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	NRC NEWS U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
	Office of Public Affairs	Telephone: 301/415-8200
	Washington, DC 20555-001	E-mail: opa@nrc.gov

No. 97-068

May 2, 1997

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with the public on May 14 to discuss expected final actions by NRC and the Maryland Department of the Environment in decommissioning the former Defense Logistics Agency property in Curtis Bay, Maryland.

The meeting, which begins at 7 p.m., will be held in the auditorium of the Glen Burnie High School in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

Beginning in the late 1950's, the General Services Administration stored thorium nitrate in fiber and steel drums at the Curtis Bay Depot, under license first from the Atomic Energy Commission and later from the NRC, as part of the National Defense Stockpile. In 1988 National Defense Stockpile responsibility was transferred to the Defense Logistics Agency. The property is now owned by Anne Arundel County.

Surveys by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in 1992 indicated that the former warehouses and soil contained residual amounts of thorium, a radioactive material, in excess of NRC's limits for unrestricted use of the property. Defense Logistics began cleaning up the site in mid-1994, completing the work the following year. Radiation surveys by Defense Logistics--as well as confirmatory surveys by NRC, the Maryland Department of the Environment and Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education--show that remediation work was successful.