Nuclear Waste Cleanup
DOE Has Made Some Progress in Cleaning Up the Paducah Site, but Challenges Remain Gao ID: GAO-04-457 April 1, 2004In 1988, radioactive contamination was found in the drinking water wells of residences near the federal government's uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky. In response, the Department of Energy (DOE) began a cleanup program. In 2000, GAO reported that DOE faced significant challenges in cleaning up the site and that it was doubtful that the cleanup would be completed as scheduled by 2010 and within the $1.3 billion cost projection. GAO was asked to determine (1) the amount of money DOE has spent on the site, the purposes for which it was spent, and the estimated total costs for the site; (2) the status of DOE cleanup efforts; and (3) the challenges GAO previously identified that continue to be issues for DOE.
From fiscal year 1988 through 2003, DOE spent $823 million (in 2002 dollars) at the Paducah site. Of this total, DOE spent about $372 million (45 percent) for a host of operations activities, including general maintenance and security; $298 million (36 percent) for actions to clean up contamination and waste; and $153 million (19 percent) for studies to assess the extent of contamination and determine what cleanup actions were needed. DOE currently projects that the cleanup will take until 2019 and cost almost $1.6 billion to complete--9 years and about $300 million more than DOE's earlier projection. The $1.6 billion, however, does not include the cost of other DOE activities required at the site after the plant ceases operations, including final decontamination and decommissioning of the plant and longterm environmental monitoring. DOE estimates these activities will cost almost $5 billion and bring DOE's total costs at the site, including the $823 million already spent, to over $7 billion through 2070 (in 2002 dollars). DOE has made some progress in cleaning up contamination and waste at Paducah, but much of the work remains to be done. For example, while DOE has removed about 4,500 tons of scrap metal, almost 50,000 tons of contaminated scrap metal remain. Similarly, while DOE's pilot test of a new technology for removing the hazardous chemical trichloroethene (TCE) from groundwater at the site had promising results--removing about 99 percent of the TCE in the test zone--the technology will not be fully implemented for more than a year. Two of the four challenges GAO identified in 2000--DOE's plans to use untested technology and questionable assumptions that funding for the cleanup would increase--no longer pose the impediment to the cleanup they once did. Two others--uncertainty over the scope of the cleanup and difficulty obtaining timely stakeholder agreement on the cleanup approach--are the principal challenges that remain. First, the actual scope of the cleanup is not yet known. As a result, any additional cleanup actions, the costs of those actions, and the time frame for DOE to implement them are also unknown. Second, DOE and the regulators--the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kentucky--have had difficulty agreeing on an overall cleanup approach, as well as on the details of specific projects. Over time, these disagreements have undermined trust and damaged the parties' working relationship. After involving EPA and Kentucky early in the cleanup planning process, as it has done successfully at other sites, DOE officials discontinued this approach early in 2001, due in part to concerns about the growing cleanup scope, associated costs, and that the planned actions were excessive in relation to the risk. The result was an almost 2-year dispute that delayed progress. This poor working relationship has also prevented the parties from quickly reaching agreement on the technical details of specific projects. Unless DOE and the regulators can reach and maintain agreement on key aspects of the cleanup and quickly resolve technical differences, progress at Paducah could continue to be plagued by delays.
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Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-457, Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE Has Made Some Progress in Cleaning Up the Paducah Site, but Challenges Remain
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Report to Congressional Committees:
April 2004:
NUCLEAR WASTE CLEANUP:
DOE Has Made Some Progress in Cleaning Up the Paducah Site, but
Challenges Remain:
GAO-04-457:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-457, a report to congressional committees
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 1988, radioactive contamination was found in the drinking water
wells of residences near the federal government‘s uranium enrichment
plant in Paducah, Kentucky. In response, the Department of Energy (DOE)
began a cleanup program. In 2000, GAO reported that DOE faced
significant challenges in cleaning up the site and that it was doubtful
that the cleanup would be completed as scheduled by 2010 and within the
$1.3 billion cost projection. GAO was asked to determine (1) the amount
of money DOE has spent on the site, the purposes for which it was
spent, and the estimated total costs for the site; (2) the status of
DOE cleanup efforts; and (3) the challenges GAO previously identified
that continue to be issues for DOE.
What GAO Found:
From fiscal year 1988 through 2003, DOE spent $823 million (in 2002
dollars) at the Paducah site. Of this total, DOE spent about $372
million (45 percent) for a host of operations activities, including
general maintenance and security; $298 million (36 percent) for actions
to clean up contamination and waste; and $153 million (19 percent) for
studies to assess the extent of contamination and determine what
cleanup actions were needed. DOE currently projects that the cleanup
will take until 2019 and cost almost $1.6 billion to complete”9 years
and about $300 million more than DOE‘s earlier projection. The $1.6
billion, however, does not include the cost of other DOE activities
required at the site after the plant ceases operations, including final
decontamination and decommissioning of the plant and long-term
environmental monitoring. DOE estimates these activities will cost
almost $5 billion and bring DOE‘s total costs at the site, including
the $823 million already spent, to over $7 billion through 2070 (in
2002 dollars).
DOE has made some progress in cleaning up contamination and waste at
Paducah, but much of the work remains to be done. For example, while
DOE has removed about 4,500 tons of scrap metal, almost 50,000 tons of
contaminated scrap metal remain. Similarly, while DOE‘s pilot test of a
new technology for removing the hazardous chemical trichloroethene
(TCE) from groundwater at the site had promising results”removing about
99 percent of the TCE in the test zone”the technology will not be fully
implemented for more than a year.
