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Success
Stories
Following
are a few examples of how ORSSAB helped make a difference regarding environmental cleanup
of the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation.
FY 2007
Melton Valley Closure
For many years the Melton Valley burial grounds posed the highest risk
at the Oak Ridge Reservation to human health and the environment. As a
result of more than 50 years of operation, production, and research
activities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a legacy of disposal sites,
contaminated facilities, and areas of secondary contamination were
spread over 160 acres of the watershed’s 1062 acres. In the 1950s the
area was also used as the Atomic Energy Commission’s Southeastern
Regional Burial Ground, where largely uncharacterized radioactive wastes
from over 50 other federal facilities were disposed.
DOE’s cleanup project for the valley included a wide array of
complicated and difficult activities, such as hydraulic isolation
through installation of multilayer caps; removal, treatment, and
disposal of retrievable transuranic waste; and in situ grouting.
In March 2007, DOE completed remedial actions in the valley, bringing
the project to a close and ending a decade of involvement and oversight
by ORSSAB.
Beginning in January 1998 with its “End Use Recommendation for the
Disposal Areas in Melton Valley,” the board made 20 recommendations to
DOE related to various aspects of Melton Valley cleanup. An inestimable
number of hours were devoted by the board members in studying, debating,
and writing recommendations on numerous issues related to the project
and the acceptable end state for the area.
The remediation work was a huge undertaking that addressed 219 release
sites over the course of six years at a cost of $360 million. It could
have cost as much as $1.6 billion had all the waste been removed and
shipped off site, but the board played an instrumental role in the
decision to leave some relatively short-lived contamination in place in
order to save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Independent Verification
In early 2007 the fruits of an ORSSAB recommendation began to be
realized. Millions are being spent at the East Tennessee Technology Park
(ETTP) to dismantle scores of old buildings and prepare the site for
eventual use as a private industrial park. But how receptive will
industry be to locating in an area where DOE generated a plethora of
hazardous and radioactive waste materials? Will companies be willing to
invest in a site without assurance that the land and any remaining
buildings available for lease are free of contaminants?
One way to assuage such concerns is to conduct an independent
verification that cleanup requirements have been met and that the land
and buildings are safe to use.
ORSSAB investigated the need and use of independent verification at ETTP
and crafted a recommendation to DOE to employ the process at the site.
DOE accepted that recommendation and contracted the Oak Ridge Institute
for Science and Education to do the work. DOE has recently approved the
institute’s statement of work, as well as funding of $234,000 per year
for three years.
Many in the community feel that reindustrialization is the key to
success at ETTP, and through ORSSAB initiative an important step is
being taken to help achieve that success.
Stewardship
Long-term stewardship of contaminated areas of the Oak Ridge Reservation
following cleanup has been an ORSSAB priority almost since the board’s
inception in 1995. In FY 2007 the board generated three more
recommendations in a long series of recommendations on the topic,
continuing its commitment to assuring that future generations are
protected through the actions taken by DOE today.
• In its “Recommendation on Notices of Contamination and Future Land Use
Limitations in Melton Valley” the board codified a process it has been
developing for some time. For the past two years the board’s Stewardship
Committee has been working with DOE to plan and implement a process for
filing Notices of Contamination and plat maps with the Anderson County
Register of Deeds and Property Assessor’s office. This process will also
be extended to Roane County and the city of Oak Ridge.
The “Notice of Contamination and Future Use Limitations, and Intent to
Provide Notations on Ownership Record in Melton Valley” is an important
element of this process. At DOE’s request, the committee reviewed the
notice, prepared some general comments on it, and rewrote the notice
language to ensure that it will be understandable to the general public.
The committee revised the notice into a form it felt was more ‘user
friendly’ and recommended that DOE consider using the style and format
of the committee’s revision. The recommendation also asked DOE to
publish a condensed version of the notice in local newspapers that would
also be easily understood by the public.
