This summer, UC Davis will remove low-level radioactive waste from a former campus landfill on a Superfund site a mile south of the main campus. In the most significant removal action from the campus's portion of the site, an estimated 150 cubic yards of waste will be excavated from former campus burial holes to prevent the radioactive materials from migrating into groundwater. The burial holes are part of defunct waste disposal sites on the 15-acre rural property that also contained the former Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research. "We're making significant progress," said Julie McNeal, director of Environmental Health and Safety. "We know what needs to be done. We are doing this as a voluntary interim action to speed up the process." The material, segregated from campus waste more than 30 years ago, is buried 4 to 6 feet underground and contains low-levels of tritium and carbon-14. Minute levels of the isotopes have begun to leak into groundwater at levels below drinking water standards. The $750,000 soil removal project is expected to begin in July, with the material completely removed before the rainy season, according to Brian Oatman, campus environmental protection manager. The soil will be contained and transported to disposal facilities in Utah. "The radioactivity is at very low levels, and it will be contained during the clean up," McNeal said. "There will be no danger to the public. We want the material out of the ground before it can migrate to any off-site groundwater." In addition to the UC Davis action, the U.S. Department of Energy this summer plans to remove 800 cubic yards of material from the former research site, according to energy department project manager Susan Fields. Scheduled to be excavated is low-level radioactive soil, a tank and leach fields that were part of a radium and strontium septic treatment system that served the facility. For more than 30 years, the rural property was the location of DOE-funded animal studies of the long-term health effects of exposure to low-level radiation. The area was declared a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1994 due to the possibility of exposure to contamination and the potential for further contamination from waste disposal areas. The campus is sharing responsibility for the clean up of the property, specifically the three former campus landfills that date back to the 1940s. The energy department is responsible for the clean up of all materials related to the animal radiation laboratory that ceased operations in the late 1980s. In 1998, UC Davis began an aggressive program to extract and treat groundwater contaminated by the campus landfills. Already, monitoring wells are showing a decrease in levels of chloroform, the primary contaminant. A groundwater source investigation was completed and delivered to regulatory agencies in March. Also last year, the DOE removed a large portion of contaminated material-more than 900 cubic yards-from a former waste disposal site for the health-research facility. Both soil removal actions this summer are expected to be the last interim material clean up required for the site. Final actions could involve capping the three former UC Davis campus landfills, installing additional groundwater treatment equipment and capping former animal pens on the portion of the facility being overseen by the Department of Energy. According to the site mangers, final encapsulating and clean up of both the UC Davis and DOE portions of the Superfund site are expected to be finished by 2002. fter that point, both agencies will be responsible for long-term monitoring.