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In the wake of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s surprise announcement that it will close its controversial Tritium Labeling Facility, the City Council will consider a resolution tonight asking the lab to thoroughly clean up the site and to allow public monitoring of the cleanup. 

“Since there has been some denial from the lab about problems related to the facility, we want to make sure that attitude doesn’t prevail in the effort to remove radioactive materials and equipment from the site,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who, along with Councilmember Dona Spring, put the item on tonight’s City Council agenda. 

The agenda item also seeks to thank the lab and the National Institutes of Health for closing the tritium facility and asking that the decommissioning and decontamination of the facility be open for public review.  

The National Tritium Labeling Facility attaches radioactive tritium to pharmaceuticals and other medical compounds, in a process known as labeling, so they can be accurately traced by medical researchers as they course through living organisms. 

The lab announced on Sept. 14 that, after 19 years of operation, it will close the facility in December. A lab spokesperson said the closure was the result of the National Institutes of Health withdrawal of funding for the facility.  

But Worthington and Spring both speculate that the scheduled closure is related to public pressure put on the lab by the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, a group that has criticized the facility since 1996. 

Largely through CMTW efforts, the City Council unanimously approved resolutions calling for the closure of the facility in 1996 and again in 1998.  

CMTW member Gene Bernardi said she was glad the LBNL decided to close down the facility. But she is also concerned the lab thoroughly cleans up the facility and surrounding area.  

“There’s a big job to be done there and it has to be complete,” Bernardi said. “The clean up should conform to the California Environmental Quality Act and the National Environmental Protection Act.” 

Last year the council commissioned a study of the tritium facility by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, in Heidelberg, Germany. The $33,000, 53-page report, evaluated the level of public exposure to tritium and assessed potential health risks. The final version of the report was released on Aug. 23. 

Dr. Bernd Franke, who prepared the report, concluded that data, provided by the facility, showed tritium emissions were lower than the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended exposure levels. But Franke was also critical of the agency for not deploying a sufficient number of air monitoring devices in the area surrounding the tritium facility. 

Franke also challenged an LBNL report that claimed the labeling facility posed no, or very little, risk in the event of a fire, earthquake or other disaster. 

According to LBNL spokesperson Ron Kolb, after the lab closes, there will be a two-phase clean up process. The first phase will take six months and include the removal of all remaining tritium stock. The second phase will take an estimated 12 months and include the dismantling of the four-room facility and decontamination of any equipment or materials that may have traces of radioactivity. 

“We are confident the site will be completely cleaned up,” Kolb said. “We certainly will follow all regulations that govern decommission and decontamination.” 

Kolb added that operations at the facility have begun to wind down in anticipation of the December closing and that the four people employed at the tritium facility have been given notices of termination. 

Worthington and Spring are also asking that members of the CMTW be given 10 minutes to express their appreciation to the council and the community for their support to close the facility.