• In “Reaffirmation of DOE Secretarial Policy to Provide Stewardship at
Ongoing Mission Sites with Residual Contamination” the board recommended
that DOE establish a national policy for commitment to long-term
stewardship. Since a number of remediation projects have been completed
on the Oak Ridge Reservation, ORSSAB felt DOE should reaffirm its
commitment to long-term stewardship at sites with ongoing missions that
contain residual contamination, such as the Y-12 National Security
Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• In its “Recommendation on the ‘Draft Legacy Management Strategic
Plan’” the board stated that the strategic plan had no guidance for
ongoing mission sites with residual contamination and that DOE’s Office
of Legacy Management should state clearly that if it had no
responsibility for ongoing mission sites it should identify who does
have responsibility for them.
Public Involvement Plan
Both the Comprehensive Environmental Restoration, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) and the “Federal Facility Agreement for the Oak
Ridge Reservation” require DOE Oak Ridge to publish a Public Involvement
Plan. The plan is updated every three years. The purpose of the plan is
to communicate to the public its opportunities for participation in the
decision-making process regarding the remediation of contaminated areas
on the Oak Ridge Reservation. As such, the plan is one of the most
important documents to citizens that the Environmental Management
program prepares.
In 2007 DOE began working on an update of the 2004 plan. ORSSAB supplied
numerous comments and suggestions, which were incorporated into the
final document. Because of the board’s involvement, important additions
and changes were made to better serve the community. DOE said in its
response to the recommendation: “Thanks to the board’s knowledgeable
input, we believe the document has been greatly improved since its
previous update three years ago.”
Remediation Effectiveness Report/CERCLA Five-Year
Review
DOE is spending hundreds of
millions of dollars in Oak Ridge each year cleaning up environmental
contamination left from decades of nuclear enrichment and other
activities. But how do you know it’s working?
The answers lie in an annual report and a rigorous review that occurs
every five years. The annual report is the Remediation Effectiveness
Report, and every five years it is expanded to include the Five-Year
Review that’s required under CERCLA.
While the annual report evaluates if the remedy is working as planned,
the Five-Year Review evaluates whether that chosen remedy is still
effective and appropriate under today’s conditions. It also reevaluates
the protectiveness of the cleanup decisions.
Because the Five-Year Review is so important, ORSSAB issued its
“Recommendations on Logistics for a Public Meeting on the 2006
Remediation Effectiveness Report and CERCLA Five-Year Review” in
November 2006. The board made several general recommendations about
conducting the meeting, as well as specific recommendations concerning
the agenda and publicity. A primary suggestion was to use an ORSSAB
monthly meeting as a forum for the public meeting.
DOE agreed and set the date for May 9, 2007. About 50 people attended
the meeting, which gave local stakeholders an important forum to express
their views on both the Remediation Effectiveness Report and the CERCLA
Five-Year Review.
Oral History Initiative
In spring 2007, ORSSAB formed a subcommittee to explore the possibility
of facilitating an oral history program for the Oak Ridge Reservation.
This history contains invaluable information to the Environmental
Management program when determining the scope and the data necessary to
approach areas of the reservation requiring remediation or in
determining if an area does not require remediation.
About 275 oral history interviews have been conducted to date with Oak
Ridge scientists, engineers, community leaders, and residents, but there
is no central location housing all of the existing tapes, and no
mechanism exists to manage an active oral history program in terms of
cataloguing and transcribing tapes, identifying and interviewing people,
and providing access to material to researchers and other interested
parties.
The subcommittee has begun looking into funding options and how other
DOE sites similar to Oak Ridge have conducted or are conducting oral
history programs. In addition, the subcommittee organized a workshop
that will bring together many groups and individuals interested in
preserving Oak Ridge history. The workshop, which was scheduled for
October 11, 2007, was intended to help resolve several issues,
including:
• What is the definition of an oral history?
• What are sources of funding?
• Should all oral histories be housed at one location along with the
transcripts and other relevant files?
• Should a “permanent” administrative group/advisory committee be formed
to oversee the oral history program, and if so, who?
• What existing regulations/legislative acts control or influence an
oral history program?
• Who are the individuals who need to be interviewed in the near future?
• What format of the end product will be most desired and easy to
access?
• What organization will handle transcribing oral histories that have
not yet been transcribed?
