Nuclear Waste

The Federal Facility Compliance Act requires the Energy Department (DOE) to (1) submit plans for treating mixed wastes, which contain radioactive and hazardous material, to host states or to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); (2) get approval of the treatment plans from the states or EPA; and (3) enter into legal orders requiring DOE to comply with the approved plans. If DOE fails to meet an October 1995 deadline, it will be subject to fines of up to $25,000 per day for each violation of restrictions against storing untreated mixed wastes. Because DOE is months away from developing draft and proposed site treatment plans, it is too early to tell if DOE, the states, and EPA will be able to resolve technical and policy issues, negotiate final site treatment plans, and sign compliance orders in time to meet the deadline. However, considering the amount of work that remains and the time available to finish it, if DOE either misses its milestones for preparing the draft and final site treatment plans or if the draft and plans do not adequately resolve mixed waste treatment, characterization, and disposal issues, the likelihood of missing the deadline increases.

GAO found that: (1) DOE has submitted to the states and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) preliminary site treatment plans that identify many mixed-waste treatment options and has started to evaluate the technical feasibility and cost of these options; (2) DOE does not expect to submit a proposed site treatment plan or specific treatment technologies and schedules to the states or EPA for their review and approval until February 1995; (3) DOE has not devoted adequate resources toward developing language for compliance orders under FFCA; (4) DOE has made limited progress in developing its capacity to treat mixed-waste streams at three of its largest sites; (5) DOE progress in treating mixed-waste streams has been hindered by the lack of information concerning the wastes' radioactive and hazardous properties and alternative treatment technologies and DOE policies to defer facility construction until federal and state consensus has been reached; (6) DOE, EPA, and the states will need to complete several tasks and resolve numerous technical and policy issues to meet the act's 1995 target date; and (7) it is unclear whether DOE, states, and EPA will be able to resolve waste treatment issues, negotiate final site treatment plans, and comply with the act by October 1995 because DOE has not developed sufficient site treatment plans.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: