Helen Hardin (center), senior policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, makes a point during a break-out session at the Department of Energy’s community workshop on environmental cleanup in Oak Ridge. Standing are Gerald Boyd of S.M. Stoller Corp. (also vice chair of ETEBA and former DOE manager) and Alan Stokes, the planning director for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management in Oak Ridge.
According to the current timetable, the U.S. Department of Energy is scheduled to complete its Oak Ridge cleanup goals around 2046. Achieving that, of course, will depend on the availability of funding, and that’s not always predictable. The target date for completion has been renegotiated with environmental regulators on previous occasions and pushed into the future. So it probably makes sense to regard the end date as tentative.
There is still a lot to be accomplished, and DOE’s Environmental Management team hosted a community workshop last week to talk about cleanup priorities, funding and possibly come up with some new partnerships for getting those tasks done. The workshop drew a diverse crowd, including city officials, members of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s oversight group, and plenty of cleanup contractors and would-be contractors. Continue reading →
The U.S. Department of Energy today released its recovery plan for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, saying it is committed to resuming operations in the first quarter of calendar year 2016. Operations have been suspended since a series of events, including an underground fire and a release of radioactive materials at the waste repository, in February.
