PIKETON — Monday would have been Layton Cuckler’s first day at Zahn’s Corner Middle School.
Instead, Layton, 11, and about 300 of his peers will be divided between Jasper Elementary School and Piketon High School in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. As a fourth-grader, he’ll have to stay at the elementary school another year.
He might not be happy about missing out on the rite of passage that his older brother, Gavin, 13, and others have experienced, but his parents, Mike and Teresa Cuckler, are relieved.
The change means Layton won’t risk being exposed to radioactive isotopes downwind from the former U.S. Department of Energy Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The isotopes have been found in the air, soil, water, vegetation and wildlife in the area, according to federal environmental reports.
The Department of Energy said their monitoring fairly assesses risks to people, and that the school is safe.
“Results from all sampling showed no radioactivity detected above naturally occurring levels, and thus no cause for public health concern. There is no public health or safety risk from radioactive material preventing the opening of Zahn's Corner Middle School,“ the DOE said in a statement.
Still, the community has pushed for independent testing, which is still pending.
A nuclear waste-disposal cell is being built to bury radioactive debris as the 3,000-acre complex is dismantled.
Residents have asked for those efforts to be paused because they’re concerned about exposure to radioactive materials. Contamination has been detected there since the work began in 2017, according to the Scioto Valley Local School District.
The DOE waited two years before informing the school district that the air monitor across from the middle school had picked up radioactive elements: americium in 2018 and neptunium-237 in 2019.
The district closed the school last year after traces of uranium were detected in ceiling tiles and air ducts. The district has asked the state to build a new middle school.
Zahn’s Corner Middle School was built in 1955. One year earlier, before the school was opened, the enrichment plant came online for defense purposes and operated until 2001. The facility then transitioned to enriching uranium for nuclear power plants.
“Why is there a school on the downwind side of a site like this? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me,” said David C. Ingram, chairman of the physics and astronomy department at Ohio University.
It’s unclear why the DOE chose that site, less than 2 miles from the school, and did not warn the district.
When asked about allowing a school to be built downwind from a uranium enrichment facility, the DOE said it has done studies related to “risk-based contamination from plant activities” and that it provides annual environmental reports.
“That is the last place you would expect to put something like this or people living there. In this region, the prevailing winds come from the southwest,” Ingram said. “I think the parents should be concerned about it. They're getting, I think, reliable data from the DOE as best as they can do. But, again, I think if I was in that position, I'd be pushing to get that school relocated.”
When Gavin Cuckler was at the middle school, he would sometimes come home with dirt on his clothes from playing outside, Teresa Cuckler said.
“My son went through fourth, fifth and sixth grade with nobody blowing a whistle. Is he going to make it to 12th grade? I hope so. But they can't promise me that my son did not get contaminated at Zahn's Corner,” she said as her voice cracked with emotion.
The Cucklers and others worry about cancer and other health risks tied to the plant.
“You think about the size of the air monitor (across from the school). It wasn't just one or two more elements floating through the air landing in that air monitor. How much was actually released? What's the data on site show of where they were sampling at different release points?” said Jennifer Chandler, a former DOE employee who worked as an environmental scientist and who is now a Piketon village council member.
In May 2019, DOE teams came to the school to take samples and swab table tops in the buildings, officials said.
“Well, those surfaces are clean. Teachers were cleaning those and janitors were cleaning those off on a daily basis. Where the material was found was in ceiling tiles,” Chandler said. The DOE tested those tiles only after local officials urged them to do so.
When asked about the sampling, the DOE said their sampling team, which has “worldwide sampling expertise,“ modified its plan to “include additional sampling in more remote areas as requested by local officials.” They went on the say, as they have said repeatedly, that the results show “no radioactivity detected above naturally occurring levels, and thus no cause for public health concern.”
Residents say the emissions are worrisome.
“They know it's going to Zahn’s Corner because they put an air monitor there. It makes it to our school property. Our kids are out there,” Chandler said. “The danger comes in the toxicity of the inhalation or ingestion of that molecule, which is there. It's there. So they want to pivot and talk only about radioactivity, which we are concerned about, obviously, but we're more concerned with the toxicity of having these things in and on our school property.”
Neptunium, plutonium and americium are considered “bone seekers,’’ according to the National Library of Medicine. That means that, if ingested, they will lodge in the body, possibly in bones, lungs, muscles and the liver, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"It's going to irradiate from you for the rest of your life. It's the toxicity of that. And what is the safe level of neptunium? ... Zero. There is no such thing. There is no safe level of these elements,“ Chandler said.
When asked about the accumulation of isotopes, DOE said there are no concerns and that it has already considered “all the ways the element could affect the body, including any possible accumulation over a lifetime.”
Even when the Cuckler children are home, they are reminded of the contamination.
The Cuckler home is about 4,500 feet from the nearest building of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, one of several homes and farms on Big Run Road that lead to the former complex that helped build America’s nuclear arsenal.
The DOE routinely checks an air monitor on their land, and researchers ask for crops from their farm to test for contamination. No one from the DOE has told them the results of those tests.
They receive annual reports from the DOE with information for the entire area, but it’s impossible to decipher the information because it lacks specificity. For example, in the latest data appendix, it shows categories such as “off site #7 corn.”
“I actually worked on a report years ago. ... I'm collecting their vegetables. I'm getting data. It's not zero. It's not a non-detect. I'm getting readings. So what do you tell the homeowner? Nothing,” Chandler said. “That's when I became really concerned that people are being exposed and they have no idea. That's not right.”
The DOE said the reports for the entire area — spanning more than a hundred pages — are routinely mailed out and noted that all the air and crop sample results are “well below regulatory limits in recent years.”
By not providing detailed findings to the Cucklers of their air and crops in an understandable format, Ingram said, “to me that isn't ethical to do that. If you want people to share things with you, you need to be prepared to share them back.”
The Cucklers and the community want answers from the DOE.
“I think they need to own up to what they've done. I think they owe (the district) a middle school. Our kids shouldn't have to pay,” Teresa Cuckler said. “We were always (raised) that you accept your responsibility, whether you've done right or wrong. If you've done something wrong, you accept that responsibility and you make it right.“
bburger@dispatch.com
@ByBethBurger
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