Middlesex Sampling Plant environmental report for calendar year 1992, 239 Mountain Avenue, Middlesex, New Jersey. Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)

Abstract

This report describes the environmental surveillance program at the Middlesex Sampling Plant (MSP) and provides the results for 1992. The site, in the Borough of Middlesex, New Jersey, is a fenced area and includes four buildings and two storage piles that contain 50,800 m{sup 3} of radioactive and mixed hazardous waste. More than 70 percent of the MSP site is paved with asphalt. The MSP facility was established in 1943 by the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) to sample, store, and/or ship uranium, thorium, and beryllium ores. In 1955 the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), successor to MED, terminated the operation and later used the site for storage and limited sampling of thorium residues. In 1967 AEC activities ceased, onsite structures were decontaminated, and the site was certified for unrestricted use under criteria applicable at that time. In 1980 the US Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a multiphase remedial action project to clean up several vicinity properties onto which contamination from the plant had migrated. Material from these properties was consolidated into the storage piles onsite. Environmental surveillance of MSP began in 1980 when Congress added the site to DOE`s Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. The environmental surveillance program at MSP includes sampling networks for radon and thoron in air; external gamma radiation exposure; and radium-226, radium-228, thorium-230, thorium-232, and total uranium in surface water, sediment, and groundwater. Additionally, chemical analyses are performed to detect metals and organic compounds in surface water and groundwater and metals in sediments. This program assists in fulfilling th DOE policy of measuring and monitoring effluents from DOE activities and calculating hypothetical doses.