Environmental monitoring field trial results from the gaseous diffusion plant site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The IAEA has recently completed an extensive environmental monitoring field trial exercise to evaluate its efficacy for verifying nuclear operations and for detecting undeclared activities. This was carried at the K-25 facility in Oak Ridge, and the results are given in this article. These results showed uranium enrichment several kilometers from the site but were in line with corresponding results previously reported in the Oak Ridge Reservation Environmental Report for 1992. The most interesting result was associated with the water and sediment samples, which showed low levels of plutonium with significantly different isotopic ratios from normal fallout plutonium. The findings were explained, but the results were significant because they demonstrated the concept that environmental monitoring has applications in the detection of undeclared fissile material