More than 38 million gallons of water have been pumped from the ground at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey since November 2010, according to the state.
That’s enough H2O to fill more than 1,900 backyard swimming pools with 20,000 gallons apiece.
And while tritium levels in groundwater at Oyster Creek have dropped, they still violate government limits in three monitoring wells, according to the latest state data.
One well had 315,000 picocuries of tritium per liter of water in January, down from the highest reading of nearly 1.2 million, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The government max is 20,000 picocuries, a measure of radioactivity.
Another well had 51,200 picocuries, down from 2.8 million, while another had 29,800 picocuries, down from 761,976, according to the DEP.
The pumping removes about 70 gallons of groundwater a minute. The groundwater is released into the plant’s intake structure, mixed with up to 460,000 gallons of water a minute and then pumped through the plant’s water system, according to the DEP.
The diluted water is discharged into the plant’s canal, which flows into Barnegat Bay.
“At this time, there is no estimate for when the remediation of the entire plume will be completed, however, DEP’s split sampling results to date indicate that the remedial efforts are having some effect,” according to the DEP.