The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released yesterday. For example, DOE has not yet developed a “definitive transfer schedule” for 234 contaminated excess facilities, as well as an additional 140 excess facilities identified more recently. “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.”
The IG noted the deteriorating conditions, including floods and increasing soil and groundwater contamination, at many of the former radiological facilities. That includes buildings that had been addressed during recent Recovery Act efforts. The IG recommended DOE “develop an analysis and report providing critical information on contaminated Department excess facilities that would be useful to policy makers for decisions regarding the path forward for addressing these facilities,” the report states. DOE should use the analysis to reconsider its current approach, the IG stated. DOE has since committed to form a team by this month to undertake the analysis.
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