Trace amounts of plutonium were potentially washed into Boulder’s wastewater system from two locations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology after a June 9 plutonium leak, federal and Boulder city officials said Wednesday.
NIST became aware of the possible contamination last week after two people involved with the plutonium spill washed their hands in a men’s washroom. The washroom was just feet from the lab where a vial containing one-quarter gram of plutonium-containing powder cracked and spilled.
NIST spokesperson Gail Porter said that over the weekend, NIST radiation-safety experts were able to enter the lab for the first time. They discovered that a sink there also had been contaminated.
Porter said Wednesday that NIST doesn’t know the exact amount of plutonium that may have washed down the drain from the laboratory sink. But she added that NIST is conducting studies to better estimate the amount of radiation discharged.
Porter didn’t know whether the employees followed proper procedure by washing their hands in the sinks.
She emphasized that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was notified and that members of the Department of Energy Radiological Assistance Program arrived to help assess the contamination and cleanup.
The plutonium leak upset Colorado legislators.
U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, an Eldorado Springs Democrat, said Wednesday that he was “deeply troubled” to learn that the contamination may have ended up in Boulder’s sewer system.
“The agency has considerable explaining to do about how a material as dangerous as plutonium could accidentally be released into a laboratory sink,” Udall said.
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, in a letter to James Turner, NIST’s acting director, pointed to the plutonium spill as “grounds for a thorough review of the laboratory’s safety programs, particularly those dealing with radioactive materials.”
At the time of the incident, a plutonium sample smaller than a dime was being used in a research project to develop improved radiation detectors for use by nuclear inspectors, Porter said.
Maureen Rait, Boulder’s director of public works and acting interim city manager, said Wednesday that extensive monitoring at the city’s wastewater plant and of Boulder Creek — where discharge of the treated water goes — showed that no employees or aquatic life had been affected.
