Staff Reports
WC Monitor
10/9/2015
A report on risk-based management of Department of Energy defense cleanup sites fails to recognize the role of local communities in defining risk and their critical place in making decisions on remediation, according to the Energy Communities Alliance. The organization, which represents communities near DOE cleanup sites across the nation, outlined its concerns about the report of the Omnibus Risk Review Committee in a letter sent late last month to the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittees. The report, “A Review of the Use of Risk-Informed Management in the Cleanup Program for Former Defense Nuclear Sites,” was required by the fiscal 2015 omnibus appropriations bill. The authors of the report failed to speak with local government officials, communities, and citizens in the 100 interviews conducted for the report, the ECA said. The ECA is the latest to criticize the report, with Oregon and Washington state officials previously sending letters to the subcommittee leaders. Authors of the report have declined to comment until Congress is briefed.
Local communities are most impacted by DOE’s environmental cleanup decisions and its definition of “risk” to human health and the environment, the ECA said. “These decisions and processes are not academic exercises in our communities,” according to its letter. “Unfortunately, the report’s recommendations do not address the role of communities in defining risk and instead marginalize locally elected government officials and communities affected by DOE.” Risk assessments should be a collaborative process in which parties define acceptable cleanup, ECA said. The report ignores the Federal Facilities Compliance Act, which requires DOE to work with state and local governments to define risk and select a method for cleanup, ECA said.
Congress and DOE should “reject any recommendations from the report undermining states’ rights to hold DOE accountable in the cleanup process and the local government role in remedy decision-making,” the ECA said. The report proposed that Congress create a standing task force led by federal officials to help DOE promote consistency in addressing risk across sites. The task force would weigh in on setting priorities for these projects, choosing cleanup approaches, allocating money, or making other decisions that impact cost effectiveness and risk-based decision-making. The report further proposed that Congress pass legislation to remove the option of court-enforced consent decrees such as the DOE-Washington state decree, and that disputes be settled by a panel of independent experts, whose decisions would be binding, to provide a national perspective on cleanup decisions.
The ECA also addressed the report’s comments that inconsistencies in land use decisions were driving up cleanup costs. In DOE’s cleanup successes, including Rocky Flats in Colorado and Mound in Ohio, future use of the site and its cleanup levels have been collectively negotiated by local governments, states, and other stakeholders, the ECA said. It pointed out that the determination to use Rocky Flats as a wildlife refuge would not have worked for Mound, where reindustrialization was the community choice. “If a local government sets land use, the law requires that it be included in remedy selection,” it said.
The ECA did agree with some recommendations in the report, including redefinition of high-level radioactive waste. Now the definition is based on the waste’s origins rather than the hazard it poses. Reclassification of waste based on hazard would create possibilities for waste disposal other than at a deep geologic repository, the ECA said. It also concurred that DOE site managers be given more flexibility to make budget requests for priority problems, and it agreed on the need for addressing aging infrastructure at sites.
Hanford Communities, a coalition of local governments near the Hanford Site in Washington state, also sent a letter last month to the subcommittee leaders. “We are offended by a wholesale effort to homogenize the cleanup approach at very different EM (Environmental Management) sites across the country,” Hanford Communities said. In addition, it discussed the need for continuity of cleanup actions after the report questioned why Hanford received a significant portion of the DOE EM budget every year. Hanford remediation is hazardous and requires a workforce with “unique scientific and technical training and a focus on safety culture,” Hanford Communities said. If a trained worker is laid off due to a fluctuating budget “all of their training departs with them. The next hire could be in training for months before even getting into the field,” it said.
