History

Before the construction of Fernald in 1953, the processing of uranium feed materials took place in three separate locations created during the Manhattan project. The Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis processed uranium ore into uranium dioxide. The Harshaw Chemical Works in Cleveland, Ohio then converted the uranium dioxide into uranium hexafluoride. Finally, the Union Carbide and Chemical Electro-Metallurgical Division Works refined the uranium hexafluoride into usable uranium metal at its Buffalo, New York location. This material would be sent to Hanford for use in the reactors. By 1950, the inefficiencies of having the production taking place at so many different locations had become apparent. Another issue was that many of these facilities were becoming outdated, posing a threat to the health and safety of employees. These two issues motivated the AEC to design and build a single plant for all phases of processing work.

The AEC chose to build the new facility in Fernald, Ohio since the Department of Defense recommended it be out of reach of Soviet Bombers. The area's close proximity to Cincinnati was desirable as it provided adequate housing and labor. It was also a central location between delivery ports and other production centers. In 1951, fifty families were evicted from their farms and homes, 1,050 acres were taken over, and construction began.

Plant construction took place from 1951 to 1954. Fernald had ten primary plants including an ore refinery and a metals production plant. There were also twenty administration and science buildings, laboratories, and waste storage areas. All of this was surrounded by a buffer zone to prevent anyone from observing what was going on.

Within a few months of initial operations at Fernald, the AEC expanded production in order to keep up with the demand coming from the production reactors at the Hanford and Savannah River site. Several of the plants underwent renovations and new equipment was installed. During the peak years, 1955 to the early 1960s, Fernald was producing 12,000 tons of uranium a year.

By 1954, the AEC was able to concentrate all of its uranium processing at Fernald. This however left the arsenal system vulnerable. If operations at Fernald were disrupted, it could cripple large sections of the weapons complex. The AEC constructed a second refinery system to minimize such risks. From 1957 to 1966, Fernald had a sister refining site in Weldon Springs near St. Louis. Eventually the cost of maintaining two feed material factories made the AEC once again rethink their policy. They had closed several production reactors at both Hanford and Savannah River by 1966. While mill capacity increased the production of yellowcake, the development of a private nuclear industry did not happen as was expected. The combination of reactor closures and reduced demand for feed materials led the AEC tpclose operations at Weldon Spring in 1966.

Even after Weldon Springs had been shut down, Fernald's future was still uncertain. Over the next decade, the AEC closed eight of its nine production reactors at Hanford leaving only the N Reactor operational in 1971. At this time there was a large stockpile of plutonium as well as several other sites capable of converting the reserve when necessary. The AEC questioned questioned whether Fernald should continue its operations. By the mid-1970s, Fernald production had slowed down, its workforce shrank, and the equipment deteriorated.

When the Reagan administration implemented new defense policies in the early 1980s, enrichment orders increased. These new strains combined with years of neglect overwhelmed the Fernald's thirty year old plants. The effects of years of extensive deterioration began to show. In 1984, the DOE said that nearly 300 pounds of enriched uranium oxide was released into the environment and three wells outside of the plant were contaminated.

Citizens from the surrounding area organized the Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH). The group pushed for the closure of the plant. The DOE suspended production at Fernald in 1989 and permanently stopped in 1991. In 1992, a subsidiary of the Fluor Corp. was contracted to clean up the site. Beginning in 1994, the total clean up was budgeted at $4.4 billion and at one time employed nearly 3,000 people. In addition to the destruction of hundreds of buildings, large amounts of waste had to be removed from the site. There were 82,000 drums of radioactive waste being stored on site as well as 31 million pounds of uranium metal. There was also nearly 1 million pounds of radioactive waste sitting in six pits. Over 120 million cubic feet of contaminated soil and toxic sludge had to be removed. Most of this waste was shipped for permanent storage in Utah and Texas.

As part of the clean up, the DOE and EPA agreed to construct the On-Site Disposal Facility (OSDF). The OSDF is a multi-layer cap and liner system made from natural materials that will house 2.5 million cubic yards of contaminated low-level waste. The OSDF is 800 feet wide and 3,700 feet long with a 165-foot peak. The waste is primarily from excavated building foundations and soil.

Community

In 1985, the residents of Fernald brought a case against the government and the plant's operator, National Lead of Ohio. In the suit, they claimed that the foundry caused harm to the health and emotional state of the people of the community. They also claimed they had been misled by the dangers the facility posed.

