Berkeley Lab: Road to Recovery

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Berkeley Lab: Past Environmental Consequences and its Road to Recovery

Environmental Design R3B

Joyce Kye

University of California, Berkeley

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Berkeley Lab: Past Environmental Consequences and its Road to Recovery

Radioactive and toxic wastes, byproducts of many scientific endeavors at Berkeley Lab,

have posed as a serious environmental and health concern for the city of Berkeley and its

population since the 1990s. Hiding behind its impressive accomplishments, Berkeley Lab,

despite its impressive accomplishments, is not on track with its preventative and corrective

action plan to deal with toxic byproducts.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab of Science (LBNL) has been home to award

winning ventures for more than 80 years, with 13 researchers associated with the institute

having won a Nobel Peace Prize. Initiated by Ernest O. Lawrence in August of 1931, the

Radiation Laboratory was the forerunner of multidisciplinary science, and comprised of

scholars from physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine (Berkeley Lab History). In 1940, when

further development of the cyclotron required more space, the laboratory relocated to its

current location in Berkeley Hills. For more than 80 years, the lab has been an

entrepreneurial venue where groundbreaking findings have stunned the world. At LBNL, the

welfare of its workers are of utmost priority, but how about the citizens of Berkeley and the

environment?

Scientific research demystifies the world we live in, constructing new knowledge for

all, however such advantages come with dangers. The cartoon Dexter’s Laboratory for many

children in the 2000s served amusing illustrations of mad scientists and experiments–gone–

wrong. Exploding chemical reactions and unforeseen byproducts of Dexter’s experiments can

very well be compared to reality. In the real world, science can very well be compared to

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Dexter’s Lab. Minus the over exaggeration and the laughs it induces, imminent dangers come

with scientific research and safety hazards are not and must not be taken lightly by everyone

who is present in the laboratory, including janitorial staff, construction crews, and on–site

volunteers and visitors.

In such large scale scientific operations, it is also imperative to realize that it is

common for harmful substances affect the outside population. Nuclear energy and harmful

chemicals are common entities scientists at LBNL work with on a daily basis. Working with

such volatile substances places inevitable dangerous environmental by–products into the

atmosphere and pedosphere of Berkeley, home to 120,000 citizens. The population of

Berkeley must be aware of the radioactive substances that are handled in Berkeley Lab, and

the past, present, and future dangers that come with such research. Findings show that

preventative health efforts made by Berkeley Lab have been extremely thorough and

detailed, yet contamination lingers as an issue (2003). Because of the lack of information the

lab reveals to the public, non–governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Berkeley Citizen

Actions have been demanding greater transparency from the lab. Through a comprehensive

analysis of the current environmental state of the city and the management/clean–up policies

as well as the action plans Berkeley Lab enforces, this paper will examine how feasible such

regulations are and the suggestions proposed to further promote transparency to the citizens

of Berkeley.

UC Berkeley has enforced research oversight committees and offices to supervise the

activities of different labs. Research is not limited to one type of field, therefore,

governmental regulatory agencies, funding and accrediting groups, and other entities not

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related to the University of California, Berkeley, have issued compulsory training for all those

engaging in different types of fieldwork. From Hazardous Materials Spill Response Training to

Ladder Use, the Berkeley Research Administration and Compliance’s (RAC) website shows 60

subjects having its own training section (UC Berkeley). The website also mentions monetary

fines and withdrawal of funds if a lab violates the rules listed in training.

The Berkeley RAC has a separate training portion dedicated to Radiation and Laser

Safety and has 7 training courses dedicated solely to those directly handling radioactive

materials. There is also 1 training course for workers who do not work directly with

radioactive materials, but work in close proximity to such materials. The key components of

these training courses illustrate radiation hazards, incident reporting, and researcher

responsibilities; researchers are required to retake the training course every two years. All

guidelines are established under the Department of Energy, as UC Berkeley Lab runs with the

permission of the United States government. Online training seems to be the prevailing

method of safety, however can we say it is enough? Such researchers who are selected to

work with radioactive materials probably have prior lab training and experience to apply on

hands on work, yet it does not eradicate the possibility of the mishandling of such hazardous

materials.

There are countless numbers of guides created to prevent mistakes when dealing with

radioactive materials; the LBNL Radiation Protection Group created the Radiological Work

Guide, last revised on December 2016. It is a 30 page guide that summarizes radiation policy

and safety. Despite the amount of guides made available, there is no annual information on

the levels of radioactive substances in the environment online. Such information can only be

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found in reports that span from 20 years, as will be discussed later on in this report. The

absence of such information available for the community does not indicate there is no

radioactive mishandling – it means that LBNL is not transparent enough.

The organization RadWatch was created for the community in 2011 by undergraduate

professors, alumni, and undergraduate students. It was not created to measure the levels of

radiation created by LBNL, but after the release of radioactive materials from the Daiichi

Nuclear Power Plant in Japan in 2011 (RadWatch). By using a monitor that captures natural

radioactivity, the RadWatch team was able to provide daily charts of radioactivity in the Bay

Area. The website’s last real–time chart was updated in 2014, and has seemed to have fallen

off the radar.