The Energy Department and contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth expect soil excavation and installation of necessary infrastructure for a planned on-site radioactive waste disposal cell at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio should be completed in fiscal 2019.
Recent progress includes setting up trailers for work crews, installing security fencing along the perimeter of the site, including sedimentation basins, a DOE spokesperson said in a recent email. The project remains on schedule for attaining operational status late in the 2020 calendar year with the first emplacement of waste in fiscal 2021, according to DOE.
The $900 million cell is meant to handle 2 million cubic yards of waste resulting from tearing down structures at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site. Waste resulting from the demolition of the X-326 process building at the former uranium enrichment facility would be first to go into the disposal cell, according to current plans, the DOE spokesperson said.
The Energy Department has said the cell allows it to excavate and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site
The Energy Department issued its final Record of Decision (ROD) for the cell, in June 2015 with concurrence of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
The Village of Piketon, Ohio and other local governments near the DOE site, however, claim their environmental and safety concerns were not properly considered in the ROD. Local resolutions have been passed opposing the cell and asking the ROD process to be reopened.
But in a vote taken May 10, the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board (SSAB) declined to recommend that DOE and the Ohio EPA reopen the ROD process.
Local opponents of the cell, such as Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer, note the Ohio EPA has yet to approve the final design for the facility.
Piketon has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Energy Department to discover how much DOE and the contractor spent on the disposal facility project before the ROD was issued. The village has sought copies of work performance reports filed by FBP for certain months in 2015, 2016, and 2017, Spencer said in July 9 letter to Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White.
“DOE put taxpayer dollars at risk to perform work in hopes that an onsite disposal [cell] would be chosen as the waste disposal remedy,” Spencer said in the letter. The local mayor goes on to say “these dollars were spent before the decision was made.”
Southern Ohio Development Group Happy to Get Land from Portsmouth
After years of preparation, the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) formally becomes the owner of an 80-acre tract of land being conveyed to it by the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site today.
“We are thrilled to get this property … and eventually bring jobs to Southern Ohio,” SODI Executive Director Steve Shepherd said by telephone Wednesday. The development group was created by DOE in 1995 as a community reuse organization (CRO) for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site.
Shepherd and EM-1 White signed the final paperwork Friday morning. The transfer culminates a review process where the Ohio EPA had to verify there were no uranium issues on the site. The process already has support from Energy Secretary Rick Perry. A 60-day congressional review ended last month.
There was no radioactive work done on the 80-acre site, which is located outside the restricted access fence at Portsmouth, Shepherd said. It was used as an airstrip by Goodyear, the company originally in charge of the site for the federal government, during the 1950s and 1960s.
There have already been inquires made about using the site and Shepherd anticipates even more interest in 2019, when DOE is expected to transfer a second, larger, site to SODI. The development organization expects to receive a 220-acre tract, located adjacent to the one now being transferred, next year, the executive director said.
Eventually SODI will have about 300 acres transferred. The property is equipped with excellent electric transmission and water utilities, making it attractive to industry, Shepherd said.
