The Energy Department has delayed publication of a draft record of decision (ROD) for a new 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by up to six months.
Energy Department Office of Environmental Management officials at Oak Ridge agreed in April, after consulting with state and federal regulators, to push back publication of the key document from June 17 to Dec. 15.
The draft ROD would formalize the Energy Department’s selected approach to building the landfill, committing the agency to protecting the environment and public health and safety.
The Energy Department agreed to the delay at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Tennessee, in hopes of first resolving a dispute over regulation of wastewater effluents containing radionuclides, according to an April 24 letter to the regulators from DOE Oak Ridge Federal Facility Agreement Project Manager Melyssa Noe.
“Every effort will be made to submit the ROD prior to the new milestone date, depending on the resolutions of the dispute,” Noe wrote. The document had once been expected in January 2018, but has already been delayed several times.
Oak Ridge Environmental Management field office management contends the EPA’s Atlanta-based Region 4 wants to impose tougher standards for management of runoff for the new landfill than what is enforced at other nuclear sites in the nation. The parties want to reach agreement on that issue prior to issuance of the draft ROD.
The new landfill, called the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, would replace the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, which is expected to reach capacity in the middle of this decade The current landfill holds debris from facilities demolished at the East Tennessee Technology Park, Oak Ridge’s former uranium enrichment complex, by the Amentum-led remediation contractor.
Like the existing landfill, the new disposal facility would be built in the Oak Ridge Site’s Bear Creek Valley. It would take low-level radioactive and mixed waste from cleanup at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The DOE’s preferred alternative for the new landfill was published in September 2018. Following publication of the draft ROD in December, the Energy Department would then issue its remedial design work plan in September 2021, followed issuance of the remedial design report/remedial action work plan in August 2022.
The Energy Department does not expect to have a good cost estimate on the landfill until the ROD is out.
