The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The letter was a follow-up to a February agreement between EM and the state agency regarding federal plans to remediate the landfills near the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site.
The agreement removed a potential barrier for DOE’s planned On-Site Disposal Cell for 2 million cubic yards of decontamination and decommissioning waste from Portsmouth. Until then DOE had not explicitly pledged to remediate the old landfills as part of the disposal cell project. The department hopes to start waste emplacement at the $900 million facility as early as fiscal 2021.
“This is a welcome and significant step to meeting the goal of protecting the environment and improving the site for future commercial/industrial redevelopment,” Butler wrote to Owendoff. He said DOE will revise its work plan to remove “certain objectionable caveats” on excavation and consolidation of about a half-dozen landfill areas. The state Environmental Protection Agency will also issue orders for excavation of two additional areas.
Ohio EPA has been seeking a firm commitment to ensure DOE would remediate the plumes and landfills and place the contaminated contents in the disposal cell.
Local communities opposed to the cell have not given up their fight, but they are happy to see Ohio EPA pledge to enforce DOE’s promises on the landfills, said Karl Kalbacher, director of environment, economics, and grant services at the Ferguson Group, a Washington, D.C., -based consulting firm that is working with the village of Piketon and other localities on the matter.
In a Tuesday phone call, Kalbacher noted the state has not yet approved the final design for the disposal cell. As a result, the disposal cell still isn’t a done deal, he said.
