PIKETON, Ohio — The Pike County General Health District has scheduled two days of one-on-one meetings next month for property owners near the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant to go over the results of soil and garden testing conducted on their land.
Karl Kalbacher, who led the latest phase of testing through Kalbacher Associates LLC, will be at the Rio Grande Pike Center in Piketon on Oct. 5 and 6 to meet individually with property owners whose land was sampled, the health district said in a letter sent to affected residents. The center, at 225 West Street, sits on the site of the former Piketon High School.
The testing is part of an ongoing human health risk assessment covering 64 land parcels within six miles of the plant, known as PORTS, according to the health district. More than 1,200 soil, water and sediment samples have been analyzed as part of the effort to evaluate potential residential exposure to radionuclides through soil ingestion, dust inhalation and external exposure to ionizing radiation.
The health district said the risk assessment for each sampled property, including garden data, is now complete, and a summary of results is being mailed to property owners along with the letter announcing the meetings. Officials cautioned that the current results represent an initial phase of analysis and that additional information or follow-up assessments may be needed in some cases.
Property owners who had gardens planted on their land, as well as anyone who had soil or water sampling performed by Solutient Technologies, are eligible to schedule a meeting with Kalbacher to review their individual results and discuss next steps, the health district said. Residents unable to meet in person can arrange a virtual meeting instead.
Appointments can be booked through a QR code included in the mailed letter, an online scheduling link, or by calling Piper Halliday at 740-538-2654. The health district said staff began hand-delivering invitations and data packets to affected property owners this week.
The meetings follow years of scrutiny over radioactive contamination in soil, groundwater and waterways around the Piketon site, a legacy of decades of uranium enrichment operations at PORTS. A health district-commissioned addendum to the area’s broader Human Health Risk Assessment released earlier this year found detectable levels of technetium-99, plutonium and other radionuclides in local produce and fish samples, though officials said calculated cancer risk estimates remained within federal safety thresholds.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Pike County General Health District.
