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Executive Summary

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is home to one of the largest and most diverse U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complexes in the nation. The Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) was born of the Manhattan Project and nurtured by the Cold War, and its primary missions were to develop the materials and skills necessary to build the atomic bomb.

When they were first built, the three major facilities on the ORR--Y-12, K-25 and X-10--each had a distinct mission. Y-12 enriched uranium using an electromagnetic process, which was later abandoned in favor of the more efficient gaseous diffusion process used at K-25. Y-12's primary mission became precision machining of special nuclear materials for bomb manufacturing. X-10, later known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), undertook weapons research and development, especially in the purification of plutonium.

Now these facilities have new missions. In addition to its defense mission, Y-12 disassembles nuclear weapons and stores highly enriched uranium. It has also been designated the National Prototype Center in recognition of the unique expertise of its machinists.

K-25 has been renamed East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), and its goal is to complete the cleanup necessary for the property to develop into an industrial park. Surplus facilities at ETTP are being leased to private industry under a plan known as "reindustrialization." The K-25 Site also houses the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Incinerator, the nation's only facility permitted to incinerate radioactive waste with hazardous waste containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

ORNL conducts research and development in a wide variety of scientific fields; it is widely known for its contributions to neutron science and will host the Spallation Neutron Source, which is now under construction.

Activities on the ORR have not been without cost to the environment. For more than 50 years, radioactive waste, hazardous waste, and mixed waste (containing both radioactive and hazardous materials) have been buried, poured into ponds and streams, burned, and discharged into the air. The resulting contamination affects approximately 15 percent of the reservation's area and has migrated off-site via air, groundwater, and surface streams.

TENNESSEE OVERSIGHT AGREEMENT

The state of Tennessee, driven by concerns over pollution on the ORR and potential impacts on public health and the environment, signed an agreement with DOE in 1991 to address the problem. The Tennessee Oversight Agreement (TOA) obligates DOE to provide technical and financial support to the state for activities in four major areas:

• Environmental restoration,
• Environmental monitoring and oversight,
• Emergency response and preparation, and
• Public outreach.

A second legal document, the Federal Facility Agreement (FFA), was signed in 1992 and established a formal relationship between the state, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The FFA specifies objectives and timetables DOE must meet to ensure that cleanup associated with the ORR proceeds according to mutually agreed-upon plans.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) created the DOE Oversight Division (the Division) to implement the state's responsibilities under these two agreements. The division has five programs:

• Environmental Monitoring and Compliance,
• Environmental Restoration,
• Radiological Monitoring and Oversight,
• Waste Management, and
• Administration.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT

Environmental restoration on the ORR involves many difficult decisions. The state and the Division have long been proponents of community involvement in this process. Under the TOA, the state provides a grant to the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc. (LOC), to serve as an independent non-profit organization representing the interests of local and downstream communities. The LOC is a means for local governments to provide advice to DOE and the regulatory agencies. In place since 1991, the LOC added a Citizens' Advisory Panel in 1995 to enable interested citizens to study the issues in depth and make recommendations to the LOC Board.

The division also supports DOE's official advisory board, the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (ORSSAB), and holds a non-voting seat on ORSSAB. This board was created in 1995 and is chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Local governments also have environmental boards concerned with effects of DOE activities. The Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board and the Roane County Environmental Review Board routinely examine DOE's environmental decisions.

The widespread availability of electronic mail and the Internet have made near-instantaneous dissemination of complex information an everyday event. TDEC, the Division, EPA, DOE, stakeholder organizations, and other interested groups maintain Web sites and communicate via e-mail lists and listservers regarding environmental issues at the ORR.

MAJOR FINDINGS

It is the division's findings, based on its independent monitoring and oversight of DOE, that there are no immediate threats to public health from current activities on the ORR. However, the potential for harm does exist if surveillance or maintenance lapses occur and cleanups fail to progress, a real possibility should funding be significantly reduced. Hazardous materials such as uranium hexafluoride, highly enriched uranium, mercury, metallic lithium, and uranium-233 remain in storage. DOE must ensure that current operations maintain the integrity of controls on these materials. The on-site storage inventory of ORR legacy waste continues to grow, and off-site waste disposal issues have only recently been resolved by the opening of the Nevada Test Site to Oak Ridge waste. Progress is threatened by funding cuts and the need for costly waste characterization. In addition, DOE has yet to address most of the radioactive disposal sites on the ORR that remain from the poor waste disposal practices of the past. These sites, which act as sources for current soil, groundwater, and surface-water contamination, must be cleaned up or safely and permanently controlled.

DOE has many environmental issues with which to contend. The agency continues to release low levels of contaminants to the air and water from legacy sites that are being remediated under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). Storage, treatment, and disposal of solid and liquid low-level radioactive waste are self-regulated by DOE. DOE treats its hazardous waste, TSCA waste, mixed waste, water, air emissions, and solid waste under permits granted by the state of Tennessee and EPA. The division monitors all of these activities to ensure that DOE remains in compliance. Thus far, the division is satisfied that DOE's current operations typically meet the requirements of state and federal permits as well as DOE orders guiding self regulation, but they fall far short of the spirit of DOE orders requiring the proper management of radioactive waste. Although there is no immediate health risk to the public, there is the potential for contaminant release from wastes stored under improper conditions or from cleanup sites that have yet to be addressed.

Reindustrialization of ETTP is an avenue by which DOE has hoped to accelerate the cleanup of usable buildings and bring new jobs to Oak Ridge. The division supports these goals, but it is committed to ensuring that reindustrialization does not interfere with mandated progress on-site cleanup and does not pose a health hazard to private sector workers or the public as ETTP moves to a commercial site.

KEY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

Today's cooperative relationship between DOE, EPA, and the state of Tennessee evolved from a difficult situation in 1983. Massive quantities of mercury had been released for years from Y-12, and they were discovered to have polluted East Fork Poplar Creek, which runs through downtown Oak Ridge. State enforcement actions and federal court decisions forced a reluctant DOE to begin complying with federal and state laws and regulations.

The current partnership between these three entities is based on open communication, mutual respect for the different interests of each party, and the shared desire to accomplish site cleanups. This relationship includes periodic meetings at the senior management level between Oak Ridge Operations, EPA Region 4, and the division to resolve policy issues.

Progress has been made in the past few years. The Lower East Fork Poplar Creek floodplain has been cleaned up, numerous other sites have been closed, and other significant milestones have been achieved. DOE has reached an agreement with the state to provide a state-held trust fund for long-term care of the planned on-site Environmental Management Waste Management Facility. However, many challenges remain--predictably, these are the most difficult to address. They include the following:

• Ensuring perpetual funding to maintain waste disposal areas and other sites that cannot feasibly be cleaned up and, therefore, will always remain inaccessible to the general public;
• Addressing community anxieties over contamination from the Oak Ridge Reservation and health problems this contamination may have caused to workers and residents;
• Ensuring the federal government remains committed in the long term to providing adequate resources for cleanup on the ORR;
• Ensuring that reindustrialization at ETTP doesn't take precedence over the mandate to properly remediate the facility;
• Obtaining reasonable standards that allow contractors at ETTP to recycle tools and other materials from the site;
• Expanding and improving the division's efforts to monitor Oak Ridge's regional environment and assure residents of their safety;
• Obtaining adequate funding to dispose of waste stored on the ORR; and
• Obtaining fair and adequate funding for DOE's cleanup program in Oak Ridge.

Download the report in PDF format (1.5 MB).

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