Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
6/12/2015
The Department of Energy should implement external reviews to help resolve disputes with regulators at the Paducah site to avoid delays and cost increases for cleanup work, according to a DOE Office of Inspector General report released this week. Numerous issues have delayed completion of the C-400 groundwater cleanup project, as well as held back finalizing plans for remediation of Paducah’s burial grounds. Factors include technical challenges coupled with funding cuts, but disputes with regulators have also caused delays. “Without meaningful progress in resolving disagreements between the Department and its regulators, additional delays are likely to occur,” the IG report states. “And, additional delays lead directly to the spiraling cost of completing remediation activities at the Paducah Site.”
DOE has entered into dispute resolution numerous times with its Paducah regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection, as it renegotiates cleanup milestones and sets cleanup plans. The IG recommends implementing independent external peer reviews to aid in the process, which mirrors a 2004 recommendation by the Government Accountability Office that the IG says has not been fully implemented at Paducah. “Even though these disputes have caused significant delays to cleanup projects at the Site, the Department has not taken effective action to engage an independent entity to help resolve disagreements for disputes involving technical cleanup concerns,” the IG said.
Groundwater Project Delayed Two Years
As an example, the C-400 groundwater cleanup project has been delayed over two years and is undergoing a second $4.6 million treatability study, in part due to disagreements with the regulators over treatment technology, the IG noted. “Had an independent external peer review been performed that was able to reconcile the differences over the most effective cleanup remedy for the project, the Department may have been able to avoid spending these additional funds,” the report states. “Further, the most recent life cycle cost estimate for environmental remediation activities at the Paducah Site has increased from $3.3 billion to $4.6 billion. This amount remains in question as long as decisions on cleanup remedies have not been finalized.”
Process Allows For Lengthy Delays
The IG also found that the dispute resolution process allows for potential lengthy delays. The Federal Facility Agreement between DOE’s Paducah site and its regulators “states that an informal dispute shall be limited to 30 days, it also allows for automatic extensions of 15 days if requested by any of the parties, thus allowing the dispute to extend for many months,” according to the IG, which found that the resolution of a dispute on the burial grounds was extended for four additional months. “A more streamlined dispute resolution process may have resulted in a more timely resolution of the Burial Grounds dispute,” the report states.
The IG recommended that DOE “identify an agreed-upon organization(s) or group(s) external to the Department and its regulators that can perform an evaluation of the remedies at the Site and provide recommendations to resolve those that are in dispute.” It also asks DOE to evaluate the dispute resolution process in the FFA to “determine if the process can be shortened.”
DOE Notes Role of Regulators in Issue
DOE agreed to take action on the IG’s two recommendations in a March 13 management response to a draft of the report, but said it “remains concerned about some of the information in the report,” noting that the regulators must also back any change. The Department “is extremely supportive of the idea of third-party assistance in resolving disagreements, such as through the use of independent technical review groups,” the response states. “Please note, the regulators were unsupportive of DOE’s recent offer to engage an independent group to address issues currently under dispute because they could not abdicate their authority.”
EPA Points Finger at DOE Document Quality
Meanwhile, the EPA said in an “unsolicited” response that it “believes that the inter-agency agreement, especially with respect to disputes, does not need to be modified.” The EPA instead pointed the finger at DOE, using as an example the months-long dispute resolution process for the burial grounds. “The time delays are a function of the DOE document quality, as reflected in the number of comments (over 100), from the EPA and Kentucky. The delays are exacerbated by the time that the DOE and its contractor have taken to respond to regulator comments, as well as the number of meetings needed to reach a mutually acceptable resolution,” the EPA said in a May 12 response.
