Pa. Senator Wants Public Release of SLDA MOU

Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) last week called on the Army Corps of Engineers to publicly release a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that would allow the remediation of the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa. to continue. The MOU is needed to clarify the roles of the Corps, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the site after different, more radioactive material was discovered. “We can agree that the most important priority is ensuring the health and safety of the residents and the surrounding community,” Casey wrote in a letter to Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. “In addition, allowing the community the opportunity to understand the role of the federal agencies can provide a sense of transparency and ease as we move closer towards the removal of the nuclear material. The residents of Armstrong County have waited long enough for the clean-up to resume. I urge you to release the MOU quickly and devote sufficient resources to the remediation of the SLDA.”

 

Casey has been applying pressure to speed up the cleanup process, especially after a report last month from the NRC Inspector General concluded that that the Corps’ remediation plan for the SLDA site “grossly underestimates” how much radioactive material remains on site while a lack of documents inhibits the government’s ability to know exactly what is buried on site. The MOU is reportedly almost finished, needing only top level approval before it can move forward.