The Energy Department’s fiscal 2019 budget request includes $41 million for the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
That is up from the $39 million funding included in the final fiscal 2018 budget passed last week, according to the recently released DOE Office of Environmental Management budget justification package and the 2018 omnibus.
The department said it has accelerated the construction schedule to speed completion of the first three cells needed to take debris from the decommissioning and demolition of the 56-acre X-326 process building, which enriched uranium for use in the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
In total, the 10-cell disposal facility is meant to permanently hold 2 million cubic yards of waste resulting from tearing down old structures around the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant grounds. It will be comprised of three major components: infrastructure and support areas; the “waste placement proper” (including liners, covers, and leachate collection system); and the site-wide interim leachate treatment system.
Much of the design work has already been submitted to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for review, DOE said in the budget document. Portsmouth cleanup prime Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth is overseeing the work through subcontracting arrangements.
The nearby village of Piketon and some other local governing bodies have questioned if Portsmouth is suitable for the waste facility, particularly worried that fractures in bedrock under the disposal site could enable seepage of contaminated material into the groundwater.
The overall budget request for the Portsmouth Site is $415 million for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, roughly $33 million more than the fiscal 2017 enacted level.
The final Portsmouth funding level in the fiscal 2018 omnibus level ended up at $$448 million, which included an additional $30 million to compensate for the loss of “uranium barter” income during the fiscal year. Energy Secretary Rick Perry suspended uranium barter for fiscal 2018.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article included incomplete figures for the fiscal 2018 omnibus funding and fiscal 2019 budget request for the Portsmouth Site.