In 1988, Congress asked the Center for Disease Control to conduct a study looking at radiation exposure and its connection to health around Fernald. The results were released in 1998 and they indicated the largest radiation dose to the residents was likely from exposure to radon, one of the decay products and uranium. Radioactive material had been released from the site into the air. This happened during processing and when waste was burned in incinerators and buried in pits. The exposure to the lungs was greater than any other organ. Research showed that the number of lung cancer deaths within the community surrounding the FMPC site from 1951 through 2008 may have increased by 1% to 12% as a result of radiation exposures related from Fernald.

The suit was settled in 1989 with the government agreeing to pay $78 million. Each resident received between $10,000 and $50,000. Residents also received free exams through a medical monitoring program.

Workers

Most of the workers at Fernald were veterans of World War II and the Korean War. They believed they were home front fighters in the Cold War and were referred to as "production soldiers" in signs around the plant. Cold War era secrecy was high at the plant. Prospective employees had to go through a background check and workers were warned not to talk about what was happening at Fernald, not even with other co-workers.

Workers at the site handled several dangerous chemicals including uranium hexafluoride, raw uranium, anhydrous ammonia, nitric acid, as well as other radioactive and toxic chemicals. Despite the danger, workers rarely, if ever, wore safety equipment. They would often only wear hard hats, boots and work gloves. Many of the formers workers developed cancer, which they believe is from handling dangerous materials. A lawsuit brought on by workers (separate from the resident's lawsuit) was settled in 1994. Along with $15 million they would receive free medical monitoring.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Labor set up a program to compensate former Fernald workers who became ill or died because of working at the plant. Program officials have received 1,208 claims. So far, 261 have been approved, and 668 have been denied. The program has also paid the medical bills for 255 workers who were diagnosed with radiation-induced cancer. Many workers feel the compensation program is overly complicated and moves too slow. Some have stated publicly that they think the government is purposely stalling the process, waiting for the former workers, many in their 70s and 80s, to die.

Medical Monitoring System

As previously stated, a free medical monitoring system was set up for the affected workers as part of their settlement. It involved almost 10,000 people who lived near the Fernald plant. The purpose of the program was to help the people in the area detect health problems that could arise from having been exposed to radioactive dust in the soil and water. Doctors believe that the program saved as many as 242 lives by detecting ailments and would have otherwise been missed or discovered too late.

Although this wasn't the first monitoring program that has resulted from a lawsuit, it was different from previous ones. In most cases, programs like these determine the extent of the damage and then compensate the victims. Since the effects of radiation were unknown, the two sides in this case agreed to the free medical exams in the hope they would improve or save lives. The program was focused on general health because doctors felt they could not do much for a patient with radiation exposure after it happened.

During the study, which gave a participant a physical every two years, doctors discovered 560 cancers and 720 other serious ailments, including dangerously high blood pressure, diabetes, and lung problems. Patients were able to go directly to the hospital from the testing site following a discovery of a medical problem.

The study was conducted from 1990 to 2008 and amassed a massive collection of data, blood samples and other specimens. Scientists believe this information can be used to save more lives in the years to come. This information can help scientists study the long term-effects of radiation exposure. It can also be used in studies of unrelated problems such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and genetic links to cancer. The data is being used in nearly 50 studies, and only half of those are related to radiation exposure. Other studies now underway include research related to diabetes, breast cancer and prostate cancer. One study involved a theory about a gene that makes people susceptible to lung cancer. Instead of collecting data for a few decades, the researchers used the Fernald blood samples. They searched for the gene and then used the medical records to find out if the people who had it developed lung cancer.

Legacy

In 1997, the University of Cincinnati's Center for Environmental Communication Studies began to collect information on the history of Fernald. The Center initiated an oral history program designed to collect the remembrances of individuals who either worked or lived near Fernald from 1951 to the present. By 1999, FLHP conducted 100 oral and videotaped interviews with retired workers and community leaders.

References

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20060723/NEWS01/607230358/Final-chapter-for-Fernald

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110115/NEWS01/101160337/1057/NEWS0101/Fernald-tests-save-lives

http://www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/AppendixF.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/pdfs/tbd/frnld11.pdf

Krupar, Jason, Burying Atomic History: "The Mound Builders of Fernald and Weldon Spring".The Public Historian Vol. 29, No. 1 (Winter, 2007), pp. 31-58 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the National Council on Public History
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4491538