Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler said last month the state feels confident in the safety of a planned on-site disposal cell for waste from decommissioning of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant — and that recent research by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency backs up that conclusion.
“We have patiently and thoroughly explained in person and in writing how the process of approval and construction of this cell is largely, under federal law, determined by DOE, with significant oversight from Ohio EPA,” Butler wrote in a Dec. 27 letter to Billy Spencer, mayor of the nearby village of Piketon.
Spencer has been a vocal critic of DOE’s plans to build the $900 million disposal cell at Portsmouth, which is tentatively scheduled to open in 2022.
The mayor’s primary concern has been whether contaminants could leak through the cell lining and bedrock underneath to taint the local groundwater.
The disposal facility would hold construction debris, including some low-level radioactive waste, from cleanup at Portsmouth. The Energy Department in June 2015 issued its record of decision for the cell, which spells out in detail how the 2 million cubic yards of Portsmouth decontamination and decommissioning waste should be managed. The Ohio EPA agreed with DOE’s conclusion that the facility posed no significant environmental risk.
Piketon and other local communities have said they prefer shipping this waste to an off-site, DOE-approved disposal facility.
Butler said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also recently endorsed the safety of the planned cell. On Nov. 16, the Ohio EPA asked its federal counterpart for “an expedited reasonableness review of geologic competency” of the site, according to his letter.
“I have attached to my letter to you, a letter from U.S. EPA which includes reviews from two U.S. EPA subcontractors Akana and Booz Allen Hamilton,” Butler wrote. “These unbiased and undisputedly qualified organizations clearly conclude that the underlying bedrock is strong enough to support the weight of the cell,” he added.
Piketon Mayor Responds
In a Jan. 3 letter to the Ohio EPA and DOE Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Manager Robert Edwards III, Spencer said a fuller review of comments from U.S. EPA Region 5 actually supports concerns raised by local opponents of the disposal cell, and their consultant, the Ferguson Group.
While the U.S. EPA found that potential contamination of groundwater would be unlikely, it “identified limitations in the data that do not make the conclusion definitive,” Spencer said, adding that the U.S. EPA has agreed there are “fractures” below ground at the disposal site.
The Piketon mayor also voiced concern that the Ohio EPA has already granted DOE a waiver “for encroachment of a stream within 200 feet” of the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility.
“I urge both the DOE and the Ohio EPA to take a step back and give careful consideration to the consequences if your analysis – your perspective – turns out to be wrong and this landfill starts leaking nuclear waste into the surface water,” Spencer wrote. “This has already happened at Oak Ridge and I’m certain DOE thought they got it right when they built that landfill too.”