Tests conducted for the Energy Department since 1998 found beryllium at higher than natural levels in numerous samples of soil, surface water and ground water beneath the plant. In one soil sample, beryllium was found at 155 times natural levels, according to records examined this week by The Courier-Journal. The question is from what source did these concentrations originate. At these levels, it could not have come from anywhere else but plant operations. The beryllium was found in soil from around buildings where parts for nuclear bombs were secretly milled and where scrapped weapons were dismantled and precious metals recovered, and in soil from around nearby landfills.
Beryllium is used to harden nuclear weapons and in electrical circuitry.
Stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum, the durable silvery metal has been linked to chronic illnesses among 500 to 1,000 workers at other Energy Department installations and among employees of private firms that processed it. Last summer, the Energy Department announced it would push for legislation to compensate workers at other sites who had developed beryllium disease or shown signs of exposure, but Paducah workers have not been included. But, for reasons never explained to Tillson, beryllium did not appear by name in a final report in 1995 prepared for former plant operator Lockheed Martin. Some of the plant's extensive underground contamination can be traced to a broken sewer pipe in the huge decontamination building that apparently went undetected for 30 years, until 1986, according to the environmental records examined by The Courier-Journal. If beryllium is in the soil and water, then it would seem likely that beryllium dust or fumes were in the air inside the buildings where it was used, Tillson said.