The Pike County, Ohio, Board of Commissioners says local residents should have a chance to review waste acceptance criteria for the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility being built at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site.
The Energy Department and cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT recently sent a draft of the Waste Acceptance Criteria Implementation Plan, which specifies the types of waste that can go into the facility, to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
The document does not appear to have been made available for public comment.
“Based on what we have experienced with DOE recently there is substantial reason to not only doubt DOE but to actively oppose any further action” until the waste criteria plan “is fully disclosed to the public and an open dialog for the public to question areas or topics of concern is made possible,” the county commissioners said in a public letter submitted Monday to the state agency.
The board would prefer all contaminated material located at Portsmouth be removed from Pike County. It said in the letter the level of radioactive and chemical contamination of waste that go into the facility should be revealed to the public.
The first few disposal cells are about ready at the $900 million facility, and disposal could start this fall. When all 12 cells are completed, the facility will have a disposal capacity of 2 million cubic yards.
The Energy Department has characterized the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility as the safest available option for handling construction debris from large structures such as the X-326 process building, which is scheduled to start coming down this fall.
Public meetings on the disposal facility are planned for this fall, an Energy Department spokesperson said by email Tuesday. The agency did not specify, however, if the public will have input on the waste criteria before disposal starts.
