Lakewood – Up to 575 gallons of water with a “minimal amount of radiation” leaked from a corroded storage tank at a research reactor in this west Denver suburb, the U.S. Geological Survey said today.
USGS spokesman Dave Ozman said there was no evidence the leak had contaminated groundwater and that a monitoring well about 250 feet from the tank had not detected any radioactivity.
The tank has been patched but continues to leak water at a rate of less than three gallons per day, Ozman said.
The agency said it is working on a permanent fix. Ozman said he did not know whether the water that has already leaked had been contained.
Ozman said the contamination was well below the threshold for a mandatory report to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, but the NRC was notified as a precaution.
The tank is used to store equipment that was used on the reactor, Ozman said. The water is used as a shield to contain radioactivity from the equipment, he said.
The reactor is at the Denver Federal Center, a sprawling complex of federal offices.
The reactor is used for geologic and biological research, including tests to identify and analyze contaminants that can affect human and wildlife health, USGS said in a release.
It is not used to generate electrical power, Ozman said.
