The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to spend nearly $150 million in the current 2019 fiscal year on 20 separate nuclear cleanup projects under its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
That funding covers $120 million budgeted for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1 and an additional $30 million under the Army Corps’ FUSRAP work plan released last week. The Army branch had requested $120 million for the current budget year but received an additional $30 million from Congress.
Under FUSRAP, the Army Corps manages remediation of properties contaminated by weapons and civilian energy programs managed by the Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The fiscal 2019 funding covers cleanup programs in eight states: Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Not all the projects received additional funding under the work plan, but some secured significant plus-ups while two actually lost money. For example:
- The DuPont Chambers Works site in Deepwater, N.J., was budgeted at $15 million for ongoing remediation and removal and disposal of 15,000 cubic yards of contaminated material. The work plan adds $12 million, for $27 million in total spending, allowing for removal and disposal of an additional 4,000 cubic yards of contaminated material.
- The Luckey Site in Luckey, Ohio, was budgeted at $16 million for this fiscal year for soil remediation, removal and disposal of contaminated material, groundwater sampling, and other operations. It received another $7.2 million under the work plan for those activities, including task orders for remediation of roughly 16,800 cubic yards of contaminated soil.
- Conversely, the work plan removes $3 million from the $8 million budgeted for the Shallow Land Disposal Area near Pittsburgh, Pa. No explanation is given for the reduced funding, but the project has been slowed by protests against the 2017 cleanup contract award to a Jacobs Engineering subsidiary. As of September, Jacobs Field Services North America has been given the go-ahead to start work.
