E

DOE Sites Visited by the Committee

The committee visited five Department of Energy (DOE) sites during the study. This appendix provides a brief description of these sites, including their roles during the Manhattan Project and Cold War and major cleanup activities since 1989, when DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) was established. Information in this appendix was obtained primarily from the following two sources: NRC (2010) and the DOE fiscal year (FY) 2019 congressional budget request (DOE, 2018).

HANFORD SITE

The Hanford Site consists of 1,500 square kilometers in southeastern Washington adjacent to the Columbia River. It was established in 1943 to produce plutonium and perform research on plutonium production. Its mission ended in 1987. Most of the activities at the site occurred in three distinct industrial zones, referred to as “areas”: fuel fabrication took place in the 300 Area; fuel irradiation in the 100 Area; and chemical processing of the irradiated fuel in the 200 Area (also referred to as the “Central Plateau”). The 1989 Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, or Tri-Party Agreement, among DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Washington State Department of Ecology provides the regulatory framework for cleanup activities at Hanford.

Two offices manage the cleanup activities at Hanford: The Office of River Protection (ORP) manages the treatment of radioactive liquid waste in underground storage tanks. ORP also manages the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant project that aims to immobilize Hanford’s tank

wastes for both onsite and offsite disposal. The Richland Operations Office (RL) manages all remaining cleanup activities at Hanford, including soil and groundwater remediation, facility decontamination and demolition, stabilization and disposition of nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel, and disposition of wastes other than the tank wastes.

IDAHO SITE

The Idaho Site consists of 2,300 square kilometers in the desert of eastern Idaho, along the western edge of the upper Snake River Plain. It was established in 1949. Its mission was to design and test nuclear reactors and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, primarily from research, test, and naval reactors, to recover fissile materials. Its current mission is to conduct research and testing of new nuclear reactor concepts under DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The site has distinct geographic areas: the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC), the Materials and Fuels Complex, the Central Facilities Area, the Advanced Reactor Technology Complex (RTC), the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC), and Test Area North (TAN). The 1995 Settlement Agreement among the State of Idaho, DOE, and the U.S. Navy provides the regulatory framework for cleanup activities at Idaho.

The site’s cleanup mission is carried out under the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP). ICP has several objectives, including the treatment of sodium-bearing waste currently stored in underground tanks at INTEC, removing targeted waste from subsurface disposal in the RWMC, transferring transuranic waste out of Idaho, removing DOE’s inventory of spent nuclear fuel and calcine waste from Idaho, and demolishing inactive facilities.

OAK RIDGE RESERVATION

The Oak Ridge Reservation consists of 225 square kilometers west of Knoxville, Tennessee. The reservation was established in the early 1940s and has three industrial areas: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is an active federal research facility that was originally constructed as a research and development facility to support plutonium production technology. The Y-12 National Nuclear Security Site (Y-12) is an active federal manufacturing and storage facility that was built to produce highly enriched uranium by electromagnetic separation and is now used to store the nation’s supply of enriched uranium and manufacture parts for nuclear weapons. The site now referred to as the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) hosted five plants for enriching uranium using the gaseous diffusion process. All of those plants have been demolished and the site is now a private industrial park. The 1992 Federal Facility Agreement for the Oak Ridge Reservation among

DOE, EPA, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation provides the regulatory framework for cleanup activities at Oak Ridge.

The site’s cleanup mission includes operation of the onsite disposal facility and other waste management facilities, processing of legacy transuranic waste debris at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center, as well as demolition of remaining DOE-EM facilities at East Tennessee Technology Park, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex. The mission may be expanded in the future to include excess facilities identified by ORNL and Y-12. The site awarded a contract and is at early stages of constructing the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility for mercury remediation at Y-12.

PORTSMOUTH

The Portsmouth Site consists of 15 square kilometers at Piketon, Ohio. It was established in 1956 with the mission to produce enriched uranium to support the nation’s nuclear weapons program and the U.S. Navy, and later (in the 1960s) to enrich uranium for use by commercial nuclear reactors. Uranium enrichment operations ceased in 2001. A 1989 U.S. District Court Consent Decree establishes the Ohio EPA as the oversight body for the site’s cleanup.

Cleanup activities at Portsmouth primarily involve D&D of inactive facilities.

SAVANNAH RIVER

The Savannah River Site (SRS) consists of 800 square kilometers near Aiken, South Carolina. The site was established in 1950 to produce special radioactive isotopes for use in the production of nuclear weapons, primarily plutonium and tritium. The site contains five production reactors (none are active today; two are used for storing nuclear materials), two chemical separation plants (one, the H Canyon, is still active), and fuel fabrication facilities. Additionally, a heavy-water extraction plant was built to supply heavy water for SRS reactor operations. SRS remains an active DOE research site with research and development activities conducted at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and other laboratories onsite. SRNL was recognized as DOE-EM’s corporate laboratory in 2006. The 1993 Federal Facility Agreement among DOE, EPA, and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control provides the regulatory framework for cleanup activities at Savannah River.

Cleanup activities at SRS are carried out under the Liquid Waste Program. This program manages the tank farms, operates the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) for vitrification of high-level waste stored in

underground tanks at the site, and operates the Saltstone Production and Disposal Facility for the disposal of low-activity radioactive waste. The program will also be responsible for managing the Salt Waste Processing Facility which is currently under development. This facility is designed to separate cesium, strontium, and actinides from liquid tank wastes for immobilization in the DWPF and reduce the activity of waste destined for disposal in the saltstone facility.