United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Public Affairs

Washington, DC 20555

Phone 301-415-8200 Fax 301-415-2234

Internet:opa@nrc.gov

No. 99-204

September 27, 1999

NRC RELEASES PREVIOUSLY CONTAMINATED SITE IN PENNSYLVANIA

FOR UNRESTRICTED USE

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released a site formerly owned by METCOA

(Metals Company of America), Inc., (previously, The Pesses Company), in Pulaski,

Pennsylvania, for unrestricted use following cleanup of radioactive contamination to safe levels.

A license was issued in 1975 to The Pesses Company, a metals and alloys producer,

which used thorium scrap alloy, as well as other metals, in its manufacturing processes.

(Thorium is a radioactive material licensed by the NRC for commercial uses.) Foundry work

with the licensed material was conducted at the company’s site in Pulaski, which covers an area

of about 22 acres, of which 6 acres is enclosed by a chain link fence.

Pesses used other potentially hazardous materials at the facility, in addition to thorium.

The majority of contamination on the site was non-radiological hazardous material.

In September 1984, a routine NRC inspection found the Pulaski facility unoccupied and

apparently abandoned. The NRC subsequently found that The Pesses Company merged with

METCOA without notification to the NRC. Further, in about mid-1983, the licensee entered

bankruptcy proceedings also without notifying the NRC.

In a follow-up to the 1984 inspection, the NRC detected radiation levels considerably

above normal background levels on 55-gallon drums, within a building, and on other areas of

the site, including some elevated levels outside the fence, but not beyond the property

boundary. More than 300 drums, miscellaneous boxes and piles of debris and slag were

present within the fenced area.

From 1986 through 1990, the NRC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

and their contractors conducted further assessments on site. An NRC contractor identified

radiation levels and concentrations of thorium in soil above NRC limits for unrestricted use at

numerous locations on the property. The two agencies and their contractors also conducted

stabilization actions during this period, including closing drums that had been left open or

overpacking them with larger drums and covering piles of material to prevent erosion.

In 1997, a group of organizations that had sent wastes to the site signed a consent

order with the EPA agreeing to remediate the site. Under this agreement contractors worked to

clean up the contamination on the site from October 1997 through mid-1998.
Radioactive waste, soil, and slag were shipped to an authorized low-level radioactive

waste site in Utah for disposal. Other, non-radiological wastes were disposed of at authorized

facilities in New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Final surveys by the contractor were followed up with confirmatory measurements by the

NRC and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in 1998 and early 1999.

Based on the results of these surveys and measurements, the NRC has concluded that the site

has been properly cleaned up and meets its criteria for unrestricted use.

The NRC has therefore terminated the license and removed the Pesses site from the

agency’s Site Decommissioning Management Plan, which identifies about 34 sites throughout

the United States that are contaminated with radioactive materials and warrant special attention

to ensure proper cleanup.

###