Two of the four challenges GAO identified in 2000”DOE‘s plans to use
untested technology and questionable assumptions that funding for the
cleanup would increase”no longer pose the impediment to the cleanup
they once did. Two others”uncertainty over the scope of the cleanup and
difficulty obtaining timely stakeholder agreement on the cleanup
approach”are the principal challenges that remain. First, the actual
scope of the cleanup is not yet known. As a result, any additional
cleanup actions, the costs of those actions, and the time frame for DOE
to implement them are also unknown. Second, DOE and the regulators”the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kentucky”have had
difficulty agreeing on an overall cleanup approach, as well as on the
details of specific projects. Over time, these disagreements have
undermined trust and damaged the parties‘ working relationship. After
involving EPA and Kentucky early in the cleanup planning process, as it
has done successfully at other sites, DOE officials discontinued this
approach early in 2001, due in part to concerns about the growing
cleanup scope, associated costs, and that the planned actions were
excessive in relation to the risk. The result was an almost 2-year
dispute that delayed progress. This poor working relationship has also
prevented the parties from quickly reaching agreement on the technical
details of specific projects. Unless DOE and the regulators can reach
and maintain agreement on key aspects of the cleanup and quickly
resolve technical differences, progress at Paducah could continue to be
plagued by delays.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that DOE (1) involve Commonwealth of Kentucky and EPA
early in the development of both overall cleanup plans and specific
projects to resolve concerns and reach more timely consensus on cleanup
decisions and (2) in conjunction with Kentucky and EPA, identify
external technical peer review groups with environmental cleanup
expertise to facilitate timely resolution of any future differences. In
commenting on the report, EPA and Kentucky agreed with the report‘s two
recommendations. DOE provided technical comments, but did not comment
on our recommendations.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-457.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Robin M. Nazzaro at
(202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOE Has Spent $823 Million at the Paducah Site; However, Billions of
Dollars Will Be Required to Complete DOE Activities at the Site:
While DOE Has Achieved Some Progress, Much Remains to Be Done:
While Two Previously Identified Challenges Have Been Mitigated,
Uncertainty about the Cleanup Scope and Reaching Stakeholder Agreement
on Cleanup Approach Remain the Current Principal Challenges:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Scope and Methodology:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Energy:
GAO Comments:
Appendix II: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
Appendix III: Comments from the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Past Expenditures and Future Estimated Costs and Time Frames
for DOE Activities at the Paducah Site:
Table 2: DOE Estimates of Paducah Plant Cleanup Costs and Completion
Schedule for Several Cleanup Plans Proposed from 1999-2004:
Figures:
Figure 1: Aerial View of the Paducah, Kentucky, Uranium Enrichment Plant
Figure 2: Expenditures at Paducah by Category, Fiscal Years 1988-2003:
Abbreviations:
CERCLA: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980, as amended:
DOE: Department of Energy:
DMSA: DOE material storage area:
EPA: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:
PCB: polychlorinated biphenyl:
TCE: trichloroethene:
USEC: United States Enrichment Corporation:
Letter April 1, 2004:
Congressional Committees:
The federal government's uranium enrichment plant at Paducah, Kentucky,
has a long history of contamination problems. The plant, which enriches
uranium for commercial nuclear power plants, is located on about 3,500
acres in western Kentucky and continues to operate under a lease to a
private company, the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). Plant
operations have contaminated the site over time with radioactive and
hazardous substances, including technetium-99 (a radioactive fission
product), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), uranium, and volatile
organic compounds such as trichloroethene (TCE). In 1988, after
contaminated groundwater was found in nearby residents' wells, a
sitewide review identified contaminated surface water and soils within
and outside the site. As a result, the Department of Energy (DOE) began
a cleanup program to identify and remove these hazards. DOE's Office of
Environmental Management has overall responsibility for the site
cleanup being performed by its contractor, Bechtel Jacobs. Other
stakeholders include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Kentucky), both of which have regulatory
responsibilities and participate in cleanup decisions.
In April 2000, prompted by continuing congressional concerns, we
reported that DOE faced significant challenges in cleaning up the
Paducah site.[Footnote 1] These challenges included (1) the planned use
of unproven technologies to treat TCE contamination; (2) assumptions
that annual federal funding for the cleanup would increase; (3)
uncertainties about the nature, extent, and sources of the
contamination to be cleaned up; and (4) optimistic assumptions about
reaching timely agreement with both EPA and state regulators on issues
such as cleanup levels, strategies, and priorities that could affect
DOE's ability to meet its milestones. Given these challenges, we stated
that it was uncertain that the cleanup could be completed as scheduled
by 2010 and within the $1.3 billion cost projection, which excluded
other DOE activities such as the final decommissioning and
decontamination of the uranium enrichment plant.
As directed by the conference report for DOE's 2003
appropriations,[Footnote 2] and because of the Committees' ongoing
concerns regarding the limited progress in cleaning up the site, this
report discusses (1) the amount of money DOE has spent on the Paducah
site, the purposes for which the money has been spent, and the
estimated total costs for the site; (2) the status of DOE efforts to
clean up the contamination at the site; and (3) those challenges we
previously identified that continue to be issues for DOE. We provided
preliminary observations on these issues during our testimony at a
hearing held in Paducah, Kentucky, on December 6, 2003.[Footnote 3]
In conducting our work, we met with DOE and contractor officials;
reviewed agency documents involving expenditures, cleanup schedules and
scope, and cleanup challenges; and visited the Paducah site. We also
met with and collected information from officials from EPA and
Kentucky. We conducted our review from April 2003 through March 2004 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Our
scope and methodology for this review are presented at the end of this
report.
Results in Brief:
From fiscal year 1988 through fiscal year 2003, DOE has spent $823
million, in 2002 dollars, on the Paducah site. Of this total, DOE spent
about $372 million (45 percent) to pay for operations at the site,
including construction, security, general maintenance, and legal costs;
$298 million (36 percent) on actions to clean up contamination and
remove waste; and $153 million (19 percent) for studies to assess the
extent of the contamination and determine what cleanup actions were
necessary. Furthermore, although DOE estimated in January 2000 that the
cleanup would be complete by 2010 and cost about $1.3 billion, DOE now
estimates that the cleanup will take at least until 2019 and cost
almost $1.6 billion, due in part to an expanded cleanup scope. That
estimate, however, does not include the cost of other DOE activities at
the site, including building and operating a facility to convert more
than 38,000 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride stored at the
site to a more stable form, final decontamination and decommissioning
of the uranium enrichment plant and associated infrastructure after the
plant ceases operations, and long-term environmental monitoring at the
site. According to DOE estimates, completing these activities will cost
almost $5 billion in 2002 dollars. This will bring the total cost of
DOE activities at the site, including the $823 million already spent,
to over $7 billion in 2002 dollars through 2070.
DOE has moved forward in cleaning up contamination at Paducah since
2000, but progress has been slow for several reasons, including lack of
agreement on the cleanup scope and approach, disagreements on technical
details of specific cleanup projects, and difficulty resolving
regulatory violations. As a result, much of the work identified to date
remains to be done. For example, although DOE has tested a new
technology for removing the hazardous chemical TCE from groundwater at
the site with promising results--removing about 99 percent of the TCE
in the test zone--the technology will not be fully implemented for over
a year. Similarly, DOE has removed about 4,500 tons of scrap metal, but
almost 50,000 tons of contaminated scrap metal remain. DOE also plans
to conduct a number of assessments to determine if other cleanup
actions, in addition to those already planned, are necessary. For
example, DOE will test the groundwater near several areas where waste
is buried to determine if contamination from the waste poses a risk
above acceptable levels and, if so, what corrective action will be
needed.
Two of the four challenges we identified in 2000--DOE's plans to use
untested technology and obtaining adequate funding for the cleanup--no
longer pose the impediment to the cleanup effort they once did because
of actions taken to mitigate their impact. The remaining two
challenges--uncertainty over the scope of the cleanup and obtaining
timely stakeholder agreement on the cleanup approach--are the principal
challenges that remain for DOE to resolve in completing the cleanup at
Paducah.
* Uncertainty about the scope of the cleanup. The entire scope of and
time frames for the cleanup at the Paducah site are not yet known.
