Nuclear fuel plant waste linked to tainted Missouri well

ST. LOUIS – Tests show radioactive and chemical waste from a plant where fuel rods for the nation’s nuclear reactors once were made has surfaced in well water of a nearby home, state officials said.

Randy Maley, a state environmental specialist, said testing over the past two months near the former Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. plant revealed chemical solvents and possible traces of technetium-99, a radioactive fission product believed to have been there during the Cold War.

Mallinckrodt is a former owner of the now defunct HoltraChem Manufacturing Co. plant in Orrington, where soil and the nearby Penobscot River have been contaminated with mercury. State and federal regulators who are currently negotiating with the company hope it will take responsibility for future clean-up activities at the Orrington plant, where more than 80 tons of mercury are still stored.

The Missouri plant, in Hematite, about 35 miles south of St. Louis, was shut down last summer.

Low levels of technetium-99 had turned up in a monitoring well at the plant in the early 1990s, but later tests of area drinking wells showed no contamination.

Department of Health environmental engineer Chuck Hooper said the technetium levels detected would not be considered a serious health threat but the solvents exceeded state and federal standards, meaning they could pose a cancer risk.

Kevin Hayes, manager of environmental health and safety at the plant, said officials with Westinghouse Electric Co. – the site’s current owner – confirmed the presence of the solvents but requested more testing.

“Our perspective is that the state’s results raised more questions than they answered,” Hayes said in Thursday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “If it’s coming from us, we’ll work with the agencies and develop a plan to deal with it effectively.”