b'C H A P T E R 9H O T S T U F Fparts from stainless-steel, beryllium, ria for the Burial Ground, such as no Chairman Durham: Are you receivingdepleted uranium, and other metals. liquids. But they did send liquids any material from any other operationsWaste materials were contaminated with t r i c h l o roethylene [was one of them]. except what is going on at Idaho?1 5plutonium, solvents, and other industrialchemicals. Although Rocky Flats operat- Rocky Flats justified keeping secrets Mr. Horan: Yes, sir; we do. We receiveed no nuclear power reactors, its scien- from IDO managers as a matter of a large volume of waste from the Rockytists conducted criticality experiments in national security. The NRTS was not Flats plant near Denver, Colorado, butconnection with weapons development. 12 considered a weapons laboratory and this is the only other contributor ofdid not have access to many of the waste at our location.At the time, the Rocky Flats plant occu- details concerning the waste or how itpied only four square miles. The water was generated. After considerable hag- Representative [Chet] Holified: Is thattable beneath the surface was high and gling between IDO and Rocky Flats a processing plant?known not to be isolated. Furthermore, over this, Rocky Flats finally agreed toa civilian population resided near the supply IDO with an annual memoran- Mr. Horan: It is a weapons fabricationplant. Burial of waste on-site obviously dum summarizing the waste that had facility. 17was a poor option. 13 been shipped during the previous year. 16Plutonium and other human-made ele-The AEC calculated the cost of land The fact that waste shipments came to ments have an atomic number greaterburial at the NRTS and at the Nevada Idaho from Rocky Flats, however, was than that of uranium, which is 92, andTest Site, another AEC facility. Of the a matter of public record. At the 1959 are thus referred to as transuranic ele-two, the NRTS was closer. In April hearing, which was public, the chair- ments, or TRU. All are radioactive, and1954 Rocky Flats shipped several man of the subcommittee, Carl T. many have extremely long half-lives.drums of low-level plutonium waste to Durham, interrupted a discussion on the Plutonium emits alpha particles, forthe NRTS in a trial run. The shipment cost of waste disposal to ask Horan: which a piece of paper or three incheswent well, the costs were reasonable,and the decision stuck. It was the firstin a steady stream of shipments thatflowed into the Burial Ground fordecades to come. Like it or not, theIDO accommodated Rocky Flats deliv-eries. John Horan said later that theIDO did not like it. Rocky Flats wasnever consistent in how it characterizedits shipments and refused to identify thecontents in any meaningful detail. 14Some of our people got rather orneryabout that, dug their heels in, and thre a t -ened not to accept it at one point. Wed i d nt always feel they were honest about what they were sending us. We had crite -Dumpster waste included boxed items, metalcontainers, and other scraps.INEEL 61-18247 9'