Campaign to prevent radioactive tritium venting from Los Alamos National Laboratory
LANL has four waste containers filled with approximately 100,000 curies of radioactive tritium that they want to transport. They say that if they do not vent them into the air, there may be a tritium explosion. CCW has worked diligently since 2020 to hold LANL accountable to the harm that the venting of the tritium waste containers could have on our communities.
Here are the facts:
LANL has not measured the gas and metal contents found in the headspace of the tritium waste containers - they do not know if it is actually necessary to vent the containers.
LANL wants to vent about 9 grams of tritium (~100,000 curies) over the span of a few days. This is three times the amount of tritium as Japan is dumping into the Pacific Ocean over the span of 30 years from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor explosions and tsunami.
One teaspoon of tritiated (HTO) water will contaminate about 100 billion gallons of water.
When calculating the risk, LANL does so for adults - they are not required to do so for children, infants or pregnant women/fetuses. This does not properly represent the real impact on our communities. The author of one report, Bernd Franke, stated, “In the case of tritium, infants and small children get a radiation dose about three times greater than adults, with the same concentrations of tritium in air, water, and food.”
CCW’s work to prevent tritium venting continues our collaboration with Tewa Women United (TWU) since 2020, when TWU released a petition that totaled more than 3,000 signatures. Since the petition, Tewa Women United has continued working to prevent the tritium venting, commissioning two reports to study impacts and finding: “LANL Omitted Dose Calculations to Infants & Children in Their Compliance Application.”
In Tewa Women United’s November 2024 press release, Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, member of San Ildefonso Pueblo and one of Tewa Women United’s co-founders, said, “Tritium makes water, our sacred source of life, radioactive. We were shocked to learn that LANL’s compliance calculations did not take infants and other children into account.”
In 2020 the All Pueblo Council of Governors distributed a press release titled “Pueblos Concerned about Los Alamos National Laboratories Planned Release of Radioactive Vapors.”
For more information, read Searchlight New Mexico’s June 2024 article about LANL tritium venting.
TAKE ACTION:
If you are concerned about tritium venting and/or other LANL activities, please take action by submitting a public comment to the draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (LANL SWEIS) HERE, courtesy of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) and Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE).
The draft HOPE/CCNS LANL SWEIS public comment letter states, “Given LANL's documented history of violations of the Clean Air Act, plans to vent tritium directly into the atmosphere present serious concern including radiation risks, as tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen that can be inhaled or absorbed into water sources. A revised Draft SWEIS must include a comprehensive health and safety assessment, take into account specific exposure pathways for land-based communities, commit to including community input on proposed tritium venting, establish stronger worker protections and routine health screenings, and expand compensation programs for affected individuals.”
-
Communities for Clean Water (CCW) contracted the German engineering firm Ingenieurbüro Rau to do Weather Modeling to see the impact that the Tritium Venting could have on rainwater, surface water and groundwater in the case of weather events (rain/wind) during venting.
Weather Modeling Report by Matthias Rau, Ingenieurbüro Rau
The present report “examines the dispersion and environmental impact of tritium released during the venting of Flanged Tritium Waste Containers (FTWCs) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).”
“The primary goal of the study is to assess how tritium disperses in the air and how it deposits through precipitation. This evaluation is critical for understanding the potential contamination risks at nearby locations, such as La Vista Church (2.2 km from the release site) and the Rio Grande River (5 km away).”
In Rau’s Conclusion, he states:
“The probability of high tritium deposition at the nearest receptor locations is relatively low, as rain events from the critical wind direction (west-northwest) are infrequent.
However, significant tritium release into the environment occurs during venting, with potential implications for local water bodies and ecosystems.
The report emphasizes the need for careful monitoring and potential mitigation measures to limit environmental exposure.”
That said, in a rain event, the amount of tritium released would contaminate local water bodies, including the Rio Grande, well above both the drinking water standard and the New Mexico surface water guideline. It would also contaminate groundwater and streams other than the Rio Grande in the area.
Read the report below: