US EPA

3785963 

Technical Report 

Interim Report-Independent Verification Survey of Section 3, Survey Units 1,4, and 5 Excavated Surfaces, Whittaker Corporation, Reynolds Industrial Park, Transfer, Pennsylvania 

Werner, B; Bailey, E; Roberts, S; Vitkus, T; Adams, W 

2013 

NTIS/10270084 

GRA and I 

GRA and I 

The Whittaker Corporations (Whittaker) Waste and Slag Storage Area in Transfer, Pennsylvania is in the process of being decommissioned. Whittaker, as well as prior owners of the site, used source material containing licensable quantities of thorium and uranium for the extraction of rare earth metals. These source materials consisted mainly of Brazilian and Canadian Pyrochlore, a mineral found in some granitic geologic formations. These operations resulted in slag by-products containing thorium and uranium. Materials processing took place at the site from 1966 to 1974. In general, the radiological contaminants consist mostly of natural uranium and thorium and their associated daughter products in secular equilibrium. However, laboratory analyses of some of the slag samples have shown that the uranium-238 (U-238) concentrations are not always in secular equilibrium with the decay series concentrations (ESL 2012a). Whittaker has been decommissioning the site in accordance with the commitments described in License No. SMA-1018. Decommissioning activities have included excavation of the waste slag, processing excavated material to separate the radioactive material from the soil, and shipping the radioactive material to a licensed disposal site.