Following a Friday meeting with stakeholders, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said the U.S. Energy Department has committed to remediation of existing landfills and plumes at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio.
Concerns over the areas in the vicinity of Perimeter Road have been one of the issues cited by officials in the village of Piketon, Ohio, in connection with proposed construction of an on-site disposal cell at Portsmouth. Piketon and other communities have questioned Ohio’s vetting of the DOE plan to build an on-site disposal cell to hold 2 million cubic yards of Portsmouth decontamination and decommissioning waste. The lack of certainty on landfill excavation has been raised in opposition to the cell.
“This commitment is now legally enforceable, makes the site safer and will allow the entire site to be redeveloped to benefit the community,” Portman said in a Friday news release.
In addition to officials from federal and state agencies, Portman said he met Friday with representatives from the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative and the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board, along with Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio).
Portman also released a letter, dated Feb. 23, from James Owendoff, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, which sought to clarify the department’s position on excavation of the sites within Perimeter Road.
In the letter, Owendoff told Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler DOE was removing two conditions originally included in a remedial design and action plan for the proposed on-site disposal cell. Among other things, DOE had previously said it could modify the scope of the work based on project planning.
“With these changes, it is my belief that DOE is making the commitment you seek to excavate and consolidate the plumes and landfills within Perimeter Road as needed to meet the backfill requirements for the disposal facility in a manner that is enforceable by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.”
But a staffer at a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm who has worked with Piketon officials in researching the disposal cell proposal, is still skeptical. “This sentence does not compel DOE to remediate all the landfills within the Perimeter Road,” Karl Kalbacher, director of environment, economics and grant services at the Ferguson Group, said in a Monday email.
There are five groundwater contamination plumes totaling 160 acres within Perimeter Road, Kalbacher said, as well as 13 legacy landfills taking up more than 100 acres. The Ferguson Group official said DOE’s position is still short of an airtight commitment to cleaning up the plume and landfill areas around the road.
