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Depleted uranium toxicity { May 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=11941http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=11941
Friday, May 02, 2003
Depleted uranium toxicity concerns JPG board
By: Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer
Friday, May 02, 2003
The two faces of depleted uranium are concerning members of the advisory board for restoration of Jefferson Proving Ground. Depleted uranium, which was used in munitions tested at JPG, is both radioactive and toxic.
DU's danger to people's health is far greater from its toxicity than from its radioactivity, Restoration Advisory Board members said at the board's quarterly meeting Wednesday. Board members discussed how to make testing for toxicity part of the regimen at JPG.
But there is a huge problem: No agency or group has set a standard for the level at which DU toxicity is hazardous. One of the health effects is kidney damage.
Some of the board members wanted the Army to do topological tests at JPG, but Paul Cloud, the Army's point-man at JPG and co-chairman of the advisory board, said the Army doesn't have to do so because the DU it tested there in munitions is regulated by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC is concerned only with the radioactive properties of the DU and not its toxic properties, he said.
It's possible another federal agency, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, or an Indiana state agency could take on monitoring the toxicity of the depleted uranium at JPG.
Although DU's toxicity has been known for years, studies to link amounts and effects have not been done, an extensive data search by Indiana University graduate students found.
If such studies leading to standards were started now, establishing safe limits could take years, Cloud said.
The two aspects of depleted uranium are "two different ways it acts negatively on the body," said Diane Henshel, an assistant professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and technical adviser to the Restoration Advisory Board.
One of Henshel's classes for graduate students is studying the radiological and toxic effects of depleted uranium on people, plants, animals and aquatic wildlife.
Cloud said the bottom line is to prevent people from having access to the depleted uranium impact area at JPG, which the Army has fenced and barricaded and posted warning signs.
"Uranium is more toxic as a heavy metal than it is as a radioactive element," said John Ruyack of the Indiana Department of Health, who attended the meeting.
One of the impacts on the body is kidney damage.
Cloud disclosed that last fall the Army Environmental Center, accompanied by explosives experts from the Department of Defense, drilled eight more wells north of the firing line at JPG as part of a study nationwide of geology and hydrology. One of the new wells is in the DU impact area.
Because of the presence in the area of tons of unexploded ordnance, the wells were drilled two feet at a time, with a probe inserted after each two feet to make sure nothing would blow up, he said. Nothing did. Water from the wells is being tested for explosives and metals, but the report has not yet been issued, he said.
Also, he said, the state of Indiana has started monthly testing of streams as they go into and out of JPG and has not found any signs of uranium. And other tests the Army does are aimed at finding uranium. If uranium were found in a sample, the sample would be further tested to rule out the uranium that naturally occurs in the environment, but such further testing has not been needed, he said.
Henshel said that to be useful, such monitoring should include testing mussels to see if uranium has accumulated in their bodies. "The aquatic biota ...is where it's going to accumulate over time," she said.
Mike Mullett, an attorney for the Save the Valley environmental organization, asked Cloud if the Army's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows transport in and transport out of depleted uranium-his point being whether JPG could become a dumping ground for depleted uranium collected as part of the cleanup in postwar Iraq.
"I cannot comment on that officially," Cloud said. "That would be a policy decision by the Army."
But he said he thinks the amount of depleted uranium the Army left behind after 10 years of testing munitions containing it ended in 1994 is close to the amount the Army was allowed by its permit to have at JPG.
If the government wanted to dispose of depleted uranium at JPG, "we'd have to get a license for that, and that's an open process," he said, so it wouldn't be a secret.
In another area of concern raised at the advisory board meeting, Cloud said the Army has no intention of testing at the former airfield at JPG for the presence of perchlorate, which is used in missiles and rockets. Neither was tested at JPG, he said, so the Army has no reason to believe there is any contamination from it on the airfield parcel, which is in the process of being turned over to businessman Dean Ford, who is buying most of the former proving ground that isn't part of the Big Oaks Wildlife Refuge.
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