The Oak Ridge site’s Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, a group of onsite disposal cells, may have incurred more than $14.4 million in unnecessary disposal costs, according to a Department of Energy Inspector General report released Friday. The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management “permitted its contractors to send minimally contaminated waste1 to EMWMF that may have otherwise been acceptable for disposal in the sanitary landfill at a much lower cost per unit,” according to the IG report. Between Fiscal Year 2002 and FY 2011 about 140,000 cubic yards of material sent to the facility could have been disposed of at the sanitary landfill, and current cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, has identified additional material that was slated for disposal in EMWMF. Disposal at EMWMF is “at least $60 more per cubic yard than disposing of waste in the sanitary landfill,” according to the IG.
The report included several recommendations, including for EM headquarters to evaluate potential disposal pathways for minimally contaminated waste at current and planned D&D projects. It also asked Oak Ridge to “develop site-specific authorized limits for surface contaminated waste that maximize the Department’s ability to safely and cost effectively dispose of minimally contaminated waste.” EM cleanup chief Dave Huizenga noted in an October response to the report that Oak Ridge “has already taken steps to implement the specific recommendation” dealing with EMWMF. It adds that the report “does not appear to acknowledge that there are often numerous technical and programmatic factors that must be considered in planning and executing environmental activities. The unit cost of disposal alone cannot be used as a sole factor in evaluating the overall effectiveness of project implementation.”