Although DOE has established completion dates for the cleanup actions
already identified, additional cleanup actions may be identified as a
result of both studies that DOE plans to conduct and a comprehensive
sitewide assessment after the plant ceases operations. However, DOE has
not yet decided when these additional efforts will begin. As a result,
any additional needed actions, the costs of those actions, and the time
frame for DOE to implement them are not yet known. For example, DOE
plans to initially cover waste currently buried at 12 separate sites
with soil caps as a waste-management measure. As part of the
comprehensive sitewide assessment, DOE plans to examine the caps to
assess their effectiveness in containing the waste. If DOE finds that
contamination poses a risk above acceptable levels, they may need to be
excavated, at a cost of about $110 million each. Thus, planning a
cleanup project whose future costs and scope are unknown poses a
considerable challenge to DOE.
* Lack of agreement on cleanup approach. DOE and the regulators have
had difficulty in agreeing on an overall cleanup approach, as well as
on the details of specific projects. Over time, these disagreements
have undermined trust and damaged the three parties' working
relationship. After involving EPA and Kentucky early in the cleanup
planning process--an approach that has been key to DOE's success at
other sites, such as at Rocky Flats in Colorado--DOE officials
discontinued this approach early in 2001 and limited the regulators'
role to one of reviewing DOE's proposals. This collaborative approach
was discontinued, due in part to DOE's concerns about the growing
cleanup scope, the associated increase in costs, and that the planned
cleanup actions were excessive in relation to the risk to human health
and the environment. This resulted in an almost 2-year dispute--from
June 2001 to April 2003--among DOE, EPA, and Kentucky that delayed
progress. The poor working relationship between DOE and the regulators
has also prevented them from quickly reaching agreement on the
technical details of specific projects. For example, it took DOE and
Kentucky 5 months to agree on the amount and type of data required to
confirm that contaminated soil from a key drainage ditch could be
disposed of on-site. Unless DOE and the regulators can reach and
maintain agreement on key aspects of the cleanup, progress at Paducah
could continue to be plagued by delays. To facilitate timely agreement
on the cleanup approach and speedy resolution of differences on
technical issues to help prevent future delays, this report recommends
that DOE involve the regulators early in the cleanup planning process,
and that the three parties identify and retain external technical peer
review groups with environmental cleanup expertise.
Background:
The Paducah uranium enrichment plant, shown in figure 1, is located in
western Kentucky, just south of the Ohio River and about 10 miles west
of the city of Paducah. The plant--formerly operated by DOE and now
operated by USEC--enriches uranium for commercial nuclear power
reactors. Since it began operations in 1952, the Paducah plant has
processed, or enriched, more than a million tons of uranium.
Figure 1: Aerial View of the Paducah, Kentucky, Uranium Enrichment
Plant:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Plant operations over time have introduced to the site radioactive and
hazardous chemical wastes, including technetium-99, PCBs, uranium, and
volatile organic compounds such as TCE. In past years, a cleaning
solvent containing TCE--much like that previously used by dry cleaners-
-was used to degrease parts and equipment. In the plant's more than
half a century of operations, these various waste materials have
contaminated the area's groundwater, surface water, soils, and air.
The Paducah site cleanup is funded primarily through the Uranium
Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, which was
established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992.[Footnote 4] The fund
receives money from both annual federal appropriations and assessments
on commercial utilities. Through fiscal year 2003, the Paducah site had
received from the fund annual cleanup amounts ranging from $35.9
million to $97.2 million.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act of 1980, as amended (CERCLA), governs the cleanup of sites placed
on the National Priorities List--EPA's list of contaminated sites
designated as highest priority for cleanup. Paducah was placed on the
list in 1994. CERCLA provides broad federal authority to respond
directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances
that may endanger public health or the environment. It stresses the
importance of permanent cleanup remedies and innovative treatment
technologies, and it encourages citizen participation in deciding on
how sites should be cleaned up. The Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act of 1976, as amended, also comes into play in governing the Paducah
cleanup. While CERCLA generally deals with cleaning up inactive and
abandoned hazardous waste sites, this act generally governs the safe
management and disposal of the huge amounts of hazardous or other solid
wastes that are generated nationwide and are currently destined for
disposal or recycling. The act permits states, rather than EPA, to
assume primary responsibility for implementing its requirements.
At Paducah, the key documents governing the cleanup are a federal
facility agreement, the site management plan, and the life cycle
baseline. The federal facility agreement--among DOE, EPA, and Kentucky-
-coordinates the requirements of both CERCLA and the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act for cleanup activities at Paducah and
governs the cleanup. Under this agreement, the parties developed a site
management plan that lays out DOE's approach for the cleanup and
includes near-and long-term milestones and projected activities for the
site. This plan is updated annually by DOE and approved by EPA and
Kentucky. DOE also uses a life cycle baseline to manage the cleanup.
The life cycle baseline contains detailed information on cleanup
projects, cost estimates, and time frames for completion and is updated
frequently by DOE's contractor to reflect the evolving nature of the
cleanup process. For this report, we examined the May 2003 and November
2003 versions of the site management plan and the September 2002
version of the life cycle baseline.
DOE's Office of Environmental Management is responsible for the cleanup
at Paducah, including characterizing, treating, and disposing of waste
and contamination identified during site cleanup. Prior to January
2001, the Office of Nuclear Energy acted as the "landlord" at the site
with responsibilities for maintaining roads, grounds, facilities not
leased to USEC, and DOE material storage areas (DMSAs), which have
since been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management.
Currently, the role of the Office of Nuclear Energy is limited to
administering USEC's lease.
DOE's cleanup strategy for the Paducah site divides the cleanup into
seven major categories as follows:
* Groundwater--About 10 billion gallons of groundwater are contaminated
with radioactive and hazardous materials.
* Surface water--Contaminated sediments have been discovered in ditches
and creeks leaving the site. One of the main sources of this
contamination is rain runoff from thousands of tons of contaminated
scrap metal stored at the site.
* Surface soils--Soils and sediments at the site have been contaminated
by water runoff, spills, and buried waste.
* Legacy waste--Low-level radioactive or hazardous waste generated at
the site before 2001 from DOE cleanup or site maintenance activities
remains stored at the site.
* DOE material storage areas--160 indoor and outdoor storage areas
contain a variety of radioactive, hazardous, and other materials. These
areas have been added to the cleanup scope since our 2000 report.
* Burial grounds--Twelve burial grounds contain a variety of waste,
including barrels of materials with low levels of radioactivity and
hazardous chemicals.
* Decontamination and decommissioning of 17 unused buildings and other
structures--These facilities were contaminated during earlier
operations; 15 have been added to the cleanup scope since our 2000
report.
