Depleted uranium sent to burn plant

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr 10, 2008

Hill Air Force Base reported Wednesday it has learned that materials it sent to the burn plant in Layton contained small amounts of depleted uranium.

The quantity of the radioactive material is described as "less than the amount found in one household smoke detector," according to Col. Linda Medler, 75th Air Base Wing commander, but the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has asked the Air Force to come up with a worst-case scenario on possible adverse health effects, said Donna Kemp Spangler, DEQ's public affairs officer.

Spangler said the Air Force has made local notifications about the depleted-uranium-containing material, but the state has not yet heard from Hill about the maximum possible dosage of radioactive materials that could have been released when the military items were burned.

Hill sent what it called "classified components" to the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District as part of its process of demilitarizing materials, or rendering them unusable for military purposes.

Shipments to the burn plant spanned eight months until base officials learned in March that the components contained trace levels of depleted uranium.

"Our technicians were initially unaware that these parts contained very small amounts of depleted uranium because the 40- year-old classified drawings and other information describing the components were not readily accessible," Medler said in a press release. "When we learned of the depleted uranium, we immediately stopped the way we were demilitarizing these components and conducted testing to determine the levels of radioactivity on these items."

As described by the Air Force release, depleted uranium is a tough high-density metal left over after processing natural uranium. Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than naturally- occurring uranium. Because of unique characteristics, depleted uranium has many military and civilian applications.

"We recognize the sensitivity of this issue to many citizens in Utah, and though there are no health or environmental risks from demilitarizing the components at the burn plant, our engineers at the installation are evaluating other processing techniques for demilitarizing these components," Medler said.