RE: COMMUNITY INPUT for the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action process at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

Dear Mr. Sandhu:

The following comments and requests represent years of community effort, frustrations and disappointment with Regulators‚ in our commitment to analyze, inform, and insist on seriously cleaning up LBNL radioactive and hazardous chemical waste from the air, soil, groundwater, creeks, trees, vegetation, and aquatic species from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on University of California land in Berkeley and Oakland.

For the intent of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, we call for a Source Water Protection Plan to conserve and recover the Upper Strawberry Creek Watershed that is still impacted by spreading toxic plumes. In this regard, we request a comprehensive watershed analysis be conducted of the drinking "water bank" (Lennert Aquifer) and its groundwater movements feeding Strawberry Creek tributaries for a healthy environmental recovery.

We call for an Ecological Protection Zone in the Strawberry Creek Canyon and the Berkeley-Oakland Hills to conserve and protect human and ecological life from further harm in the 21st Century.

For the Corrective Action Process of the RCRA we call for a state-of-the-art assessment of the LBNL waste using GIS mapping data of the water sources, the 4 earthquake faults and the ground water plumes layered on the California Geological Survey Seismic Hazard Maps that indicates the LBNL site at very high risk of earthquake induced landslides. For the safety of LBNL workers, campus employees as well as neighbors, it would be prudent to take great care in studying the potential impacts from seismic movement breaking out the borders of the toxic groundwater plumes and pits.

We further request that the cumulative environmental impacts of the 174 radioactive and hazardous units be considered as well as the synergistic effects of radionuclides, chemicals and bio-agents (combined) on human and ecological receptors.

We expect the key elements of the Precautionary Principle be included into DTSC‚s decision making process. Background of Community Imput

During the past ten years community input into the RCRA Corrective Action process at LBNL has been virtually non-existent. In spite of the formal request made by the Berkeley City Council to include members of the public, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the Department of Energy (DOE), and LBNL refused to include community participation at the RCRA Quarterly Review meetings.

The Lab‚s response was to provide a pitiful one hour presentation by an LBNL representative at 6 PM before the official scheduled Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC) meeting at 7 PM four times a year during the past few years. This untimely arrangement provided no chance for the public to gain a comprehensive understanding of the RCRA activities at LBNL nor the time for a meaningful discussion.

History of Contamination

The Lab originated on the UC Berkeley Campus in 1932 as the UC Radiation Laboratory (the Rad Lab). In 1940, it was relocated to its present site in the Strawberry Creek Watershed in the steep Berkeley Hills east of the central campus next to the Hayward Earthquake Fault. The first major facility, the 184-inch Synchrocyclotron was built with funds from both private and university sources. After 1948, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and its successor agencies funded the Lab. In 1972 the name was changed from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

For the past sixty three years radioactive and chemical releases, and accidents have contaminated the once, beautiful pristine watershed of Strawberry Canyon and nearby wild lands, neighboring residents, and school children to the Lawrence Hall of Science as well as people recreating on the canyon trails, swimming, and attending football games.

Not until 1988 was the first Environment, Health and Safety related assessment of LBNL made by DOE. It was followed by the Tiger Team Assessment of 1991 which found 678 violations of DOE Regulations covering management practices at LBNL, finding Berkeley-Oakland air, soil and water contaminated with TRITIUM, other RADIOACTIVE substances and toxic chemicals; It is indisputable that the Lab was not in compliance with federal standards for radioactivity in air. Because of these findings, DOE funded the California Agreement in Principle (AIP) Program to be conducted by the California Department of Health Services (DHS) which has jurisdiction over radioactivity in California.

In September of 1995, the DHS Environmental Management Branch released the AIP Annual Report. As an example: the report scathingly criticizes the "efficiency and validity of the methods employed at LBNL to measure and monitor airborne Tritium". (Pg. 14) Within a few months DOE cuts the funding for the entire AIP Program and takes control over the handling of the 8 cited radioactively contaminated sites at LBNL on which the Department of Health Services expressed serious concern. (Pgs. 13˜17). To date, no report has been released to the public regarding corrective action for clean up of these radioactive sites!

In addition, on the main UC Berkeley campus LBNL occupies over 100,000 sq. feet of laboratory space, including entire buildings such as the Donner Laboratory and Melvin Calvin Laboratory, with off-campus Buildings 934 and 903 in South West Berkeley and space at the Richmond Field Station. Although LBNL‚s Hazardous Waste Facility Permit of 1993 requires LBNL to investigate and address all historic releases of hazardous waste and chemicals, it appears that no investigations have been done to scrutinize these sites for LBNL‚s historical contamination.

Since November 1991, the State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control and LBNL have identified one hundred and seventy four (174) "units" of contamination in the Strawberry Creek Watershed. Eight (8) of these 174 units were identified as radioactive. Based upon these findings, DTSC concluded that corrective action was necessary to characterize the contamination at the site.

