Expert: Dr. Henry Boyter, Jr. - 7/6/2006

Question
I am an attorney, and my county is about to dump polonium contaminated water into the effluent stream of the local wastewater treatment plant. I don't know the concentrations, but this is stuff filtered by osmosis filtration from well water. The ambient well contamination is 42 picocuries per liter. The process is supposedly 97% effective in removing the polonium.  This is a 95 home subdivision, so I am guessing that they will filter thousands of gallons per day. I know that they plan to fill a 2000 gallon truck several times a day and carry the waste to the WWTP and dump it untreated into the effluent stream.

Can you tell me where I might look for regulations concerning the dumping of radioactive waste into treatment plants? How about  regs on the disposal of polonium? Anything like a fact or safety sheet on polonium? What about the transportation of polonium? Should this driver who is handling this stuff over years be wearing a moon suit?

WIll this stuff stay in solution or settle out? What about bioaccumulation? Any general comments on either the legality or the wisdom of doing this would be appreciated. I am considering suing the county to stop this.

Thank you for any assistance that you can provide.

Kurt Wolfgang

Answer
You need to contact your local state EPA and ask about regulations specific to your state.  To anwer your question is beyond what I can do in this forum.  

http://www.chemalliance.org/Columns/Networking/020404.asp

Alternately, contact a consulting firm in your state.  The water quality standards for each state can be found here.

http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/wqs/

They can't do what you describe without the state knowing about it.  Contact the wastewater plant and find out who their permit writer is and then contact them directly.  You can also find this out by calling the state.