Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) this week called for nearly tripling the Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 funding proposal for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
The $250 million plus-up advocated by Schumer would bring funding to $400 million for the nuclear cleanup program, compared to $150 million in the current federal budget year and the latest $141 million request from the White House.
Additional money is necessary to ensure the FUSRAP Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, N.Y., gets the money it needs to expedite remediation, according to a Monday press release from Schumer’s office.
“While the Army Corps did commit to remediating the Niagara Falls Storage Site all the way back in 2015, the project has been stunted by bureaucratic red tape and a lack of funding, pushing its potential start date back by as many as ten years,” Schumer said in the release. “It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to know that allowing nuclear materials from World War II to sit merely ten feet below the surface for 30 years is a terrible idea.”
A senior Army Corps official on Thursday largely concurred that, at current FUSRAP funding levels, it could take a decade to start work at the Niagara Falls site. “That’s probably in the ballpark,” Stephen Buechi, environmental project management team leader for the USACE Buffalo District, told RadWaste Monitor.
FUSRAP, established in 1974, identifies and remediates sites throughout the United States that were contaminated from the 1940s to 1960s by nuclear weapons and energy programs managed by the Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission.
The 191-acre Niagara Falls Storage Site contains radioactive waste and residues left by uranium ore processing in the region during the Manhattan Project. The material is now held within a 10-acre engineered interim waste containment structure (IWCS). Within three subunits, the IWCS holds over 263,000 cubic yards of material, including contaminated soil and demolition debris.
In March, the Army Corps announced a record of decision for an estimated $490.6 million program of excavation, partial treatment, and off-site disposal of the waste from the containment structure. The project could take eight to 10 years, Schumer said. Army Corps officials said Thursday they would need $50 million to $60 million annually to carry out the work.
The broader Niagara Falls Storage Site project would also cover cleanup of the remainder of the property – known as the balance of plant – and three vicinity properties, along with potential groundwater contamination, according to the Army Corps.
The site is currently funded at $4 million, used for upkeep of the containment structure and ongoing feasibility studies for remediation of the balance of the plant and groundwater, said Jeff Rowley, NFSS project manager. The funding proposal for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 would provide about $3.5 million, to be used for the same activities. Eventually, a record of decision will be issued laying out the approach for balance of plant and groundwater cleanup.
There are currently 23 FUSRAP sites around the nation, with 12 in active remediation, Buechi said. At current program funding levels, some number of those would have to be completed before corresponding work at Niagara Falls could begin, an Army Corps spokesman said Wednesday.
Funding levels at the FUSRAP properties are established by priority, as determined by Army Corps headquarters and its regional districts, Buechi said. That means it is not possible now to say how many sites are ahead in line of Niagara Falls, or how much money it might get if Schumer’s proposed funding spike gets the OK from Congress.
Even when the money comes in, project design and infrastructure work would be necessary before the actual waste removal begins, Buechi cautioned. The Army Corps must also be confident it will have future years funding: “Once we crack open that cap we’ve got to keep going and continue the work,” Rowley said.
In the press release, Schumer called on the Army Corps to expedite the Niagara Falls project and for his colleagues on Capitol Hill to provide the full $400 million for FUSRAP in the upcoming fiscal 2020. Representatives for the senator this week did not respond to queries regarding his strategy for securing that funding.
In the absence of a budget resolution, the House and Senate Appropriations committees have not yet released any funding bills for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Spending proposals for FUSRAP would start with the committees’ respective energy and water development subcommittees.
The chairs of the House and Senate panels, respectively Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), did not comment by deadline Friday on Schumer’s request.
Schumer’s press release made no mention of the Trump administration’s proposal to shift FUSRAP from the Army Corps to the Department of Energy, which managed the program for more than two decades after its inception. If Congress approves that plan, the Army Corps would continue to manage the on-site operations, with reimbursement from the Energy Department.
