Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to rule in August on a dispute over waste discharge standards at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
Mary Walker, administrator for EPA Region 4, said in March the new on-site waste landfill planned at Oak Ridge lacks adequate protections against discharges of contaminated wastewater into Bear Creek. The Energy Department’s approach seems based in part on “dilution,” rather than the Clean Water Act’s technology-based standard, she said.
In April, the manager of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management operations at Oak Ridge asked Wheeler to overrule Atlanta-based Region 4. The EPA regional office, Jay Mullis said, was trying to implement much tougher standards than those established at either government or commercial facilities elsewhere in the country.
State and Energy Department officials expect a ruling in the next few weeks.
The dispute over an EPA “focused feasibility study” on water management and waste disposal standards across the 35,000-acre Oak Ridge Reservation dates to 2016.
The EPA regional office, the state, and the city of Oak Ridge, say it’s important to address the runoff issue before DOE begins building the new landfill at Oak Ridge because any changes could affect the new facility. The new facility, like the old one, will be located in the Bear Creek Valley.
The Energy Department plans on Aug. 2 to issue a draft record of decision for a new 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill planned for the nuclear site, although the city of Oak Ridge wants a public meeting on the matter before the document is released.
Oak Ridge became a Superfund site in 1989 and the DOE cleanup office does not dispute the EPA’s power to make regulatory decisions for the site under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Mullis said. But EPA Region 4 is undoing longstanding Atomic Energy Act procedure on managing radionuclides by DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he has said in letters to the environmental agency.
