Stakeholders have until 5 p.m. local time Monday to submit public comment on the Energy Department’s proposed new waste disposal facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
Officially called the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) is a proposed a 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill to replace the current one that has been taking waste since 2002 and is projected to fill up by the mid-2020s.
The existing landfill has taken in mostly dirt and debris from structures being torn down at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), previously called K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where uranium enrichment occurred from World War II until the 1980s. Completion of ETTP remediation is targeted for 2020. Public comments can be emailed to [email protected].
The new landfill is part of a busy period at Oak Ridge.
The Energy Department late Tuesday announced a new $92 million contract for an APTIM-North Wind joint venture to build a mercury treatment plant for the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge.
In addition, DOE currently expects to issue a draft request for proposals in the next couple months for a multiyear Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup contract valued at up to $6 billion. The Oak Ridge contract would be a successor of sorts to the existing $2.7 billion URS-CH2M Hill Oak Ridge (UCOR) contract for remediation of ETTP and related work, which runs through July 2020.
Chemical waste, low-level radioactive waste, and mixed low-level waste from Y-12 and the Oak Ridge Reservation cleanup would go into the new landfill. Like the old site, the new facility would be located in the Bear Creek Valley.
The Oak Ridger newspaper in Tennessee reported Tuesday that DOE officials briefed a concerned Oak Ridge City Council about the project. The landfill will need to be approved by DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the state.
