The Energy Department and contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth expect soil excavation and installation of necessary infrastructure for a planned on-site radioactive waste disposal cell at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio should be completed in fiscal 2019.
Recent progress includes setting up trailers for work crews, installing security fencing along the perimeter of the site, including sedimentation basins, a DOE spokesperson said in an email Friday. The project remains on schedule for attaining operational status late in the 2020 calendar year with the first emplacement of waste in fiscal 2021, according to DOE.
The $900 million cell is meant to handle 2 million cubic yards of waste resulting from tearing down structures at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site. Waste resulting from the demolition of the X-326 process building at the former uranium enrichment facility would be first to go into the disposal cell, according to current plans, the DOE spokesperson said.
The Energy Department issued its final Record of Decision (ROD) for the cell, in June 2015 with concurrence of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
The Village of Piketon, Ohio and other local governments near the DOE site, however, claim their environmental and safety concerns were not properly considered in the ROD. Local resolutions have been passed opposing the cell and asking the ROD process to be reopened.
But a vote taken May 10, the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board (SSAB) declined to recommend DOE and the Ohio EPA reopen the ROD process.
Local opponents of the cell, such as Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer, note the Ohio EPA has yet to approve the final design for the facility. Piketon has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Energy Department to discover how much DOE and the contractor spent on the disposal facility project before the ROD was issued.
