Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/30/2015
The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released this week. It notes DOE has not yet developed a “definitive transfer schedule” for 234 contaminated excess facilities, as well as an additional 140 excess facilities identified more recently. “Delays in the cleanup and disposition of contaminated excess facilities expose the Department, its employees and the public to ever-increasing levels of risk,” the report states. “While surveillance and maintenance is intended to control these risks, delays in decommissioning and demolition also lead to escalating disposition costs.”
The IG found deteriorating conditions, including floods and increasing soil and groundwater contamination, at many of the former radiological facilities currently the responsibility of the National Nuclear Security Administration. That includes buildings that had been addressed during recent Recovery Act efforts. For example, at Oak Ridge’s Alpha 5 facility at Y-12, roof degradation has led to “significant water intrusion and the spread of radiological and toxicological contamination,” the report states. “Additionally, the assessment identified the potential for an explosion or reaction associated with remaining contaminants and personnel safety issues related to the degraded condition as high-risk areas.”
IG: Comprehensive Approach Would Help Focus Limited Budget to Highest Risk Facilities
DOE has largely said that the delays are due to its limited budget, but the IG noted that DOE has not developed a “corporate approach” for cleaning up the excess facilities. “Such an approach would assist the Department in addressing high-risk facilities within the vagaries of the annual budget process,” the report states. It adds: “The Department had not implemented a strategic, integrated approach that focused its limited Environmental Management cleanup and mission program budgetary resources on reducing the risk posed by contaminated excess facilities across the complex. Rather, Environmental Management and the various program offices focused their respective budgetary resources based on individual program priorities instead of on the highest risk facilities across the Department.”
Report Recommends DOE Develop Analysis of Excess Facilities
The IG recommended DOE “develop an analysis and report providing critical information on contaminated Department excess facilities that would be useful to policy makers for decisions regarding the path forward for addressing these facilities,” the report states. “Based on this analysis, reconsider the current approach for disposition of these facilities to ensure the effective expenditure of limited budgetary resources and mitigation of risk to the extent practical.”
DOE has since committed to form a team by this month to undertake the analysis. “The analysis will leverage teams and processes from two recent reviews: the National Laboratory Operations Board assessment of the active general purpose infrastructure at the National Laboratories and plants and NNSA’s most recent annual review of its high-risk excess facilities,” DOE Deputy Under Secretary for Management and Performance David Klaus said in a Dec. 19 response to the IG. “The Department, through the National Laboratory Operations Board, will charter a working group by January 2015; the working group will establish deadlines for the analysis and the completion of the report.”
