The U.S. Energy Department’s Fernald Preserve in Ohio, a former Superfund site, has been honored for reuse by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“The Fernald site has come full circle with restoration, creating one of the largest man-made wetlands in Ohio,” said DOE’s Office of Legacy Management Deputy Manager Peter O’Konski, during a November acceptance ceremony for the National Federal Facility Excellence in Site Reuse Award.
The onetime uranium production complex 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati is now home to 385 acres of grasslands, 7 miles of trails, and more than 250 bird species plus other wildlife ranging from beavers to bobcats, O’Konski said
From 1951 to 1989, the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center produced uranium metals for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Those operations left soil and groundwater at the property contaminated by uranium, radium, and other radioactive materials. It became an EPA Superfund site and cleanup was carried out under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) between 1996 and 2006.
The work included tearing down buildings, removing contaminated soil, carrying out an aquifer restoration plan, and building an on-site waste disposal facility. Afterward, the property was transferred from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management to the Office of Legacy Management, which provides environmental surveillance and monitoring at the site.
