The importance of stakeholder involvement in a successful waste management program

The Fernald Environmental Management Project has been transporting legacy low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site for disposal since 1985. Additionally, several records of decision have been issued regarding Fernald Environmental Management Project remediation waste disposal on-site, at the Nevada Test Site, or at a permitted commercial disposal facility. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, as amended, once of the criteria that must be evaluated prior to issuance of a record of decision is public acceptance. The Fernald Environmental Management Project has made a concerted effort to gain stakeholder support both locally and in Nevada for these records of decision. The Fernald Environmental Management Project`s approach towards stakeholder interaction can provide a valuable framework for other sites that need to dispose of operations or remediation waste at remote, off-site locations. This approach has also been invaluable in allowing the public to understand the actual effects of waste management incidents

Integrating removal actions and remedial actions: Soil and debris management at the Fernald Environmental Management Project

Since 1991, excess soil and debris generated at the Fernald Environmental management Project (FEMP) have been managed in accordance with the principles contained in a programmatic Removal Action (RvA) Work Plan (WP). This plan provides a sitewide management concept and implementation strategy for improved storage and management of excess soil and debris over the period required to design and construct improved storage facilities. These management principles, however, are no longer consistent with the directions in approved and draft Records of Decision (RODs) and anticipated in draft RODs other decision documents. A new approach has been taken to foster improved management techniques for soil and debris that can be readily incorporated into remedial design/remedial action plans. Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) process. This paper describes the methods that were applied to address the issues associated with keeping the components of the new work plan field implementable and flexible; this is especially important as remedial design is either in its initial stages or has not been started and final remediation options could not be precluded

Approved CAMU equals faster, better, cheaper remediation at the Fernald Environmental Management Project

A 1,050 acre Corrective Action Management Unit (CAMU) was approved for the Fernald Protection Agency Environmental Management Project (FEMP) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to manage environmental media remediation waste in the Operable Unit 5 Record of Decision, 1995. Debris is also proposed for management as remediation waste under the CAMU Rule in the Operable Unit 3 Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) Report, as of December 1995. Application of the CAMU Rule at the FEMP will allow consolidation of low-level mixed waste and hazardous waste that presents minimal threat from these two operable units in an on-property engineered disposal facility without triggering land disposal restrictions (LDRs). The waste acceptance criteria for the on property disposal facility are based on a combination of site-specific risk-based concentration standards, as opposed to non-site-specific requirements imposed by regulatory classifications

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ABSTRACT This paper provides a summary of the planning, execution, and lessons learned from the first ever shipment of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Nevada Test Site (NTS) via intermodal shipping methods. On September 17, 2003, the DOE Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) at Piketon, Ohio became the first DOE site to complete a shipment of LLW to the NTS using a combined rail/truck shipping method. The shipment demonstrated the viability of the shipping method, the overall cost effectiveness and also provided early lessons that will help other DOE sites to quickly take advantage of the intermodal shipping opportunity. SITE BACKGROUND The 3,700-acre DOE PORTS facility is located in southern Ohio near Piketon, Ohio, approximately 22 miles north of Portsmouth, Ohio. The PORTS was constructed in the early 1950s to provide increased uranium enrichment capacity for national defense programs. The enrichment operations were designed to provide the higher end of U.S. government uranium enrichment capabilities, with typical product enrichments of between 4 and 5 percent for commercial uses and higher enrichments for U.S. Navy propulsion reactors. The primary structures at PORTS are three massive gaseous diffusion plant buildings containing a total of about 1,700 separation stages. The site also includes a more recent vintage gas centrifuge enrichment facility constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s in which limited testing of gas centrifuge equipment occurred, but abandoned for potentially more economic processes prior to completion of construction. In the late 1980s, PORTS became subject to a site cleanup decree under the State of Ohio Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action Program. Since that time, the site has completed environmental investigations and formal decision-making with the State of Ohio, instituted cleanup activities at most release sites, and initiated disposition of legacy wastes. Uranium enrichment activities are currently shutdown, and the plant is being maintained in cold standby. The primary mission of the DOE and its management and integration contractor, Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC (BJC), is remediation of the contaminated land and groundwater and disposition of legacy wastes, including both LLW, and mixed (both under the RCRA and the Toxic Substances and Control Act) low-level radioactive waste. A next generation gas centrifuge enrichment process will be installed and tested at PORTS over the next several years. A decision on decontamination and dismantlement of the old gaseous diffusion plant facilities has not yet been made