Energy Department officials who attended a Monday meeting of the village of Piketon, Ohio, Council to give a progress update on cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, ended up hearing a lot about local opposition to an on-site disposal site for waste from the project.
It was a standing room only crowd, Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer said on Wednesday.
DOE Portsmouth Site Lead Joel Bradburne made the presentation on decommissioning, days after Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited the Ohio site. At the end of his talk, Bradburne offered to answer questions, which drew queries and comments focused on the disposal cell, said Spencer, who is helping lead local opposition.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy reached an agreement in summer 2015 on the record of decision for the $900 million On-Site Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF), which is scheduled to open in 2022 to hold material from the continuing cleanup of former uranium enrichment operations at Portsmouth.
While there was public comment for the ROD proceedings, many residents believe their questions were never answered, Spencer maintains.
“The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant cleanup project completed a 5-year regulatory process under the purview of the Ohio EPA that resulted in a decision to construct an onsite waste disposal cell,” a DOE spokesperson said Friday. “Stakeholder concerns continue to be important to the DOE cleanup mission at the Portsmouth site, and DOE continues to meet with community leaders to address their areas of concern.”
In recent months, the village of Piketon, Scioto Valley School District, and Seal Township have all passed resolutions opposing on-site disposal. Among the concerns are the potential for waste to seep through the bedrock below the site and the inability to put that land to other uses.
“We are not going to quit,” Spencer said.
Spencer had hoped to bring his message directly to Perry last week, giving the energy secretary some information about local opposition to the disposal cell, but could not be fit into the energy secretary’s schedule during the short visit. “I wasn’t going to ambush him or anything,” Spencer said.
The Piketon mayor, however, said he does have an Oct. 18 meeting scheduled with the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Cliff Rosenberger, a Republican who represents Pike County, where the village of Piketon is located. Spencer said he hopes state officials might be receptive to concerns of the lightly populated communities near the complex.
“Speaker Rosenberger, like the entire community, understands the seriousness of the issue and appreciates all the work Mayor Spencer has put into it thus far,” a spokesperson for Rosenberger said by email. “The speaker continues to monitor and study the situation closely and looks forward to keeping an open line of communication with the mayor and his constituents as this issue progresses.”
