The Energy Department believes the central Bear Creek Valley is the best place within the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee to develop a new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility – due in part to its geology and groundwater flow conditions.
Because the same valley is home to Oak Ridge’s existing Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF), DOE has the benefit of about three decades’ worth of water and soil sampling history in the area, which show the current landfill has avoided creating serious environmental impacts. The area also offers a stable subsurface, according to a 100-plus page disposal plan published last month.
In all, the department considered about 35 sites across the 3,300-acre federal property. The preferred location would take up about 70 acres, roughly 4,200 feet inside the reservation boundary, DOE said in its disposal plan.
The on-site facility would be able to take advantage of a haul road located entirely within the Oak Ridge Reservation, according to DOE’s disposal plan. This would avoid transportation and potential regulatory complications from having to ship waste off-site to different jurisdictions.
The new landfill would take waste generated by remediation operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex, the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The facility would take low-level radioactive waste, mixed low-level waste, and chemical waste as defined under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act.
The existing facility was 75 percent full as of January, having received 160,000 waste shipments since opening in 2002. It is expected to reach full capacity in the mid-2020s.
Uranium enrichment ended at ETTP, the former K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, in 1985. That effort, combined with the nuclear weapons component manufacturing at Y-12 and operation of nuclear research reactors at ORNL, has contaminated soils, groundwater, and buildings across the federal reservation.
There are still decades of cleanup left at Oak Ridge. While the most hazardous material will be shipped off-site, there will still be plenty of waste left for on-site disposal. About two-thirds of the waste going into the new facility is expected to be demolition debris, with soil, sediment, and sludge accounting for the rest.
The Oak Ridge lab will account for less than 30 percent of the total forecast waste volume at the new site, but 80 percent of the radioactivity, projections show.
The estimated total project costs for on-site disposal range from $732 million to $928 million. That’s a life cycle cost estimate, including closure, which DOE will refine over time.
A public hearing on the facility is scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Y-12 New Hope Center Auditorium in Oak Ridge. The public comment period on plans for the new landfill is scheduled to continue through Oct. 26. Comments can be submitted by email to [email protected].
A record of decision on the new landfill site could be issued in late 2018 or early 2019 by DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The facility would open in the early 2020s.
