Ventron Corporation

Site Description and History

The Beverly, Massachusetts, Site (formerly the Ventron Site) is located on Massachusetts Bay at the confluence of the Bass River on the west and the Danvers River on the south. A railroad borders the site on the east, and a granite seawall surrounds the property along its boundaries with the two rivers. The city of Beverly lies approximately 15 miles northeast of Boston. The 3-acre Beverly site was formerly a chemical manufacturing plant and research and development facility owned by Morton International.

From 1942 to 1948, Metal Hydrides Corporation conducted operations at the site under contract to the Manhattan Engineer District and its successor, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Operations at the site involved conversion of uranium oxide to uranium powder and, later, to uranium metal. Other operations at the site included recovering uranium from the scrap of a fuel fabrication plantin Hanford, Washington. Uranium-238 was identified as the primary contaminant of concern from those activities.

Between 1948 and 1950, after AEC surveyed and decommissioned the site, two of the original foundry facility buildings were demolished, and two new buildings were erected in their place. Another structure, the Alfa Building, was constructed and used for operations involving purification of thorium compounds. Contamination from thorium-232 and, to a lesser extent, radium-226 resulted from this work. Beneath Building A, radium was mixed with asbestos-containing material. Although uranium contamination at the site was the result of work performed for AEC, the thorium and radium contamination resulted from private operations that did not involve work for the federal government.

In 1977, after the Thiokol Corporation (renamed Morton International in 1990) acquired the property, Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducted a radiological screening survey at the site. On the basis of results from the screening survey, DOE determined that a comprehensive radiological survey of the entire site was needed. In 1986, the site was designated for remedial action under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).

Initial remedial action activities began in 1995 with excavation and cleanup of contamination from portions of the harbor adjacent to the seawall. Residual contamination within the seawall could not be remediated because of stability and safety concerns. Morton International demolished 10 buildings, and uncontaminated rubble from the buildings was used as backfill along the seawall. Alfa Building was also demolished to provide access to underlying contaminated soil. Only two buildings (the Biocides Building and Building E) were left standing at the site. Approximately 9,500 cubic yards of radioactively contaminated soil, including asbestos- containing material, was removed and shipped to Clive, Utah, for disposal.