DOE's draft fiscal year 2004 site management plan, submitted to the
regulators for approval in November of 2003, would commit DOE, EPA, and
Kentucky to an accelerated cleanup of the site. Specifically, the plan
establishes a two-phased cleanup approach for five of the seven
categories--DMSAs and legacy waste are not included but are covered
under DOE's life cycle baseline and an October 2003 settlement between
DOE and Kentucky.[Footnote 5] The two-phase approach consists of a
series of early cleanup actions and studies while the uranium
enrichment plant is in operation and a second series of actions to be
implemented after the plant ceases operations. The primary objectives
of the first phase are to prevent on-and off-site human exposure--
including exposure of plant workers--to unacceptable risks, and to
complete cleanup actions that provide the greatest opportunity for
reducing risks. The second phase will include final decontamination and
decommissioning of the plant and associated infrastructure,[Footnote 6]
and an evaluation of the entire site to (1) determine the effectiveness
of cleanup actions taken in phase I; (2) assess residual risks; and (3)
determine what, if any, additional cleanup actions are needed.
DOE Has Spent $823 Million at the Paducah Site; However, Billions of
Dollars Will Be Required to Complete DOE Activities at the Site:
From fiscal year 1988 through fiscal year 2003, DOE has spent $823
million (in 2002 dollars) for cleanup and related activities at
Paducah. DOE's expenditures fall into three major categories: (1) base
operations--including activities to maintain the site, such as
security, waste storage, and environmental monitoring, and some
administrative and legal costs; (2) removal and remedial actions--
activities such as treatment and disposal of waste, and projects to
clean up contamination at the site; and (3) assessments--studies done
to investigate and characterize, or determine the qualities of,
contamination and waste so that DOE's contractor can determine what
remedial or removal actions are necessary. As figure 2 shows, 45
percent was spent on base operations, 36 percent on actions taken to
clean up contamination and remove waste, and 19 percent on assessments.
Figure 2: Expenditures at Paducah by Category, Fiscal Years 1988-2003:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Total cleanup expenditures for fiscal years 1988-2003, adjusted
to fiscal year 2002 dollars, were $823 million. The individual dollar
figures noted above do not total $823 million because of rounding.
[End of figure]
However, for the past three fiscal years, the percentage of
expenditures on remedial and removal actions has increased to about
half of all funds expended. This increase can be attributed to
increased overall funding for the cleanup and a smaller percentage of
funds being spent on assessments. Nevertheless, the percentages spent
on cleanup and related activities at Paducah through fiscal year 2003
are similar to those DOE's Office of Environmental Management found for
all of its cleanup programs: only about one-third of the environmental
management program budget goes toward actual cleanup and risk reduction
work, with the remainder going to maintenance, fixed costs, and
miscellaneous activities, contributing to a lack of risk reduction and
raising costs for DOE's cleanups.[Footnote 7] As a result, DOE has
since begun to implement accelerated cleanup plans at Paducah and other
sites.
DOE's current estimate for completing the cleanup at Paducah is almost
$1.6 billion--a $300 million increase over its 2000 estimate--and the
completion date has moved from 2010 to 2019.[Footnote 8] The cost
increase is due in part to an expanded project scope since 2000--for
example, the inclusion of DMSAs not previously considered part of the
cleanup--as well as millions of dollars for site operations for each of
the nine additional years of cleanup. However, according to DOE's site
manager, DOE has not yet revised its life cycle baseline to reflect the
scope changes under the proposed accelerated cleanup approach and DOE
may be able to reduce the cost of the cleanup.[Footnote 9] For example,
DOE's life cycle baseline currently includes the cost of excavating
five burial grounds at a cost of about $550 million, but DOE's draft
site management plan calls only for capping the burial grounds unless
further study indicates that the contamination from the burial grounds
poses a risk above acceptable levels.
However, the $1.6 billion cleanup estimate does not represent DOE's
total responsibilities at the site. In addition to cleaning up the
contamination from past activities at the site, DOE will (1) build and
operate a facility to convert more than 38,000 cylinders of depleted
uranium hexafluoride stored at the site to a more stable form;[Footnote
10] (2) carry out final decontamination and decommissioning of the
uranium enrichment plant and associated infrastructure once USEC ceases
plant operations; and (3) perform long-term environmental monitoring at
the site, which includes activities such as monitoring groundwater and
surface water for residual contamination. According to DOE estimates,
completing these activities will cost almost $5 billion in 2002
dollars. This will bring the total cost of DOE activities at the site,
including remaining cleanup costs and the $823 million already spent,
to over $7 billion, in 2002 dollars.[Footnote 11] Table 1 shows DOE's
past expenditures and estimated costs and time frames for future
activities at the site.
Table 1: Past Expenditures and Future Estimated Costs and Time Frames
for DOE Activities at the Paducah Site:
Dollars in millions.
Category: Cleanup and related activities;
Time frame (fiscal years): 1988-2003;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): $823.
Category: Phase I cleanup;
Time frame (fiscal years): 2004- 2019;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): 1,583.
Subtotal cleanup costs;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): $2,406.
Category: Decontamination and decommissioning[A];
Time frame (fiscal years): undetermined;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): 1,612.
Category: Construction and operation of depleted uranium hexafluoride
conversion facility[B];
Time frame (fiscal years): 2004-2031;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): 878.
Category: Long-term environmental monitoring;
Time frame (fiscal years): 2019-2070;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): 2,399.
Subtotal (other costs);
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): $4,889.
Total;
Expenditures and estimated costs: (2002 dollars): $7,295.
Sources: DOE and GAO.
Note: For years prior to 2003, we used the actual gross domestic
product price index from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of
Commerce, to convert the estimated costs to 2002 dollars. Otherwise, we
used DOE's escalation cost of 2.5 percent as the inflation rate to
convert the estimated cost from current dollars to 2003 dollars and
subsequently converted the resulting cost in 2003 dollars to an amount
in 2002 dollars using the bureau's actual gross domestic product price
index.
[A] DOE's estimate of decontamination and decommissioning costs, which
was issued in October 2000, assumed that uranium production activities
at Paducah would terminate in fiscal year 2007, and final
decontamination and decommissioning would occur from fiscal year 2010
to fiscal year 2021. However, DOE has not yet established a schedule
for final decontamination and decommissioning at Paducah. DOE's
estimate includes a 20 percent contingency. In addition to the costs in
DOE's 2000 estimate, this figure includes the cost of constructing an
on-site waste disposal cell and remediation of underlying soil and
foundations. It does not include decontamination and decommissioning of
2 structures included in the 2000 estimate because these are now
included in phase I of the cleanup.
[B] Construction of the conversion facility is scheduled to begin
during fiscal year 2004.
[End of table]
While DOE Has Achieved Some Progress, Much Remains to Be Done:
Since 2000, DOE has made some progress in cleaning up the contamination
and waste at Paducah, but much of the cleanup work remains to be done.
