City Bringing in Consultants to Evaluate DOE’s Proposed Landfill
WC Monitor
9/5/2014
The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn. has hired a team of consultants to assess the potential impacts of a new proposed nuclear landfill at the government’s Oak Ridge reservation and help the city decide whether it should accept and support the disposal facility. The Department of Energy wants to build the new facility, estimated to cost about $800 million, as a follow-on to the existing facility at the Oak Ridge site, which is rapidly running out of disposal space. Three members of the city’s consulting team—Karl Kalbacher, project manager and director of environment, economics and grant services for the Ferguson Group; Mark Rockel, principal consultant with ENVIRON International Corp.; and Jason Miller of ENVIRON—are supposed to be available for discussions of issues with local stakeholders on Sept. 8 and 9. “The team is preparing a Community Impact Assessment that evaluates long-term, community impacts associated with the proposed EMDF (Environmental Management Disposal Facility),” the city stated.
The new landfill would be used for disposal of waste generated by CERCLA cleanup projects on the DOE reservation in Oak Ridge. Although the on-site facility is projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, it is reportedly much cheaper than the option of shipping the radiological and hazardous wastes to off-site facilities. The new landfill would be known as the Environmental Management Disposal Facility and it would replace the existing facility, which is called the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility. The consultants’ assessment study is to be done by January 2015, the city said.
The impact evaluation will include a technical review of existing studies of environmental impacts; a cost analysis using factors not included in DOE’s earlier feasibility study; and an assessment of factors to help the city determine whether the community should accept the radioactive-waste landfill. City spokeswoman Candice Brogan said the evaluation is being funded by a grant from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation under TDEC’s oversight agreement with the Department of Energy. “The [oversight agreement] requires the state to assist local governments with a better understanding of operations at the Oak Ridge Reservation and their impacts,” Brogan said via email. The contractor was selected under a competitive bid process after the city issued a request for proposals in May 2014, she said.
