Final cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina should occur by fiscal 2065, an agency representative told the Citizens Advisory Board for the 310-square mile Tuesday.
The 2065 timeline for final remediation, which matches the date listed in the fiscal 2025 budget justification for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, differs from the 2037 projected for the environmental prime to finish liquid waste work at Savannah River, said DOE’s Karen Morrow.
Morrow was responding to a question from advisory board member Phyllis Britt.
The 2065 date is for “holistic” cleanup, said Morrow, who works with DOE’s infrastructure and area completion unit at Savannah River. This includes not just closing all of the property’s 51 radioactive waste tanks but also things like soil and water remediation, she added.
Mike Budney, who heads DOE’s Environmental Management office at Savannah River, said that once a radioactive waste tank farm is closed, it will “still look like a tank farm,” and the agency must decide what to do with it. That’s the sort of final decommissioning issue that will be addressed over the years, he added.
During the advisory board meeting, DOE representatives said transfer of landlord responsibilities Oct. 1 to the National Nuclear Security Administration from Environmental Management will have no impact on remediation timelines.
The two-day session started Monday.