Cleanup progress has been slowed by several factors, including several
disagreements over the scope and approach of the cleanup and technical
details of specific cleanup projects, and difficulty resolving
regulatory violations at the site. For example, an on-site landfill was
unavailable for almost a year--from November 2002 to October 2003--as a
result of a violation notice that Kentucky issued to DOE for improper
waste disposal at the landfill. Until DOE and Kentucky resolved the
violation, 25 cleanup projects involving 19,056 tons of various types
of waste were delayed.[Footnote 12] A discussion of the cleanup
categories, including DOE's major accomplishments since our 2000 report
(as of the end of fiscal year 2003) and the work remaining,
follows.[Footnote 13]
Groundwater:
After hazardous and radioactive contamination was found in the drinking
water wells of residences near the Paducah plant in 1988, DOE
discovered that plumes of groundwater contaminated with TCE and
technetium-99 were moving toward the Ohio River.[Footnote 14] The
largest identified source of the contamination is below the plant's C-
400 building, where TCE had been used for years to degrease parts and
equipment. DOE's strategy for addressing the groundwater contamination
is to focus its resources on this and other large concentrations of
accumulated TCE at the Paducah site.
To address the source contamination, DOE conducted a pilot test of
technology to remove TCE sources from the ground. According to DOE
officials, the test results were promising. During the pilot test,
about 1,500 gallons of TCE were removed from the largest source--about
99 percent of the TCE in the area treated. However, this represents
only about 1 percent of the estimated 180,000 gallons of TCE that had
leaked into the ground at the site.[Footnote 15] DOE contractor
officials told us that full implementation of this technology at C-400
will not occur until 2006, after the regulators have approved DOE's
proposal and DOE has completed the system design.In spring 2004, DOE
will conduct a study to investigate the second largest TCE source at
the site and determine what additional actions are necessary. In
addition to its actions to address major TCE sources, DOE has pumped
from the ground and treated about 710 million gallons of groundwater
from the contaminated groundwater plumes since our 2000 report to
remove TCE and technetium-99 and prevent off-site contamination. About
1.3 billion gallons have been treated this way since the program began.
DOE's estimated completion date for currently planned groundwater
cleanup activities is 2010. While this end date takes into account
construction and implementation of a system to remove contamination,
treatment actions could extend well beyond that date.
Surface Water:
DOE discovered surface water contamination in creeks, ditches, and
sludge lagoons--artificial ponds for the storage of wastewater.
Historically, storm water runoff and wastewater from plant operations
have been discharged into two streams flanking the plant--Bayou Creek
and Little Bayou Creek--through a series of ditches. Each discharge
point is monitored to ensure that the waste material entering the
stream is within the parameters of the discharge permit issued by
Kentucky. Contaminants of concern are technetium-99, solid uranium
tetraflouride, uranium-contaminated silts and sediments,
radionuclides, metals, and PCBs.
To prevent contaminated runoff, DOE has removed about 4,500 tons of
scrap metal from the site since 2000--primarily crushed drums that
previously had contained uranium, and aluminum ingots. An estimated
almost 50,000 tons of contaminated scrap metal remains to be removed
from the site. At the north-south diversion ditch, a key wastewater
conduit from the plant, surface water discharges and runoff have been
rerouted and piped to bypass contaminated areas, and DOE has begun
excavation work to remove contaminated soil. According to DOE
officials, DOE has excavated section 2 of the ditch and plans to
complete excavation of section 1 by summer 2004--a year ahead of
schedule. DOE will also conduct additional investigations and risk
assessments to determine what additional actions are required to
address contamination associated with internal ditches; outfalls--
outlets through which water leaves the site; sections 3, 4, and 5 of
the north-south diversion ditch; and the storm sewer system, and
whether additional sediment controls are needed. The estimated
completion date for all currently planned surface water cleanup
activities is 2017.
Surface Soils:
Because soil contamination represents a lower risk for exposure and
migration than, for example, groundwater contamination, and because
other work, such as removal of scrap metal, must be performed before
some soils can be reached for assessment and removal, surface soils
have been a lower priority than other cleanup categories. However, DOE
has performed a preliminary assessment of all accessible surface soils
at the site to identify radioactive contamination and protect plant
workers and has removed 2,500 cubic yards of contaminated soils--enough
to cover a football field 17 inches deep. DOE estimates that it will
need to remove and dispose of an additional 87,500 cubic yards of soils
by 2015. In addition, other contaminated areas that are not currently
accessible because they are still in use by USEC, as well as the soil
under the 17 buildings and other structures being decontaminated and
decommissioned during phase I of the cleanup, will be addressed after
the plant ceases operations during phase II.
Legacy Waste:
We reported in 2000 that the equivalent of 52,000 55-gallon barrels of
waste was stored in various locations on the Paducah site. Most of this
waste is materials that have a low level of radioactivity. All of this
waste has undergone an initial characterization to determine proper on-
site storage and may require additional characterization to determine
proper treatment, if necessary, and disposal. Since 2000, DOE has
disposed of the equivalent of over 7,000 barrels off-site and has
repackaged another 6,000 barrels' worth of waste that is ready for
disposal. DOE plans to remove the 6,000 barrels ready for disposal and
characterize and dispose of the remaining legacy waste--the equivalent
of over 38,000 barrels--by 2011. In addition to the legacy waste, new
waste generated during the course of the cleanup must be disposed of
within a year of its generation.
DOE Material Storage Areas:
In 2000, we reported that DMSAs were not included in the scope of the
Office of Environmental Management's cleanup plan. These storage areas
were created in 1996 when DOE accepted responsibility for large amounts
of material stored in USEC-leased buildings and outdoor areas to
expedite the process USEC used to obtain an operating certificate. The
materials in the 160 DMSAs include thousands of barrels of low-level
radioactive waste and PCB wastes, barrels labeled as asbestos waste,
contaminated uranium processing equipment, various items and containers
whose contents are unknown, and scrap metal.
Since our 2000 report, DOE has transferred responsibility for DMSAs
from the Office of Nuclear Energy to the Office of Environmental
Management so that they can be addressed as part of the comprehensive
sitewide cleanup scope. DOE has also ranked the 160 DMSAs at the
Paducah site on the basis of their potential to contain hazardous
materials or contaminate the environment: 34 are high-priority, 11 are
medium-priority, and 115 are low-priority. Of the 160 DMSAs, DOE has
completely characterized materials from 28 high-and 10 low-priority
DMSAs and has initiated characterization of an additional 41 DMSAs. As
a result, two-thirds of the total volume of materials in all 160 DMSAs
has been characterized as of March 2004. According to DOE officials,
only 0.01 percent of the materials characterized to date have been
determined to be hazardous waste. In addition to the progress made in
characterizing DMSAs, all materials from 9 high-priority DMSAs--about
15 percent of all materials to be removed during phase I of the
cleanup--have been removed and either shipped off-site or placed in an
on-site landfill for final disposal. DOE plans to complete its
characterization of the DMSAs by the end of fiscal year 2009 and
dispose of all free-standing materials from the remaining DMSAs by
2010. Fixed equipment in the DMSAs, such as piping and equipment
attached to buildings and facilities, will be disposed of during final
decommissioning and decontamination of the site after the uranium
enrichment plant ceases operations.[Footnote 16]
Burial Grounds:
The 12 burial grounds at the site contain a variety of waste, including
barrels of materials with low levels of radioactivity and/or hazardous
chemicals, and pyrophoric uranium, which has a tendency to
spontaneously combust in the presence of oxygen. To date, DOE's
activities at the 12 burial grounds have consisted of studies and
environmental monitoring and maintenance, and DOE continues to conduct
these studies. Currently, DOE's planning assumption is that they will
cap--cover with a layer of soil--the burial grounds and monitor nearby
groundwater for contamination to evaluate the effectiveness of the
caps. If contamination from the burial grounds is found to pose a risk
above acceptable levels, some burial grounds may need to be excavated
during phase II of the cleanup at the site, which is not scheduled to
start until after the plant ceases operations. Groundwater monitoring
will be ongoing through the end of phase I of the cleanup in 2019.
Decontamination and Decommissioning of 17 Unused Buildings and Other
Structures:
Seventeen buildings and other structures that were originally used as
part of the uranium enrichment process, including two 250,000-gallon
water storage tanks, a nitrogen generation plant, and an incinerator
previously used for disposing of contaminated items are no longer in
use and await decontamination and removal. In 2000, we reported that
only 2 of 18 unused buildings and structures awaiting decontamination
and decommissioning at the site were included in the scope of the
Office of Environmental Management's cleanup plan. Since then, 1 of the
18 buildings has been transferred to USEC for use in operations at the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, according to DOE contractor officials;
the remaining 17 are now included in the scope of the Office of
Environmental Management's cleanup. DOE has completed its preliminary
assessment of the contamination at the 17 buildings and other
structures and has begun removing the infrastructure of one of the
buildings. In addition, DOE continues to perform surveillance and
maintenance on all 17 inactive facilities to prevent significant
deterioration of the buildings and other structures until
decommissioning and decontamination is complete. DOE's plan proposes to
demolish all of these inactive facilities by 2017; the underlying
foundations and soil will be addressed during phase II of the cleanup.
While Two Previously Identified Challenges Have Been Mitigated,
Uncertainty about the Cleanup Scope and Reaching Stakeholder Agreement
on Cleanup Approach Remain the Current Principal Challenges:
Two of the four challenges we identified in 2000--DOE's plans to use
untested technology and obtaining adequate funding for the cleanup--no
longer pose the impediment to the cleanup effort they once did because
of actions taken to mitigate their impact. The remaining two
challenges--uncertainty over the scope of the cleanup and obtaining
stakeholder agreement on the cleanup approach--are the principal
challenges that remain for DOE to resolve to successfully complete the
cleanup at Paducah.
DOE Has Mitigated the Impact of Two Previously Identified Challenges:
In 2000, we reported some of the cleanup technologies contemplated,
while not new, were untested for the specific environment in which they
were to be applied. Since then, several technologies have been
evaluated for treating groundwater for TCE contamination at Paducah,
including permeable treatment barriers and six-phase heating.[Footnote
17] According to DOE officials, removing TCE is the most difficult
cleanup task at Paducah.[Footnote 18] Specifically, TCE is difficult to
treat when it has mixed with groundwater and soil--it migrates to the
bottom of the aquifer making it difficult to access, and because it
dissolves slowly in water, it can contaminate large quantities of
groundwater for long periods of time. Permeable treatment barriers,
which DOE assumed in 2000 would be the primary treatment strategy for
addressing contaminated groundwater, could not be effectively installed
at Paducah, according to DOE officials, because of unfavorable soil
conditions and potential high costs to maintain the technology.
Furthermore, such technologies only deal with the contaminated
groundwater plume, not the source of the contamination. However, DOE
has made progress in testing six-phase heating for removing TCE from
the groundwater and soil at Paducah. In the six-phase heating process,
electricity is applied to steel rods that have been drilled into the
ground to heat the soil. When the soil is hot enough that the TCE and
groundwater begin to boil, the resulting vapor is collected and
condensed and then filtered to remove the TCE. DOE officials told us
the results of the test exceeded their expectations, and their
preliminary review of the test results concluded that the technology
should be considered for full-scale implementation. DOE officials state
that they have submitted a proposed plan to the regulators for approval
and plan to begin full-scale implementation in 2006. The officials
added that unless problems are encountered when the process is fully
implemented, DOE should be able to remove the majority of the TCE
source.
In 2000, we also reported that assumptions about future increases in
federal funding for the Paducah cleanup could affect DOE's ability to
meet cleanup milestones and that, if the planned increases did not
occur, the cleanup could be delayed and costs could increase. DOE had
estimated that, as the cleanup progressed, its funding would increase
from $78 million in fiscal year 2001 to $307 million in fiscal year
2008. We now believe these assumptions were unrealistic considering
that funding levels for the cleanup during the seven fiscal years prior
to 2001 averaged only $43 million annually. Since 2000, DOE has revised
its annual funding assumptions to reflect more consistent and
appropriate funding levels. Currently, DOE estimates its annual funding
needs at about $100 million.[Footnote 19] DOE's contractor official for
finance stated that annual funding of $100 million is sufficient to
complete the cleanup given the scope of work and the 2019 end date
proposed in its fiscal year 2004 draft site management plan. In
addition, actual annual funding for the Paducah cleanup has increased
significantly in recent years. In fact, in fiscal year 2003, Congress
appropriated more than DOE's $100 million request. However, if cleanup
cost estimates increase, or appropriations for the cleanup are not
maintained at their current level, funding could resurface as a
challenge.
Uncertainty Regarding the Scope of DOE's Cleanup Remains a Challenge:
In 2000, we also reported that uncertainties about the contamination
yet to be cleaned up could result in increased cleanup costs. These
uncertainties remain a challenge, in part, for DOE because its fiscal
year 2004 draft site management plan does not clearly define the entire
scope and time frame for completing the cleanup. For phase I of the
cleanup, DOE has identified a series of early actions for five of the
seven cleanup categories. Some of these actions are currently under
way, and DOE plans to have them all completed by 2019. DOE plans to
study the effectiveness of phase I actions as they are completed. Phase
II of the cleanup will include the final decontamination and
decommissioning of the USEC plant and a comprehensive sitewide
assessment that will evaluate the effectiveness of all cleanup actions
conducted in phase I and assess the need for additional cleanup
actions. For example, DOE's planning assumption is to cover the 12
burial grounds with soil caps during phase I as a waste management
measure and then monitor the burial grounds to assess the effectiveness
of the caps in containing the waste. If DOE finds that contamination
from these sites poses an unacceptable risk, DOE may need to excavate
some of the burial grounds, at a cost of about $110 million each,
during phase II. Additionally, since DOE does not plan to remove the
foundations and soil underlying the 17 unused buildings and other
structures to be decontaminated and decommissioned during phase I,
additional cleanup actions may be necessary during phase II if the soil
is found to be contaminated.
