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AUGUSTA — Rather than spend $175,000 to further monitor and study a radioactive waste dump in Greenbush, the University of Maine should excavate the site, legislators on the state Advisory Commission on Radioactive Waste said Tuesday.
The waste dump is located on state-owned land, about 15 miles north of the Orono campus.
From 1960 to 1978, about 200 gallons of toluene, 50 gallons of dioxane, 27 grams of radium and other low-level radioactive debris used in lab experiments were buried there in a 1,600-square-foot plot.
All the waste was sealed in metal and glass containers, university safety engineer Robert King told the commission.
Two nearby monitoring wells, and six residential wells in the area, have shown no traces of contamination, King said.
But Stone & Webster, a Boston engineering firm, is recommending 16 additional monitor wells, each lined with stainless steel, be drilled at a cost of $80,000.
Along with other services and research proposed by the consulting firm, the cost of the project would be between $149,000 and $175,000.
Several members of the commission said the price was too high, given the fact that conditions at the site appear stable.
“It makes me wonder if it’s worth spending this much money to monitor it, if instead we could spend the money to dig up the waste and re-package it,” said Rep. Reed Coles, D-Harpswell.
Rep. Willis Lord, R-Waterboro, and Rep.James Mitchell, D-Freeport, the panel’s chairman, also favored that approach and said the mixed waste could be stockpiled temporarily in a school storage building designed for that purpose.
Mitchell said if the university had generated the waste while doing research for private companies or federal agencies, those groups should contribute to the removal and clean-up costs.
Estimates for removing the substances and restoring the land could run from $1.5 million to $2 million, King predicted.
The Legislature this session considered appropriating $90,000 toward the cost of the Stone & Webster study but the bill was withdrawn earlier this month. And the university’s trustees are not expected to allocate any funds in the near future for the study.
Lord said residents near the Greenbush dump site want the area cleaned up.
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