Nuclear Waste

Since 1989, the Energy Department (DOE) has received about $10 billion to clean up more than 10,000 waste sites nationwide that contain everything from highly radioactive waste to common industrial chemicals and solvents. So far, much of the money has gone to study waste sites and develop an approach for their remediation, rather than for actual cleanup. DOE has been criticized for its lack of progress in remediation at the same time as its appropriations for environmental restoration have declined. In some cases, DOE has successfully placed more emphasis on remediation and less on planning by using "removal actions," which shorten or eliminate some of the steps normally required before remediation can begin. Removal actions have been used for treating groundwater and surface water, excavating and disposing of contaminated soil, and leaving waste in place and covering it with a protective barrier. Removal actions have also been used at federal facilities to deal with emergencies, such as removing leaking barrels that threatened to contaminate the Columbia River. GAO concludes that more extensive use of removal actions would speed the planning process and allow DOE to devote more environmental restoration dollars to site remediation. GAO recognizes that not every waste site is appropriate for the abbreviated planning that takes place under removal actions; however, the successful use of removal actions at a variety of environmental restoration sites throughout the DOE complex suggests that additional opportunities exist to employ this cost- and time-saving approach.

GAO found that: (1) removal actions save money and time compared with other remediation planning approaches; (2) the use of removal actions may provide information that is useful for other types of remediation, reduce the cumulative risk to human health and the environment, and reduce the size of sites under DOE control; (3) the use of removal actions at DOE facilities varies; (4) the use of removal actions is limited because removal actions are not part of interagency agreements with regulators or DOE contractors; (5) some officials believe that removal actions are intended for emergency situations or for planning small remediation projects; (6) officials at some sites are concentrating on streamlining Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liabilities Act (CERCLA) and interim remedial planning approaches, but planning and evaluation will still take significantly longer under simpler CERCLA processes; and (7) limited planning may increase the risk that an incorrect remedy will be chosen.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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