DOE has also not yet determined when phase II will begin. DOE's draft
site management plan calls for phase II to begin once the USEC plant
ceases operations. USEC has recently announced that the plant will
operate until about 2010.[Footnote 20] However, DOE's site manager
stated that several options exist. For example, rather than begin phase
II in 2010, DOE could decide to postpone the comprehensive sitewide
assessment and some phase II cleanup actions until DOE has completed
all of phase I. Alternatively, DOE could decide to start final
decontamination and decommissioning shortly after the plant ceases
operations in approximately 2010 and conduct phase II activities
concurrently with phase I cleanup actions. If DOE selects this option,
increases in annual funding would be needed to conduct both phases of
the cleanup simultaneously. Until DOE decides when phase II will begin,
any additional necessary actions, the costs of those actions, and the
time frame for DOE to implement them are not known.
DOE, Kentucky, and EPA Have Continued to Have Great Difficulty Agreeing
on a Cleanup Approach:
In our 2000 report, we stated that DOE's assumptions about the timely
achievement of regulatory and stakeholder agreement on cleanup levels,
strategies, and priorities were optimistic because the regulators had
already disagreed with some of DOE's proposed approaches and had not
reached agreement on several contentious issues. Since then, DOE and
the regulators have continued to have difficulty agreeing on an overall
cleanup approach and individual projects. As table 2 shows, the draft
fiscal year 2004 site management plan is only the latest of several
cleanup plans proposed for the site since 1999, all of which have
differed significantly in terms of costs, scope, and time frames for
cleanup and were intended as solutions to problems at the site.
According to DOE's site manager, DOE has revised its plans for Paducah
to incorporate additional scope and ensure that the requirements of the
two statutes that govern the cleanup were met. On the other hand, EPA
and Kentucky officials told us that these frequent changes have
frustrated them and undermined their confidence that DOE would adhere
to an agreed-to plan and achieve progress in cleaning up the site. As a
result, their working relationship has deteriorated, slowing cleanup
progress.
Table 2: DOE Estimates of Paducah Plant Cleanup Costs and Completion
Schedule for Several Cleanup Plans Proposed from 1999-2004:
Dollars in billions.
Date and source of DOE estimate:
Plan presented at October 1999 appropriations hearing;
Estimated cleanup cost: $0.7;
Estimated completion date: 2012.
January 2000 life cycle baseline;
Estimated cleanup cost: 1.3;
Estimated completion date: 2010.
Amended fiscal year 2003 site management plan;
Estimated cleanup cost: 2.5;
Estimated completion date: 2030.
Draft fiscal year 2004 site management plan;
Estimated cleanup cost: 1.6;
Estimated completion date: 2019.
Sources: GAO and DOE.
[End of table]
The most significant example of the parties' inability to reach and
maintain agreement has been a dispute over the fiscal year 2001 site
management plan that lasted from June 2001 to April 2003 and slowed
overall cleanup progress. The dispute began when DOE headquarters
decided they could no longer support the site management plan
assumptions. According to Kentucky officials, this site management plan
was developed collaboratively by high-level officials from DOE, EPA,
and Kentucky who agreed on an overall cleanup approach. In addition, a
midlevel working group was developed, called the Core Team, with
representatives from DOE, EPA, and Kentucky who examined the technical
requirements to plan individual projects. These two groups identified a
number of cleanup actions for implementation, and the parties
successfully agreed on the fiscal year 2001 site management plan.
However, as a result of the increased cleanup scope identified by the
Core Team, the resulting increase in costs, and DOE's Top-to-Bottom
Review,[Footnote 21] DOE headquarters questioned whether the planned
cleanup actions were excessive in relation to the risk to human health
and the environment and requested additional time from the regulators
to further review the site management plan. The regulators denied the
request. Because of its continuing concerns that the planned cleanup
actions were excessive, DOE subsequently discontinued this
collaborative approach, removed decision-making authority from the Core
Team, and reduced the regulators' role to reviewing DOE's proposals.
According to Kentucky officials, DOE also limited communication between
DOE technical staff and the regulators.
While DOE and Kentucky have made some progress in addressing near-term
cleanup impediments, the three parties continue to have difficulty in
reaching agreement on the overall approach. DOE and Kentucky signed a
letter of intent in August 2003, followed in October 2003 by an agreed
order that resolved all outstanding Kentucky environmental compliance
violations pending against the department. The letter of intent also
commits the two parties to promote an accelerated cleanup of the site,
which is reflected in the draft fiscal year 2004 site management plan.
Nevertheless, according to DOE's site manager, DOE and the regulators
are still negotiating the fiscal year 2004 site management plan,
submitted by DOE on November 15, 2003. In February 2004, DOE received
and responded to formal comments from EPA and Kentucky, and submitted a
second draft of the site management plan to the regulators for review.
It is uncertain when the 2004 site management plan, which was to be
implemented during fiscal year 2004, will be finalized. Furthermore, as
discussed earlier, many more decisions about the cleanup's scope and
DOE's approach will require agreement by the three parties throughout
the life of DOE's cleanup efforts. Early involvement by all three
parties could be helpful in avoiding similar lengthy and unproductive
cycles of negotiations over the annual site management plans in the
future.
Involving the regulators early in planning the overall cleanup approach
and specific projects has been a key element of DOE's good working
relationship with regulators at other DOE sites. For example, at Rocky
Flats in Colorado, DOE involves the regulators when updating the site
management plan and developing individual projects. This allows
concerns to be communicated and addressed early in the process.
According to officials at Colorado's Department of Public Health and
Environment, this has reduced the amount of time needed for regulatory
reviews, since the number of "comment and revise, comment and revise"
cycles has been reduced. Colorado state officials also told us that a
successful working relationship requires up front and continual
communication beyond just reviewing already developed documents and
proposals. Additionally, they stated that a consultative process is an
evolving process and must be worked through in good faith by all
parties.
Both EPA and Kentucky officials believe that their early involvement
would aid cleanup progress at Paducah, such as early involvement in
developing the annually submitted site management plan. EPA and
Kentucky officials told us that they have been frustrated by their
exclusion from the planning process for both the overall cleanup
approach and specific projects and feel that the current process is
more time-consuming than if they were involved early in the process.
