© 2024 WOSU Public Media
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Energy Secretary Orders Data Released Near Piketon Uranium Plant

Zahn's Middle School in Piketon was closed amid concerns about radioactive contaminants.
Nick Evans
/
WOSU
Zahn's Middle School in Piketon was closed amid concerns about radioactive contaminants.

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ordered his agency to release more than four years' worth of data from air monitors near Zahn's Corner Middle School where trace amounts of radioactive material were discovered.

Perry says the data from 2015 through the first quarter of this year comes from six air monitoring stations on Energy Department property and 10 in the surrounding southern Ohio community.

Perry told Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in a letter Monday the data was provided to Pike County authorities, and to the Ohio Department of Health and the state Environmental Protection Agency.

Zahn's Corner Middle School was closed last week while more tests are done and health impacts are evaluated.

The school is several miles from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which produced enriched uranium until 2001.