The State of the Oak Ridge Environment
Exerpt from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, DOE Oversight Division, Status Report to the Public for Fiscal Year 2007:
DOE has continued to make good progress under The Accelerated Cleanup Plan begun in 2002. At East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP, the former K-25 site) decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the three youngest gaseous diffusion buildings has been essentially completed. At ORNL, DOE has completed capping of the radioactive waste burial grounds in Melton Valley. All of the uranium hexafluoride cylinders at ETTP have been either shipped to the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio or otherwise appropriately disposed of. And the backlog of low-level legacy waste has been worked down so that only "orphan" wastes remain, awaiting a disposal pathway.
DOE still faces difficult decisions regarding cleanup of groundwater and D&D of deteriorating facilities at ORNL and Y-12. Newly generated low-level radioactive waste has begun to accumulate at operating facilities instead of being disposed of in a timely manner. A major challenge will be obtaining the resources necessary to continue the cleanup work.
Cleanup of the ORR will leave the reservation much less hazardous to people and the environment; nevertheless, continued maintenance, monitoring, and institutional controls—effective "stewardship"—will be required even after cleanup activities are completed.
Download the entire report.
Download previous-year reports: