The Energy Department on Jan. 6 released a draft environmental impact statement for soil and groundwater cleanup and building demolition at the former rocket and atomic test site at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif.
The overdue draft — DOE once thought it would finish the site’s environmental impact process last year — examines a range of approaches to clean up contamination at Area IV and the Northern Buffer Zone of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, including the former Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC), DOE said in a press release.
“The alternatives analyzed in this draft environmental impact statement (EIS) involve the disposition of remaining DOE facilities and support buildings, remediation of soil and groundwater, and disposal of all resulting waste at existing licensed or permitted facilities in a manner that is protective of the environment and the health and safety of the public and workers,” according to the report. The draft EIS will help guide remediation efforts and provide information to decision-makers and the public about possible impacts from the project, DOE said.
Under a 2010 administrative order on consent with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, DOE must finish ETEC soil cleanup this year. The agency is also on the hook to complete and groundwater cleanup by June 30, 2017, under the terms of a separate 2007 consent order with California.
For more than five decades, Santa Susana hosted programs including rocket engine testing and atomic and alternative energy research. These operations left behind residual chemicals and radionuclides in Area IV soil, buildings, and groundwater, along with soil contamination in the Northern Buffer Zone, according to the draft EIS.
DOE owns 18 buildings at Santa Susana, but no land there. The agency splits cleanup responsibilities at the 2,850-acre site with NASA and Boeing.
The draft EIS offers remediation alternatives in three separate areas: soil remediation, groundwater remediation, and building demolition.
For soil remediation, the options are: no action; remediation to look-up table values in line with the 2010 consent order, with off-site disposal of roughly 933,000 cubic yards of soil; cleanup to revised look-up table values, in which about 192,000 cubic yards of soil would be removed; and conservation of natural resources, which would involve the lowest level of ground disturbance and off-site disposal of about 148,000 cubic yards of soil.
For building demolition, the options are: no action, leaving the 18 DOE buildings in place under safety surveillance and maintenance; or demolish the 18 buildings and ship the debris off-site for disposal or recycling.
For groundwater remediation, the options are: no action, with sustained monitoring; groundwater monitored natural attenuation, under which there would be no active cleanup of DOE plumes while certain constituents of the plumes would be expected to decrease naturally in a given period of time; and groundwater treatment, in which different approaches would be applied to treat contaminants in various plumes.
According to the draft EIS: “DOE proposes to remove existing DOE-owned facilities and support buildings from Area IV (Building Removal Alternative); remediate chemically and radiologically impacted soil in Area IV and the NBZ (Cleanup to AOC LUT Values Alternative); remediate groundwater in Area IV and the NBZ (elements of the Groundwater Monitored Natural Attenuation and Groundwater Treatment Alternatives); dispose of resulting waste; and restore the affected environment in accordance with applicable laws, orders, regulations, and agreements with the State of California.”
A mandatory 60-day public-comment period for the new draft environmental impact statement wraps up March 14, DOE said. Public hearings on the cleanup are slated for Feb. 18 in Simi Valley and Feb. 21 in Van Nuys. Comments will assist DOE in preparing the final EIS, after which the department will issue a record of decision laying the path for cleanup operations, the press release says.
