Plans to capture contaminated groundwater from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory have resurrected old worries among some residents about plutonium in the city's soil.

Leaders of the Livermore Lab watchdog group Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) are concerned about what they see as safety shortfalls in the Department of Energy's designs for a pipeline extension along the Arroyo Seco, where elevated levels of plutonium were found in the 1990s.

The group is pushing for continuous air monitoring, dust suppression and expanded safety measures beyond what is planned for the project -- work the Department of Energy says is unnecessary and cost-prohibitive.

The pipeline extension is part of a long-term federal effort to clean up toxic, underground wastewater emanating from the lab. Since 1987, the lab has been on the EPA's Superfund list of most contaminated locations in the nation, and the cleanup is expected to take another 50 years to complete.

The new, approximately $1 million plan calls for lengthening an existing pipeline along the arroyo to Big Trees Park, where polluted water extending about a half-mile into the community can be pumped, then piped back to the lab for on-site treatment.

Tri-Valley CAREs -- a 28-year-old anti-nuclear group whose members include both retired and active lab physicists -- pushed for the extension and will continue to support it, as long as it does not stir up plutonium in the process, said the group's executive director, Marylia Kelley.


"We think the overall project is the right thing to do," Kelley said. "Our concern is with worker safety and the community's safety, because they have to put this pipeline through soil that is known to be contaminated with elevated levels of plutonium."

She added, "We want to make sure the right steps are taken ... that the implementation of the solution itself does not create another problem."

The group will hold a Nov. 3 community meeting on the matter.

In written comments to the Department of Energy, Tri-Valley CAREs leaders said they want more assurances that trace amounts of plutonium, which is most hazardous when inhaled, are not disturbed during digging.

Along with more air monitoring and dust suppression than what is currently planned, they say more precise soil samples should be taken and more sophisticated radiation analysis performed. The group's Sept. 29 letter to the Department of Energy also requests a "much more detailed discussion" of safety procedures and a more robust groundwater monitoring system.

What Tri-Valley CAREs is seeking is unnecessary and cost-prohibitive, said project manager Phil Wong, of the Department of Energy.

Though soil samples taken in the 1990s in the area of the proposed pipeline showed above-background plutonium levels, the concentrations fell well below federal requirements for remediation.

"Certainly, we don't want any of our workers to be exposed to anything that would impact their health. If we thought it would do that, we would not do this project," Wong said.

The amount of additional soil sampling residents want would "blow (the) project budget," he said, adding,
"I'm hoping that we can come to a meeting of the minds so that we can address most of their concerns given our budget limitations."

In 2007, Tri-Valley CAREs helped convince the Environmental Protection Agency that the lab's previous plan to capture the outer edge of the toxic groundwater plume, by pumping it out of the aquifer in Big Tree Park and then dumping it into the sewer line, was inadequate. After the EPA's ruling, the current plan to pipe the contaminated water back to the lab for treatment was developed with the support of the community.

There is no safe level of radiation exposure, said Peter Strauss, an environmental scientist who does contract work for Tri-Valley CAREs.

"If there's a feasible technique to monitor that dust to make sure it doesn't have radioactivity, why not?" he said. "We're talking about a large project in the first place, so I do not want to see them pinch pennies on that."