By May of 2003,only twenty nine (29) soil units, and thirteen (13) ground water units were further evaluated in LBNL‚s Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA). DTSC also requested LBNL to prepare an Ecological Health Risk Assessment.

Earthquake Disaster: Potential Hazard Landslide Zones

On February 14, 2003 the California State Department of Conservation Geological Survey released the Final Seismic Hazard Maps that illustrate the seismic hazard zones of the University of California lands, of Berkeley and Oakland (including LBNL), that encompass areas prone to soil liquefaction (failure of water saturated soil) and earthquake induced landslides. (Attachment 1).

Areas of contamination cannot be considered contained in earthquake potential hazard landslide zones that appear on the Seismic Hazard Maps. Landslides break roads, buildings and even borders of contaminant plumes, cause underground soil erosion, subsidence, lateral spreading and collapse. Disturbed land allows contaminants to migrate in the soil and groundwater, storm drains and creeks into residential communities and putting at risk human and ecological health. It appears that the RCRA reports do not address such a disaster potential predicted in the event of strong earthquake on the Hayward Fault within the next 30 years by the USGS.

Historical Landslide Activity In Berkeley

Landslides in Berkeley, particularly the Berkeley Hills, are well known to residents of the area. The landslides occur for four main reasons: soils, steep slopes, rainfall and sub-surface erosion. The soils in the Berkeley Hills are high in clay content. Clay affects the soil in that it has great water-holding ability and can increase the volume of the soil by 20 percent. The drainage rate in this kind of soil is very slow. These features cause a loss of shear strength and promote great slope instability. Slope is the most important site characteristic associated with the occurrence of soil slips, which are landslides involving only the material above the unweathered bedrock surface. Soils that are typically shallow and rocky are extremely prone to slippage. Slopes which have high water content, or slopes which have been cut into for roadways or building foundations influence landslide occurrences.

Most landslides occur during or immediately after storm periods in which more than seven inches of rain fell. The North Berkeley Hills are high in clay content and have steep slopes. Intense storms in February 1940, October 1962, and January 1982 had record-breaking precipitation of up to 6.97 inches in one day. Much damage was caused to the University and to residential areas as a result of the sliding from these storms. In the storm of February 1940 more than 35 slides occurred, many of them seriously threatening homes. Houses were evacuated in many areas of North 'Berkeley. The storm which came in October 1962 caused much damage in the hill area and necessitated the closure of North Canyon Road from the Memorial Stadium to the Radiation Laboratory because of 600 foot long mud slides close to the gates of the Lab. This slide washed onto Gayley Road covering it with up to a foot of silt. Mud and water flowed into Cowell Hospital, International House, and the Poultry Husbandry Laboratory. Strawberry Center recreational area was surrounded by three feet of mud.

In January 1982 another intense storm caused enormous damage. Grizzly Peak Boulevard was partly blocked by landslides and Centennial Drive was closed from Strawberry Canyon pool to the Lawrence Hall of Science. The shoulder level of Centennial Drive dropped several feet making it necessary to reconstruct and reposition the road. Centennial Drive was closed for eight months.

Landslides in the Dry Season and The Lennert Aquifer

In 1974 two landslides on University property were lubricated by the groundwater of the Lennert Aquifer during the dry season. A large slide occurred inside the Lawrence Berkeley Lab breaking a building (46) in two, took out a road and underground utilities, and threatened to undermine the Lawrence Hall of Science. The other slide threatened the steep part of Centennial Drive just below LHS. B.J. Lennert installed the Shively Well No. 1 just west of the University‚s Space Science Laboratory. The well was eminently successful; both slides stopped. Since then that groundwater produced by the 350 foot well has been dumped into Strawberry Creek at the Botanical Garden, which is why the creek has never dried up during droughts. This little-known aquifer can serves as a "water bank" source for Berkeley residents as reserve drinking water. It does not appear in any of the LBNL documents nor is its threat for future landslides been evaluated in the RCRA documents.

Strawberry Creek and its Tributaries

The text of the Human Health Risk Assessment (May 2003) denies the historical creek restoration work and laboratory studies that have been carried out on the Upper Canyon reaches of Strawberry Creek, the Campus Strawberry Creek Watershed Management Plan and the entire daylighted portions of Strawberry Creek Watershed in the cities of Oakland and Berkeley to the outflow of the creek waters into the SF Estuary. The Urban Creeks Council, Friends of Strawberry Creek, and countless students work in the waters and along the banks to clean-up trash and debris, weed infestations of non-native plants, restore banks with native plants, test and GIS the streams on a year round basis.

The Incremental Lifetime Cancer Risk (ILCR) theoretical modelling only calculates surface water exposure to a "recreationist receptor" of the "residential scenario‚.

