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Community Environmental Issues

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Submitted By rbutler2014
Words 791
Pages 4
Community Environmental Issue
Rebecca M. Butler
SCI-275
June 7th, 2015
Mr. Scott Rosecrans

Community Environmental Issues

In Aiken South Carolina, the biggest environmental issue is air pollution; this is mainly due to the Savannah River Site. The Savannah River Site is a nuclear reservation, in the United States, which is located in the state of South Carolina. In addition, this nuclear reservation is located on land in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell Counties adjacent to the Savannah River, as well as 25 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia. According to "Savannah River Site; Most Severely Radiation Polluted Place On Earth," (2012), "the Savannah River Site is one of the two most polluted places on earth.” The site is a 498 square mile complex, which has been severely polluted by 50 years of Nuclear Weapons production. In addition, it has been rated one of ten most polluted and toxic locations on this planet.
The Savannah River Site is known as over 490 square miles of radioactive death. The site has released over 100 million curies radiation, and 490 million curies of radiation continues to be stored on site. ("Savannah River Site; Most Severely Radiation Polluted Place On Earth,", 2012) A curie is known as a unit of activity of radioactive substances equivalent to 3.70 × 10 disintegrations per second: it is approximately the amount of activity produced by 1 gram of radium-226. ("Curie", 2015) Over the last 50 years, almost 100 million curies of tritium was released, contaminating the drinking water for this region. High level radioactive liquid curies are stored in underground tanks, near the Savannah River Site. Surrounding locations near the site have death rates above normal; this is largely from cancer and heart diseases, which both are associated with ionizing radiation.
The Savannah River Department of Energy is located near Aiken, South Carolina. The site is a complex of 300 square miles, which includes ponds, streams, reprocessing units, and nuclear reactors in the pine woods on the South Carolina and Georgia border. The natural wild life and plant life show radiation contamination. The Energy Department has dumped billions of gallons of contaminated water into the ponds over the last 3 decades. Swimming through the ponds are turtles, which absorb radioactive tritium, strontium and cesium in their shells and flesh. ("Savannah River Site; Most Severely Radiation Polluted Place On Earth,", 2012). Although many of the animals around the site are contaminated, fences have been placed to keep the contaminated wildlife from wandering to the most polluted areas of the site and then off site. In addition, the contamination does not only affect the natural wildlife and plant life, but the human population surrounding the site.
Since the 1980’s, a considerable amount of cleanup has been made to the site. However, additional cleanup remains, and will take decades to finish. During the cleanup, tanks containing highly radioactive liquid waste will be addressed, as well as Nuclear reactors which will be addressed in the future. Because of past disposal, the site was significantly contaminated; this led to site investigation, which identified contamination of soils, solid waste, sludge, ground water, surface water, sediments, and debris. The investigation also included identified contaminants of concern, which include: cesium, cobalt, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, trichloroethylene, plutonium, lead, radium, mercury, uranium, and thorium to name a few. ("Savannah River Site (usdoe)", 2012).
The Savannah River Site (SRS) has developed and cleanup plan to restore the site to a clean and habitable state. The process includes, grouping over 90 waste sites together, which are also referenced by EPA as operable units, or OUs. These OUs are located within major industrial areas at the site ("Savannah River Site (usdoe)", 2012). According to "Savannah River Site (usdoe)" (2012), "The ACP is an integrated group that incorporates the former SRNS Deactivation & Decommissioning organization with the former SRNS Soil and Groundwater Closure Projects organization. ACP focuses on reducing the footprint of legacy waste at SRS’s contaminated waste sites and obsolete facilities. The approach for soil and ground water cleanup is to treat or immobilize contamination source areas and clean up or slow the movement of contamination that has already migrated from the source areas. The approach for deactivating facilities is to safely remove hazards such as hazardous and radioactive waste, nuclear materials, and contaminated equipment and debris and to bring facilities to a cold and dark condition. This includes the deactivation and decommissioning of industrial, radiological and nuclear facilities.”

References

Savannah River Site; Most Severely Radiation Polluted Place on Earth,. (2012). Retrieved from http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/11/savannah-river-site-most-severely.html

Curie. (2015). Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Curie

Savannah River Site (USDOE). (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.epa.gov/region4/superfund/sites/fedfacs/savrivsc.html

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