Displaying items by tag: us department of energy

Editor’s note: The Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) was planned with sufficient capacity to properly accommodate all the problem waste to be generated by the cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation. However, to accelerate the cleanup and reduce the cost of preprocessing demolition waste, highly toxic waste was not systematically separated from less contaminated waste that would not have required disposal under Superfund criteria. Thus, EMWMF was approaching its capacity much sooner than projected. Hence, DOE began planning the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) on land designated to remain uncontaminated during DOE’s Stakeholder Stewardship process of the late 1990s. 

What did EPA Administrator Regan know when he overruled his experts?

WASHINGTON — A controversial decision by Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency may compromise the protectiveness of radiation cleanups across the country, yet the agency will not release the material explaining the basis for this decision, according to a federal lawsuit filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The suit seeks to find out why EPA allowed a landfill at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the nation’s largest nuclear waste sites, to pollute local waters over the objections of its top legal experts.

The Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation (TDEC) had objected to plans by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to build a landfill for radiological wastes and debris from demolished structures from the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. TDEC protested that wastewater from the landfill would contaminate Bear Creek, a tributary of the Clinch River. EPA’s acting Regional Administrator agreed with the state.

Editor’s note: As reported in Hellbender Press, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) was reprimanded by the Southern Environmental Law Center for neglecting its duty to follow guidelines and proper procedures mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Of immediate concern was OREM’s pretext and information — or specifically lack of pertinent information — released ahead of the public meeting on May 17, 2022 about its project for a new “Environmental Management Disposal Facility” (EMDF).

With regard to NEPA compliance, Oak Ridge Operations has been the black sheep in DOE’s stable because it never prepared the required site-wide environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR). At said public meeting, Virginia Dale, Corporate Fellow Emeritus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, commented on another tangent of shortcomings — not spelled out by Federal law — but matters of common sense, competent decision making and good community spirit.