ORSSAB’s work on the oral histories program is an important step in
bringing cohesion to the various interests in the community on an issue
of importance not only to the public but to the DOE Environmental
Management program as well.
Uranium Hexafluoride Cylinders
During gaseous diffusion activities at the K-25 Site (now known as
ETTP), depleted uranium hexafluoride was packaged in approximately 7,000
cylinders and placed in six outdoor storage yards. After diffusion
activities at K-25 were shut down in 1987, the condition of the
cylinders deteriorated, posing a potential threat of release of
radioactive and toxic contaminants to the environment and a risk to
onsite workers and offsite public. In addition, surveillance and
maintenance of the cylinders contributed heavily to K 25’s already
significant landlord costs.
Since 2001 ORSSAB had expressed concern about the condition of the
cylinders, making their expedited removal from the site a priority. When
DOE’s Accelerated Closure Program was put in place at the Oak Ridge
Reservation, the board weighed in with its “Recommendation Concerning
the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Disposition Program at ETTP” in July
2003, and again in January 2004 with its “Comments on the Draft
Environmental Impact Statements for Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride
Conversion Facilities.”
The board’s goals were finally met in December 2006 when the acres of
cylinder storage yards were finally emptied. Almost 5,000 separate
shipments of cylinders were required to transfer the cylinders to DOE’s
Portsmouth, Ohio, site where a uranium hexafluoride conversion facility
is being constructed.
FY 2006
ORSSAB Presented with
Prestigious National EPA Award
In June 2006 ORSSAB and its Stewardship Committee were presented with
the Citizens Excellence in Community Involvement Award. The national
honor is given annually by EPA to recognize an individual or community
group for outstanding achievement in the field of environmental
protection. The award was presented at EPA’s 2006 Community Involvement
Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The award recognizes two major achievements by the ORSSAB Stewardship
Committee between October 2004 and September 2005.
The first achievement was development of the Stewardship Education
Resource Kit, which was created to provide local educators with
materials to teach students about environmental cleanup and long-term
stewardship issues (see “Teacher’s Workshop” story).
The second achievement focuses on maintaining information about
contaminated land. In 2004 the Stewardship Committee worked with
Anderson County to test a system where plat maps of contaminated land
would be placed in the county geographical information system. The test
was successful, so in 2005 the board recommended that DOE standardize
its language for land with notices of contamination so they could be
easily found by anyone doing land searches in the county land records.
DOE adopted the recommendation and is standardizing its language when
filing notices of contamination with Anderson County. The county also
sends the same information to the City of Oak Ridge. A similar effort is
underway for Roane County.
ORSSAB Hosts Teacher’s Workshop on the Stewardship
Education Resource Kit
In February 2006 ORSSAB sponsored a two-day workshop on how to use the
board’s Stewardship Education Resource Kit in the classroom. The event
was attended by twenty-four ecology and environmental science teachers
representing public and private high schools in Knox and Anderson
counties.
The kit, which was completed in March 2005, contains lesson plans,
videos, a fictional case study based on actual cleanup operations, an
appendix of supporting materials, and a video CD on the background and
use of the kit.
During the workshop, held February 9 and 11, ORSSAB members and
facilitators from the University of Tennessee explained how to use each
lesson, showed videos included with the kit, and demonstrated the use of
support materials and related Internet sites. The teachers participated
in group activities and listened to a panel discussion on stewardship
that included representatives from ORSSAB, DOE, and the state of
Tennessee.
Kit materials are available on the ORSSAB website at
www.oakridge.doe.gov/ em/ssab/stewardship-kit/kit.htm. Organizations
that have an interest in stewardship and the environment may request a
version of the kit.
FY 2005
Stewardship Education Resource
Kit
In March 2005
the Board launched its Stewardship Education Resource Kit, which was
developed over the course of three years to provide high school
educators with materials on the background, science, history, and
cleanup of contaminated areas on the Oak Ridge Reservation and the
stewardship of residually contaminated sites.
The kit contains lesson plans,
videos, a fictional case study based on actual cleanup operations, an
appendix of supporting materials, and a video CD on the background and
use of the kit. The kit is exceptional because it offers teachers a
complete resource for educating students about long-term stewardship of
contaminated land. It provides great flexibility for teachers to tailor
the lessons to a number of grade levels and specific subject areas, such
as environmental science, chemistry, biology, ecology, civics, or
history.
