October 28, 2014

DOE Bears Vast Majority of Former Commercial Uranium Mill Costs, IG Finds

By ExchangeMonitor

The Department of Energy is paying the vast majority of surveillance and maintenance costs for former commercial uranium mill sites that were supposed to be covered by fees charged to the former operators of the sites, the DOE Inspector General said in a report released yesterday. The “Title II” uranium mill tailings sites were cleaned up by the commercial operators and handed over to DOE’s Office of Legacy Management for long-term management using a surveillance charge assessed to the operator. Between Fiscal Years 2010 and 2012 DOE spent $4.25 million on the Title II sites, but only received $148,000 in surveillance charges. LM currently manages six sites, but it plans to eventually cover the remaining 21 sites slated for closure. In the period covered by the report, DOE also spent $1.1 million for pre-transfer activities for other sites that at this point are not covered by the mill operators.

The surveillance charge is assessed to the mill operators by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, though DOE ultimately ends up managing the sites. The fee cannot be increased for sites that have already been handed over to the government. But DOE and the NRC are currently in talks about how to assess the fee moving forward. The IG is suggesting that DOE provide the NRC “sufficient detail, rationale and justification to clearly demonstrate the nexus to radiological health and safety for all costs and activities, including pre-transfer costs,” and also reevaluate whether it is necessary to incur costs “that do not have a justifiable nexus to radiological health and safety.” DOE declined to comment.

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