Marc A. Johnson, President, University of Nevada, Reno released the following letter in regards to relocating occupants from a building on campus because of radium.Â
"I’m writing to notify you of a development on campus involving the Facilities Services Building, which sits between Ansari Business and Mackay School of Mines.
The Facilities Services Building, built in 1920, was funded by the State of Nevada and operated by the U.S. Bureau of Mines until it became University property in 1954. In recent decades it has provided office space for approximately 30 Facilities Services personnel; we don’t believe classes have ever been held there.
The University received an email this fall from Nevada’s Radiological Control Program (NRCP), acting on the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The email indicated the U.S. Bureau of Mines had conducted research in the building from 1920 – 1924 that involved the separation of radium from ore. In the same email, the NRCP asked the University to take measures to assess the current radiological impact of this research on the facility. The University immediately conducted testing that found the existence of radium in the building and the State’s follow-up testing generally confirmed those results.Â
At the recommendation of the NRCP, the University then contracted Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc., a nuclear services and waste management company, to survey and document the presence of any radiation in the facility. Perma-Fix completed their assessment and issued a report last month that showed radium in various locations in the building. The findings are within the Federal Government’s public exposure limit and are not thought to pose a health risk to the employees working in the building.
The radiation readings in the building are all below the government’s maximum permitted exposure of 100 millirems—a measure of radiation dosage per year—and below the levels that often occur naturally in the atmosphere, especially in higher altitudes. All of the buildings in the surrounding area were tested and found to be free of radium contamination. Â
Because the law requires that we remove radium even if the amount falls below the maximum permitted exposure level, the University is relocating the occupants to alternate office space so that it can evaluate the most feasible next steps. We have received recommendations from Perma-Fix that range from decontamination to removal of the building. Decontamination is preferred given the historic nature of the building, if it is not prohibitively costly.
I want to express my thanks and appreciation to our Facilities employees displaced by this turn of events and also to our Director of Environmental Health and Safety Stephanie Woolf and Radiation Safety Officer Myung Chul Jo for their ongoing attention to this issue. If you would like additional information, please contact Stephanie Woolf at swoolf@unr.edu."
The University says a decision could be made soon on how to address the issue.