Museum Exhibit
ORSSAB unveiled its permanent
exhibit at the American Museum of Science and Energy in February 2005
with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by about 50 members of the
Board, the public, and the media. Speakers at the event included Gerald
Boyd, Steve McCracken, David Bradshaw, ORSSAB Chair Kerry Trammell, and
Museum Director Steve Stow.
Located on the second floor of the
museum, the display uses touch-screen kiosks, displays, and posters to
tell the story of the Oak Ridge EM program. The centerpiece of the
exhibit is a scale model of the EM Waste Management Facility in Bear
Creek Valley, which provides visitors an idea of the magnitude of the
cleanup effort on the reservation. The touch-screen kiosks take visitors
on an interactive journey through the cleanup process at the Gunite
Tanks, one of the highly successful remediation projects at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. Suspended over the exhibit is one of the remotely
controlled planes that used infrared photography to survey waste
disposal sites on the Oak Ridge Reservation.
FY 2004
Annotated Outline for a Long-Term Stewardship
Implementation Plan
Stewardship of contaminated areas of the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR)
following cleanup has long been an ORSSAB priority. So when DOE signed the
“Long-Term Stewardship Strategic Plan for the ORR” in March 2004, the
board’s Stewardship Committee took the next logical step by producing an
“Annotated Outline for a
Long-Term Stewardship Implementation Plan.”
The outline is specifically tailored to the known
contaminated areas of the reservation, with the hope that this approach will
result in an implementation plan that provides detailed functional
specifications. A solid implementation plan will enable the design and
execution of an ORR-specific stewardship system that meets both current and
future needs and also has the acceptance of local stakeholders.
DOE has responded favorably to the outline, noting that
it provides a firm framework for the implementation plan, which is
tentatively slated for publication in Spring 2005.
Student Summary of ORR Stakeholder Report on
Stewardship
ORSSAB published the second volume of its two-volume
“ORR Stakeholder Report on
Stewardship” in 1999. As time passed, though, it became apparent that
the report was too detailed for some audiences—notably the high school
students the board was trying to reach through its public outreach program.
To address the problem, the ORSSAB Stewardship
Committee asked advance placement science classes at Oak Ridge and Roane
County high schools to summarize the report. The resulting
“Student Summary of the ORR
Stakeholder Report on Stewardship” was published in May 2004 and does an
outstanding job of distilling the original reports into language easily
understood by high school students.
The student summary was widely distributed to local
schools and libraries to help ensure long-term awareness and understanding
of the community’s responsibility for stewardship of contamination that will
remain on the reservation following cleanup.
Trenches 5&7 Schedule
In Spring 2004 DOE proposed a change in the Melton Valley Record of
Decision (ROD) to alter the planned remedial action for Seepage Trenches 5
and 7 in the Melton Valley area of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The
proposal was to switch from in situ vitrification of the trenches to in situ
grouting.
ORSSAB supported the change and recommended that DOE
amend the ROD through the “Explanation of Significant Difference” process,
which would expedite the amendment procedure. EPA, however, required that
the change be made through the “ROD amendment” process, which requires a
more rigorous and typically more lengthy amendment procedure.
Because of the board’s involvement, though, the
schedule for ROD amendment was compressed to match that of the shorter
Explanation of Significant Difference process. This allowed approximately
one year to be shaved off the schedule, saving time and money on the
project.
GIS/Land-Use Information
Meetings sponsored by the Stewardship Committee in FY 2004 led to an
effort to ensure that DOE’s web-based GIS mapping and land-use restriction
information is provided to the city of Oak Ridge, Anderson and Roane
counties, and non-governmental entities.
The meetings, which were held with Anderson County’s
Register of Deeds Tim Shelton and Property Assessor Vernon Long, were
instituted because studies performed by Stewardship Committee members
identified several variations in DOE land information in the city and county
systems. Each parcel could be accessed with an online search, but beyond
that the information varied, and some plots had no description at all.
