Ernest Graves
What you do is keep the water very pure, and the water itself doesn't become
radioactive. It is the chemicals in it that would. As the water circulates through the
reactor, if there are chemicals in the water, they are irradiated and they become
radioactive. Therefore, the water is radioactive.
But if you keep the water at high purity, then you don't have radioactive ions. But you
can't just sit on your laurels, because in this environment all materials are eroding. Even
stainless steel. As the plant continues to operate, you have chemicals going into solution
in the water from the vessel walls and piping. So you have to have highly capable
purification equipment, which is continuously removing these dissolved solids.
The filters become highly radioactive, and that has to be dealt with. After a certain
length of time, you backwash the filters, and then you have a concentrate. You end up
with radioactive waste that has to be either carted away or put out in the river or
something.
They weren't going to put it in the [Potomac] river here. Already the concern for the
environment was showing up. My personal view is that probably would have been the
best place to put it. But we won't get into a long argument about what these low levels
of radioactivity do. I think we painted ourselves into a corner on our concern over the
level of radioactivity. But be that as it may--
Q:
They did put a lot of that stuff into the river, didn't they, over at Gunston Cove
[Virginia].
A:
Maybe they did release some. They had the cooling water circulating through, but
whether they were bleeding any of their low-level radioactive wastes into that I can't
remember. I am sure that was an issue.
My concept was to turn this into an R&D facility for all the features of the plant--not
just a test of the reactor and the test of the primary cooling loop.
Q:
As well as a power plant.
A:
Yes, as well as a power plant. I can't remember Lampert's view on this, but I think he
was against it, and I think Gribble was against it. And [Brigadier General] Elmer Yates,
who was a classmate of Bill's and took his place. None of them picked up on this idea.
I wasn't trying to get credit for it. I was just trying to get one of them interested in it.
They never thought it was a good idea.
If you look where the program has gone since, they saved the taxpayers a lot of money.
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