In the foreground of the powerlines that bisect a large field near the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, lies a 25 x 25-foot concrete slab, that's nearly obscured under dirt. Beneath that slab, something once lurked, but today, nothing is stored there.
This is one of two sites that Florida State University used to dump its radioactive waste from experiments it ran back in the 1950s and sixties. What were those experiments? No one knows. The records have been lost to time. What is known, according to the university, is that the research was backed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the sites were in use between 1958 and 1964. It’s during this time that environmental toxicologist and Florida State Professor Christopher Teaf says the trouble began.
“There wasn’t a clear understanding that the material had to be disposed and stored in a proper way and that’s really for low-level radioactive waste; that’s what most licenses do," said Teaf. "Ultimately at FSU, and other licenses like FSU, you may reach a point at which too much material is stored.”
FSU turned to Golder Associates, Inc. to manage the excavation process of this site. The company reported in July 2021 that radioactive material was found in four steel containers buried beneath the concrete slab.
Surveys revealed radiation levels so high that the contents required separate safety disposal procedures, as noted by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Teaf says the removal process was necessary.
“Any risk is associated with exposure. You can have the most dangerous substance in the world but if it has been capsulated and there is no exposure, then in principle there is no risk," said Teaf. "What you are really trying to do is identify the circumstances in a case like this where there might be exposure, then evaluate those...that’s what’s been done here.”
Golder Associates reported that 24 tons of radioactive waste were removed in June 2021 and transported to a site in Civil, Utah.
The following September, The Florida Department of Environmental Protection did a final sweep of the area to verify that no contaminants leaked out. The agency declared the site is safe. Since the removal, the university has broken ground on a new construction development nearby.
A second waste site?
The FAMU-FSU Engineering site was operated properly, according to years of records. The radioactive materials were entombed in a concrete barrier and according to several analyses—they have never posed a danger. But the same is not true for a second dumping site, further West in the Apalachicola National Forest, near Fort Braden.
Sean McGlynn runs an independent water and soil testing firm, McGlynn Laboratories. McGlynn says he first learned of both sites in the 1980s while working at Florida State. McGlynn was part of a research team that he says was instructed to dump experiment waste into sewer drains.
He says he followed instructions, despite knowing the directives were wrong. The experience is what led him to open McGlynn Labs.
The truth lies deep in the forest...
Here in the forest, just like the campus site—radioactive solids and liquids were disposed of underneath the ground’s surface during the late 1960s.
Unlike the campus site—these radioactive remnants just sorta sat there. There was no encasement. Among the kind of stuff found in the pits: “radioactive contaminated solids, containerized liquids, and animal remains.” That’s from a 1998 report on the site by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Over the past 60-plus years rain, coupled with the soil’s natural ability to absorb stuff, has caused the waste to seep into both the soil and the groundwater.
“When our groundwater moves so fast, this kind of stuff must be avoided," McGlynn explained. "The nuclear waste like radium ... lasts for billions of years before even half of it will vanish—you have to really containerize it well, but you can’t keep something containerized and away from people that long.”
The Apalachicola site wasn't very well protected.
Kelly Russell is the local Forest Service supervisor. She says the contamination, "was something we knew was in the area and it’s something that we wanted to bring around to completion in terms of making sure it was removed to a more protected area."
Back when researchers first dumped the material, "they didn’t know much about the potential impacts. We want to be transparent about this because we want people to be able to continue using the national forest safely," said Russell.
It's been 25 years...
Reports of the problems with the Apalachicola Forest site go back as far as 1998 with that USDA report. In 2003, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection discovered spikes of radiological and chemical readings in nearby monitoring wells. DEP also took water samples at the site in 2010 and 2011 and detected contaminants.
The agency later reported in 2017 that chemicals like 1,4-dioxane were found in water samples outside of the site’s area. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1,4 dioxane exposure may cause minor throat irritation or even kidney and liver damage based on how long a person has been exposed to it.
McGlynn, the environmental scientist, says the pollutants in the groundwater will not just hurt the environment but take a financial toll, too.
