2017-07-01 AF – Technical Guidebook to Permitting, Investigations, and Remedial Actions on Air Force Section 91b Radiological Sites

Headquarters, Air Force Safety Center, Weapons Safety Division, has the responsibility to permit Air Force organizations possessing Section 91b of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 radioactive materials. The primary radioactive materials involved are residuals from: a) nuclear weapons accidents, b) buried nuclear weapons wastes, c) interior surfaces of nuclear weapon storage and maintenance structures, d) AF nuclear reactors, and e) airborne sampling operations for atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.  Because the primary materials are involved are legacy issues, the primary purpose of permitting is to provide long-term corporate knowledge of impacted sites, and regulatory oversight for site investigation, remediation, and closure. This guidebook provides technical information on the radioactive materials involved, surveillance techniques successfully used on representative 91b sites, and applicable regulations. This is the third edition of the guidebook and supersedes IOH-SD-BR-SR-2007-0002. This edition provides updates on-site investigations and remedial actions information over the previous edition

2017-07-01 AF - Technical Guidebook to Permitting, Investigations, and Remedial Actions on Air Force Section 91 b Radiological Sites.pdf

Nuclear Weapon Maintenance and Storage, and Maintenance Waste Burial Sites

(1) Weapons Maintenance.
(a) General. Starting in 1950, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) created storage sites that contained weapons in custody of AEC at both National Storage Sites (NSS) and Operational Storage Site (OSS) locations. In order to carry out its primary Cold War mission to maintain the capability of launching a sustained attack in a nuclear environment, Strategic Air Command (SAC) needed a stockpile of protected special weapons, with storage and assembly sites. SAC had 20 such facilities internationally by the close of the 1950s.
The two types of weapons storage areas (WSA) existed historically: operational sites and main stockpiles. Although both types were mirror images of one another in their infrastructure components, the operational storage sites were alert facilities assigned the task of achieving maximum war effort in a few hours, while stockpile locations were AEC co-located. The WSA typically included about 40 to 50 buildings, inclusive of an igloo special weapons storage area comprising a large percentage of the grouping and distinctly sited within the larger segregated environment. WSA’s were circumscribed by high, chain-linked fences topped with strands of barbed wire, as well as by patrol and maintenance roads.
The importance of early special weapons program is that early weapons were open-system types that required periodic cleaning and inspection to ensure their reliability. The maintenance activities involved generated radioactive waste which was generally disposed of on the base itself. A few of the structures are worth discussing in some detail.
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HOT Wash Rack

(4) Aircraft Wash Procedures.
(a) Most aircraft that supported U.S. atomic tests had aircraft contamination monitoring and decontamination managed by AFSWC, if the aircraft were staged from Indian Springs, Nellis, Kirtland AFB, Kwajalein or the Enewetak Atoll. Aircraft staged from other installations conducting various missions in support of U.S. atomic testing would have been responsible for conducting, monitoring and decontamination of aircraft. NTPR documents do not have details on these operations to the same degree as that for the above-listed locations, except that in many instances it is noted that aircraft were decontaminated upon return to their base of origin. It is reasonable that monitoring and decontamination would have been accomplished in a similar manner as those
managed by AFSWC. In the early test series, most aircraft exceeding contamination limit guidelines were decontaminated shortly after mission completion, but in later tests, it became more common to allow contamination to decay to lower levels prior to decontamination or to simply allow low-level contaminated aircraft to achieve acceptable contamination levels through decay alone. Notable exceptions to this latter practice would be for aircraft that were involved in subsequent shot, where time periods between shots were inadequate, or if residual contamination (regardless of the level) would interfere with a subsequent shot. This issue was most important for cloud sampling aircraft, where cross-contamination between missions was highly undesirable. This issue was key for AFOAT-1 missions, where significantly lower airborne contamination concentrations were being monitored. Decontamination for these missions became standard practice to protect the integrity of the sample rather than for radiation protection of aircrew and ground personnel (b) Wash procedures utilized H2O, Kerosene and Gunk. Gunk was a common degreasing agent which contained approximately 5-10% Na Citrate (Na2(HC6H5O7)). In Operation Castle, an average of nearly 964, 274, and 58 gallons of water, kerosene, and gunk was used per
decontaminated aircraft, respectively (Martin and Rowland 1982, pages 159-161). Large volumes like these would have dispersed to large land areas unless berms were built for containment or soils had high percolation rates.

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List of Air Force Installations with Aircraft Supporting CONUS Atmospheric Atomic Testing

TABLE 2-8. CONUS Air Force Installations with Aircraft Supporting CONUS Atmospheric Atomic Testing, Excluding Aircraft Staged from Kirtland, Indian Springs, and Nellis AFBs (Summary Based on Tables in Appendix E ). [pages 103 – 112]

1. Alaska Bases
2. Andrews AFB
3. Barksdale AFB
4. Biggs AFB
5. Carswell AFB
6. Castle AFB
7. Davis-Monthan AFB
8. Fairchild AFB
9. Forbes AFB
10. George AFB
11. Hunter AFB
12. Lockbourne AFB
13. Luke AFB
14. MacDill AFB
15. March AFB
16. McClellan AFB
17. Norton AFB [page 15]
18. Robins AFB
19. Seymour-Johnson AFB
20. Travis AFB
21. Walker AFB

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