Furthermore the RCRA reports deny the historical document of the Map of Strawberry Valley and Vicinity Showing the Natural Sources of the Water Supply of the University of California by Frank Soulé, Jr., Professor of Engineering, 1875. (Attachment 2). Today, 128 years later, several dozen creeks and their tributaries on the Soulé Map are well known Mediterranean streams and appear on LBNL‚s Annual Site Environmental Reports for the public. These include Berkeley Creek; Blackberry Creek AKA North Fork of Strawberry Creek; Cafeteria Creek; Ravine Creek; Ten-Inch Creek; Chicken Creek; No-Name Creek; South Fork Strawberry Creek; Botanical Garden Creek; Banana Creek; and Pineapple Creek, and close to 30 springs.

The significance of the creeks as conduits for migrating contaminants from soil runoff, seepage from underground plumes etc (as is the case with Chicken Creek and the underground tritium plume), has not been addressed, (Attachment 3). There is no evaluation of the potential health hazards following a seismic event nor is the soil liquefaction potential/soil failure within the creek water basins that lace the Strawberry Creek Watershed considered.

Groundwater Contamination Mixed Waste Plumes

In March 2003, LBNL published a figure showing the extent of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ground water. These plumes are associated with the large Tritium groundwater plume in the Chicken Creek watercourse. DTSC has jurisdiction over mixed waste. We are asking that the clean up of the Tritium Plume mixed with solvents/VOCs be managed under the RCRA Corrective Action Plan. (Attachment 4 a and b).

Full Environmental Restoration

The City Council of Berkeley passed an action on March 11, 2003 directing the City Manager to object to the IMPOSITION of risk-based clean-up standards and calls for the Full Environmental Restoration at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (Attachment 5).

The City of Berkeley Environmental Commission and the Council support full environmental restoration so as to preserve the Berkeley and Oakland hills groundwater for future generations. If water becomes a scarce resource in the future, Berkeley groundwater may be considered for domestic, municipal, irrigation and industrial purposes. The presence of large quantities of concentrations of Radionuclides, and 162 contaminants including Volatile Organic Compounds, (VOCs), Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), Pesticides, Fuels and Metals.(RCRA Corrective Measures Study Plan May 2002: Table 1.1) This lowering of standards contradicts City of Berkeley land and water protection ordinances.

Future Community Input

We request the proposed community workshop not take place before Labor Day, instead after the close of summer vacations. We suggest September 18, 2003.

We would like to be invited to address the full group of regulators attending the July 2003 LBNL/RCRA Quarterly Meeting on these concerns.

To Conclude

We ask you that you deny LBNL‚s request for No Further "risk-based" Remedial Action for any of the units covered in the Health Risk Assessment (29 soil and 13 groundwater) and that all these units be retained in the Corrective Measures Study (CMS), as well as all creeks, all springs, and hydraugers.

We ask for your comments and assistance on the following:

For the intent of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, we call for a Source Water Protection Plan to conserve and recover the Upper Strawberry Creek Watershed that is still impacted by spreading toxic plumes. In this regard, we request a comprehensive watershed analysis be conducted of the drinking "water bank" (Lennert Aquifer) and its groundwater movements feeding Strawberry Creek tributaries.

We call for an Ecological Protection Zone in the Strawberry Creek Canyon and the Berkeley-Oakland Hills to conserve and protect human and ecological life from further harm in the 21st Century.

For the Corrective Action Process of the RCRA we call for a state-of-the-art assessment of the LBNL waste using GIS mapping data of the water sources, the 4 earthquake faults and the ground water plumes layered on the California Geological Survey Seismic Hazard Maps that indicates the LBNL site at very high risk of earthquake induced landslides. For the safety of LBNL workers, campus employees as well as neighbors, it would be prudent to take great care in studying the potential impacts from seismic movement breaking out the borders of the toxic groundwater plumes and pits.

We ask for a GIS layer of all of the creeks, springs, hydraugers, storm drains and sanitary sewer lines.

Therefore we ask your department to create GIS layers of these data sets that can be overlaid onto a GIS layer of the known ground water plumes in relation to the 4 faults and the seismic hazard landslide Geological Survey Maps..

We request that a comprehensive watershed analysis to study the "water bank" of the Lennert Aquifer and its groundwater movements be conducted. We request an assessment, and modeling of the 4 known earthquake faults, i.e., the Hayward Fault, the Wildcat Fault, the Strawberry Fault, and the Hamilton Gulch Fault as well as the multiple cross-faults throughout the Strawberry Canyon in relation to the aquifer.

We request the key elements of the Precautionary Principle be included into DTSC‚s decision making process.

We further request that the cumulative environmental impacts of the 174 radioactive and hazardous units be considered as well as the synergistic effects of radionuclides, chemicals and bio-agents (combined) on human and ecological receptors.

Sincerely

Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste
Pamela Sihvola
Jim Cunningham
Mark McDonald

L A Wood, City of Berkeley Community Environmental Advisory Commissio*
Leuren Moret, City of Berkeley Community Environmental Advisory Commission*

Neighbors of the Schoolhouse Lincoln Creek Watershed

Jennifer Mary Pearson

*For identification purposes only