. EPA’s second 5 year review of the Superfund site’s remedy is at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/fiveyear/f2007040001749.pdf.

From 1987 to 1991 a study was done to determine the best method of cleaning up the site. Remediation of the site began in 1995 and included the pumping of leachate from trench sumps, solidifying the leachate, and storing the material in a concrete bunker on site. From 1997 to 2000, over 700,000 gallons of leachate were pumped from the trenches (Hampson, 2000). Also during this period, construction began on cut-off trenches to the north and east of the burial site to intercept any recharge to or leakage from the trench area. Long-term water-level monitoring of wells and trench sumps is being used to help determine the effectiveness of this remediation.  Currently data is collected continuously from 15 wells and 2 surface-water sites, and quarterly from 2 wells. Current and historical data is available for retrieval from the USGS Kentucky NWISWeb. http://www.epa.gov/Region4/waste/npl/nplky/maxfltky.htm.  Unfortunately, the site is considered non-reclaimable and will have to be monitored and maintained in perpetuity.   The site is currently managed by the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  The third U.S. EPA five-year review of Maxey Flats will occur in 2012.