Members recommended to DOE that a uniform quality control process be put in
place to guarantee that all municipalities that govern land held by or
transferred from DOE have parallel sets of publicly-available data. This
will help ensure that records of contaminated areas of the reservation are
available to future generations.
8(a) contract
In late 2003 the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental
Management issued direction that the prime contractors performing cleanup
work at DOE sites could no longer provide support for the SSABs. ORSSAB
responded in FY 2004 by forming a Board Finance Committee, and over the
course of several months committee members met with the DOE Federal
Coordinator to develop a scope of work for a prospective support provider.
As a result of these efforts, a contract was put in place in May 2004 with
Spectrum, Inc., an 8(a) company based in Oak Ridge. This change has provided
ORSSAB with greater control over the way it uses government funds and will
allow it to provide greater value to DOE and the public.
FY
2003
§
ORSSAB worked on
several fronts to help break the logjam that has prevented the movement of remote-handled
transuranic (TRU) waste to more secure storage. In October 2002, ORSSAB wrote to the State
of New Mexico to endorse DOEs remote handled TRU waste permit modification request
to allow shipment of this waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In January 2003,
ORSSAB members attended the SSAB Workshop on TRU Waste Management at the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant, and the Board subsequently endorsed the workshop recommendations. ORSSAB
followed up with a set of site-specific recommendations, sent to the Assistant Manager for
EM.
§
In FY 2003 ORSSAB
provided six recommendations and comments to DOE on various aspects of long-term
stewardship. The ORSSAB Stewardship Committee established an Education Subcommittee, which
prepared the Oak Ridge Reservation Educational Resource Guide. The guide was
written to introduce the concepts of radiological and chemical contamination, EM, and
stewardship to middle and high school students. The guide is the first part of a planned
series of educational efforts by ORSSAB. The guide is being provided to the community at
large through the ORSSAB web site, the DOE
Information Center, and various ORSSAB public
outreach events.
§
In July 2003, ORSSAB
launched its video lending library at the DOE
Information Center, providing the community
with a valuable educational resource regarding EM Program issues. The library contains
over 30 titles related to waste management, radiation, risk, environmental justice,
environmental laws and regulations, history, and EM.
§
On October 9, 2002,
the Board approved a change to ORSSAB Bylaws Article VII. C5. to allow
members of the public participating in ORSSAB standing committees to vote on
committee business.
FY 2002
§
ORSSAB endorsed a
DOE plan to reclassify outdoor-stored legacy low-level waste as CERCLA-generated
waste for the purpose of disposing this material at the Environmental Management
Waste Management Facility, located on the Oak Ridge Reservation. ORSSAB agreed with DOE
that this will result in the most expeditious disposal of the material and that it will
result in a considerable cost savings to the public.
§
ORSSAB made a formal
recommendation to endorse the accelerated closure proposal for the Oak Ridge Reservation,
which will save taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion in cleanup costs at the
Oak Ridge
site. Through its public outreach program, the board helped educate the community about
the proposal.
§
ORSSAB
sponsored a public meeting with Helen Belencan, Low-Level Waste and Mixed Low-Level Waste
Program Manager for the DOE-Headquarters Office of Integration and Disposition, to discuss
her analysis of DOE complex-wide incineration needs and the pending decision regarding the
planned closure of the Toxic Substances Control Act Incinerator. The meeting gave local
stakeholders a forum to express their views on incineration and led to an ORSSAB
recommendation to DOE regarding incinerator operations.
§
ORSSAB continued
working to increase ties with area students and educators through an aggressive outreach
program:
o
The SSAB seated two non-voting
student representatives on the board this year.
o
The SSAB made several
presentations about the board and the DOE cleanup program to various schools.
o
The board developed a teacher
resource kit to foster education about environmental cleanup.
o
The board worked with two high
school advance placement sciences classes to develop student friendly
summaries of long-term stewardship documents prepared by a local stakeholder organization
affiliated with the SSAB.
§
The Waste Management Committee
sponsored a public meeting to discuss the proposed closure of the Toxic Substances Control
Act Incinerator. Helen Belencan from DOE-HQ was the featured speaker.
Last Update: 2/7/08
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