“People don’t realize not to pollute in the beginning because cleanup is going to cost one hundred times more, than just not doing it in the first place.”
A solution to the problem
Cleanup of the Apalachicola site was finally finished about a week ago, says Florida State University.
That cleanup involved the removal and relocation of the contaminated groundwater and soil to the Civil, Utah disposal site. State and federal agencies will continue to monitor the area to ensure that the work is done.
An initial cost estimate put the price tag of remediation at $3 million. At last count, it had grown to nearly $6 million now, with two more months to go. But money aside, there are still questions to be asked.
For one—the forest dump site is just a few miles from Fort Braden.
"Too close to call safe"
WFSU took a trip to the area.
Some trailer homes and RVs remain off private roads behind no-trespassing signs and fences leading to the site. Cars freely drove up and down the unpaved dirt roads and highways.
We stopped and asked several Fort Braden residents in a nearby library whether they knew about the site. Everyone declined an on-record interview for this story. However, all the people we spoke to stated they were unaware of the radioactive site nearby.
A 2020 document from the Forest Service says there is no one living or working in a school or daycare within a mile of the site. The document adds that no drinking water wells are located within a 2.5-mile radius of the site and that the nearest neighborhood is “approximately 3 miles to the north near the Fort Braden Community.”
In a 2018 report, the federal government found radioactive contaminants had spread across nearly eight acres outside the waste site. McGlynn argues that three miles is not far away enough to ensure protection from the site’s harmful effects of the groundwater.
“Groundwater can travel at a mile per day, and this is sand, so it travels much faster than anywhere else," said McGlynn. "Clay is a couple [of] feet a day. So, there’s a high possibility they didn’t get to check to see how it is leaching out downstream or anywhere around it. That stuff is going somewhere and going to affect something…and it’s not going to be in the middle of the national forest.”
A Jan. 2018 document sent to WFSU from FSU following the initial airing of this story shows the directional flow of the pollutants in the opposite direction of Fort Braden.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, federal public drinking water regulations do not protect those who receive their water from privately owned wells. That means many residents would be responsible to ensure that their water is safe.
"I completely was shocked"
A 2020 document from the USDA shows nearby communities were supposed to be informed about the cleanup efforts. County spokesman Matt Cavell said no one from the county’s public works, emergency management or administration had received any outreach regarding the plan.
In the document, the USDA writes that a factsheet had been prepared, but was never distributed to people living around the site because they were outside of the one-mile radius. The fact sheet was ultimately posted to the USDA’s website, along with a forest closure notice posted on Facebook once the project began last November.
Dr. Ed Holifield questions how that can even be considered a proper notification since no one was even aware of the situation.
“I completely was shocked because the whole document was betraying the U.S. Forest Service and the trustees of Florida State University.
Holifield is a retired cardiologist and local community activist. He’s been trying to bring this issue up with local leaders and journalists for several years now. He says he first came across the documents related to the radioactive sites while doing some late-night sleuthing online.
“I started asking around about the business confidential designation and I found it's very common when institutions don’t want stuff out there.”
There’s been little public mention of the site’s history or the cleanup plan. A USDA spokesperson even confirmed that no official public meeting was ever held by the agency.
Holifield wants to know why no one—not the federal government, not the state, not Florida State University—did any sort of an extended community outreach or notification.
FSU says that was the job of the USDA.
“There are people that are paid, that have a responsibility," said Hollifield. "The county has an obligation to make sure that the water is safe to drink in Leon County. The city has a responsibility, so why are they on payroll to do this kind of stuff.”
But FSU’s Teaf, the toxicologist, says there was an effort to provide community notification. Yet, all of this would have been happening during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its ensuing chaos.
“That was an active endeavor in the later part of 2020 and early part of 2021," said Teaf. "I was involved in it…FSU, the Department of Agriculture, was all involved in it. There was a whole host of different pieces of that puzzle."
A mystery...
There are many questions about the nature of the nuclear research done 60 years ago, that may never be answered. Many of the professors who worked on the program died decades ago.
What FSU is left with is an incomplete picture.