Kenneth Fletcher
NS&D Monitor
6/12/2015

Amid pressure from lawmakers and reports regarding the huge amount of excess facilities awaiting transfer to the Department of Energy’s cleanup program, a DOE working group on the issue expects to complete a comprehensive report by the end of the year, officials said this month. The Energy Secretary’s office formed the group in January after a DOE Inspector General report flagged the deteriorating conditions and lack of transfer schedule for hundreds of contaminated facilities, a finding echoed in a March report by the Government Accountability Office. The working group is currently “looking across the DOE complex at all the facilities and trying to come up with a way to understand the totality of the issue, trying to understand what that means in terms of dollars and timeframes,” acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Mark Whitney told NS&D Monitor last week on the sidelines of a Nuclear Cleanup Caucus briefing.

In its January report, the IG found DOE had no “definitive transfer schedule” for several hundred facilities. “Delays in the cleanup and disposition of contaminated excess facilities expose the Department, its employees and the public to ever-increasing levels of risk,” the report states. “While surveillance and maintenance is intended to control these risks, delays in decommissioning and demolition also lead to escalating disposition costs.” As a response, DOE formed the working group, which is comprised of senior officials from EM, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Office of Science and the DOE Under Secretary’s Office, Whitney said. “The excess facilities working group expects to have recommendations for DOE leadership’s consideration later this year,” a DOE spokesperson said when asked about the makeup and schedule of the working group.

A ‘Tremendous Number’ of Facilities Could be Considered Excess

DOE has a “tremendous number of facilities,” numbering between 1,000 and 2,000, that could be considered excess currently under the NNSA, as well as the offices of Science and Nuclear Energy, according to Whitney. Those must be transferred at some point to EM for cleanup. “Our review team is looking at this, but it is a tremendous amount of data to look at and to understand the issue,” Whitney said. Another issues is the many facilities already under EM’s scope—“facilities that we are not able to get to in the next 10, 15, sometimes even 20 years, some because of technical issues, some because of regulatory issues and some just because there just is not enough budget to do everything at once,” Whitney said.

The facilities could be prioritized based on risk, as well as other factors. “It is something we are treating seriously and trying to find an approach that deals with the riskiest facilities that, if possible, reduces the cost going forward,” Whitney said. “Even if you can’t take them down, if you could do something to reduce the carrying costs for those until you get to a point where you can take them down.” Regulatory issues can crop up as well that could put off immediate work on a facility, he added.

Lawmakers Look for DOE to Provide Reports on Transfer Schedules

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have advanced legislation this year that would seek more information from the Department regarding its plans for the excess facilities. The House-passed Fiscal Year 2016 Defense Authorization bill would require DOE to develop a schedule for transfer of the facilities within two years, a provision also included in the version of the bill currently being debated in the Senate. The House version of the FY’16 Energy and Water spending bill also includes a provision from DOE seeking more information on its plans for excess facilities at Oak Ridge.

The recent GAO report highlighted issues at Oak Ridge’s Alpha-5 facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, including mercury, beryllium and black mold contamination and a collapsing roof in need of repair. “We have facilities that literally are dirty, decaying and need to be cleaned up and dealt with,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) said last week at an Energy Facility Contractors Group meeting. “The problem, candidly, … the needs are greater than the amount of funds that are available. So it’s going to take prioritization.”

Fleischmann, whose district includes Oak Ridge, added: “As we deal with situations like Alpha-5, it takes members such as me speaking with DOE and speaking with NNSA, and just continuing to push to do that. But ultimately it’s going to come down to funding. When there are limited funds available, and there are, it comes down to prioritization.”

Oak Ridge Has Scope Better Defined than Other Sites

Oak Ridge has a relatively well-defined scope of necessary cleanup work, including facilities at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Lab, according to Whitney. “They have a very good handle on the facilities there, what the risk is for the facilities, what the cost is associated with taking those facilities down. We don’t have that level of granularity and detail across the complex,” he said. “So that’s part of this review, to look at that and try and have as level a playing field to try and understand the problem as well as we can.”