The U.S. Energy Department has committed to remediation of existing landfills and plumes at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said following a Feb. 23 meeting with stakeholders.
Officials in the nearby village of Piketon have raised concerns over such contaminated areas inside the Perimeter Road in connection with their opposition to DOE’s plan to by 2022 open an on-site disposal cell for 2 million cubic yards of decontamination and decommissioning waste from Portsmouth.
The Energy Department in June 2015 issued its record of decision for the $900 million cell, which spells out in detail how the decontamination and decommissioning waste should be managed. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency agreed with DOE’s conclusion that the facility posed no significant environmental risk.
Local communities around Portsmouth have voiced support for shipping the waste to an off-site location. The local critics have also said they lacked a firm commitment from DOE to clean up the extensive landfills and plumes near the Perimeter Road. It’s an ancillary issue insider the larger disposal cell debate.
The Perimeter Road is an oblong road, secured by fencing and security, that surrounds much of the Portsmouth cleanup operation.
“This commitment is now legally enforceable, makes the site safer and will allow the entire site to be redeveloped to benefit the community,” Portman said in a news release.
In addition to officials from federal and state agencies, Portman said he met with representatives from the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative and the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board, along with Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).
Portman also released a letter, dated Feb. 23, from James Owendoff, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, which sought to clarify the department’s position on excavation of the sites within the Perimeter Road.
In the letter, Owendoff told Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler that DOE was removing two conditions originally included in a remedial design and action plan for the proposed on-site disposal cell. Among other things, DOE had previously said it could modify the scope of the work based on project planning.
“With these changes, it is my belief that DOE is making the commitment you seek to excavate and consolidate the plumes and landfills within Perimeter Road as needed to meet the backfill requirements for the disposal facility in a manner that is enforceable by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.” Owendoff said in the letter.
But a staffer at a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that has worked with Piketon officials in researching the disposal cell proposal, remained skeptical. “This sentence does not compel DOE to remediate all the landfills within the Perimeter Road,” Karl Kalbacher, director of environment, economics, and grant services at the Ferguson Group, said by email.
“The position of the local folks is that the Onsite disposal cell is not a good location for any kind of landfill,” Kalbacher said. That’s in part because of its proximity to the high groundwater table, he added.
“DOE chose not to look outside of their own property to site this proposed landfill,” Kalbacher said of the disposal cell.
There are five groundwater contamination plumes totaling 160 acres within the Perimeter Road, Kalbacher said, as well as 13 legacy landfills taking up more than 100 acres. The Ferguson Group official said DOE’s recently announced position is still short of an airtight commitment to cleaning up the plume and landfill areas.
The existing plumes and landfills are located inside Perimeter Road, Kalbacher said: “They would be excavated and material determined to meet Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) would presumably be placed in the planned on-site disposal cell that is located on DOE property but outside of the Perimeter Road.”