Not being involved in the planning process reduces their role to
reviewing DOE's project proposals and making comments on those
proposals. Comments on proposals often necessitate more than one
revision cycle. Multiple revisions can cause schedule changes and
delays because DOE's schedule for each project assumes only one
revision to respond to regulators' comments. At a December 6, 2003,
hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in
Paducah, the Secretary of Kentucky's Natural Resources and
Environmental Protection agency encouraged all parties to revisit the
Core Team approach. He urged that a collaborative team be created and
empowered to work effectively toward meaningful action. However, DOE's
site manager cautioned that such an approach would not necessarily
hasten decision making, but agreed that early discussion of technical
details could possibly help improve formal submission of DOE cleanup
proposals to the regulators.
The poor working relationship between DOE and the regulators has also
prevented them from quickly reaching agreement on technical details of
specific projects. According to Kentucky officials, DOE proposed using
existing data about the north-south diversion ditch--a major wastewater
conduit from the plant--to determine whether soil from the ditch could
be disposed of in an on-site landfill. However, Kentucky's response to
DOE's proposal was that these data were not sufficient because the
samples were not representative of all the areas where waste entered
the ditch. It took DOE and Kentucky 5 months to agree on a sampling
plan. Similarly, DOE and Kentucky disagreed over whether available data
demonstrated that the risk reduction to be obtained by installing
sedimentation basins was significant enough to warrant their
installation. In 2000, DOE planned to install two sedimentation basins
at a cost of $4 million each, but the state wanted four basins.
Currently, DOE's position is that it does not believe that available
data indicates any sedimentation basins are needed, but has agreed to
collect additional data and install basins if new information warrants
it. DOE and Kentucky are still negotiating the amount and type of data
required to determine whether the basins are needed.
As the cleanup progresses and individual projects are designed and
implemented, DOE and the regulators will continue to have to reach
agreement on the specifics of these projects. Given the past technical
disagreements and the vast scope of work remaining at Paducah,
additional technical issues such as those experienced with the north-
south diversion ditch and the sedimentation basins are likely to arise
in the future. However, DOE and the regulators do not currently use any
mechanisms such as external technical peer reviews to assist them in
resolving technical disputes in a timely manner. A 1997 National
Academy of Sciences report on the use of peer review by DOE's Office of
Science and Technology cited several benefits of using such reviews to
help resolve technical disagreements that could apply to
Paducah.[Footnote 22] According to the report, peer reviews:
* provide an effective way to increase the technical quality of
projects, thereby enhancing the credibility of project decisions;
* add confidence that those decisions are based on the best scientific
and technical information available; and:
* introduce independent experts to a project who can recognize
previously unrecognized technical strengths and weaknesses, challenge
the status quo, and identify ways to improve the project that may have
been overlooked.
DOE and EPA officials told us that they believe the use of peer reviews
could help resolve technical disagreements at the site. Kentucky
officials told us that while they believe such reviews have value, they
would not want the results of a review to usurp the state's regulatory
decision-making authority.
Conclusions:
While some progress has been made in cleaning up the site and
addressing previously identified challenges, DOE still faces
significant challenges in completing the cleanup at Paducah. For
example, DOE, EPA, and Kentucky have been unable to agree on an overall
cleanup approach and technical aspects of individual projects. Even
now, DOE and the regulators are still negotiating the draft fiscal year
2004 site management plan, submitted by DOE in early November 2003, and
it is uncertain when it will be finalized. Moreover, despite past
difficulties, which have slowed cleanup progress, and the many
decisions that must be made in the future regarding scope and time
frames, the parties have no mechanisms in place, such as early
stakeholder involvement or technical peer review, to help resolve
disagreements between the three parties in a timely manner. Unless DOE
and the regulators can reach and maintain agreement on key aspects of
the cleanup and quickly resolve technical disagreements, progress at
Paducah could continue to be hampered by delays.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To help improve the likelihood that DOE and the regulators will reach
timely agreement on the cleanup approach, we recommend that the
Secretary of Energy direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of
Environmental Management to:
* involve the Commonwealth of Kentucky and EPA early in the development
of the annual site management plan and specific projects--before
submitting formal cleanup proposals for regulatory approval--so that
the parties can identify and resolve their concerns and reach consensus
on cleanup decisions in a more timely manner, and:
* in conjunction with Kentucky and EPA, identify and retain external
technical peer review groups with environmental cleanup expertise to
facilitate timely resolution of any future differences between DOE and
the regulators.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided DOE, EPA, and Kentucky with draft copies of this report for
their review and comment. DOE's written comments on our report did not
address our recommendations, but DOE agreed that it still faces many
challenges in accomplishing a safe, cost-effective cleanup at the
Paducah site. However, DOE disagreed with our characterization of the
department's decision to discontinue the Core Team process and stated
that we did not fully acknowledge DOE's improving working relationship
with the regulators. DOE also asserted that our report did not provide
a balanced presentation of all three parties' responsibilities for the
past poor working relationship and delayed progress. Finally, DOE
stated that our report did not adequately represent recent progress at
the site and that we should not include post-closure environmental
monitoring costs in comparison of past cleanup costs or estimates.
We disagree with DOE's view that we did not accurately characterize
their decision to discontinue the Core Team approach. Our report
clearly cites DOE's rationale for discontinuing its participation. We
also disagree that we did not fully acknowledge the progress DOE and
Kentucky have made in improving their working relationship. For
example, our report does reflect the progress they have made in
addressing near-term clean up impediments, such as the signing of the
agreed order that resolved outstanding regulatory violations. However,
the inability of the three parties to agree to and sign the fiscal year
2004 Site Management Plan, issued in draft in November 2003, indicates
that the parties' working relationship continues to be a challenge. We
also disagree with DOE's statement that our report does not provide a
balanced presentation of all three parties' responsibilities for the
past poor working relationship and delayed progress. We cite throughout
our report examples of disagreements between DOE and the regulators,
providing each side's position on these issues. For example, we
describe the disagreement over a sampling plan for soil excavation at
the north-south diversion ditch, and present DOE and Kentucky's
rationales for including different numbers of sedimentation basins at
the site. We have added to the report information on the recent
progress made on the north-south diversion ditch, but we disagree with
DOE's assertion that we included post-closure costs in our comparison
of past cleanup costs and schedules. We have, however, included post-
closure costs as part of our discussion of DOE's total financial
responsibilities at Paducah. Nevertheless, we have revised the report
to more clearly indicate that post-closure environmental monitoring
costs are a separate activity from cleanup activities and related
costs.
In their written comments, EPA commended GAO for a fair and balanced
analysis of the challenges that the three parties face in the
environmental cleanup at the site. Kentucky stated that the report was
a fair and accurate assessment of both the progress at the site and the
working relationship among the three parties since 2000. Both EPA and
Kentucky agreed with the report's two recommendations.
DOE and Kentucky also provided technical comments, which we
incorporated into the report as appropriate. DOE's, EPA's, and
Kentucky's written comments are presented inAppendixes I, II, and III,
respectively.Appendix I also includes our responses to DOE's comments.
Scope and Methodology:
To determine the amount of money DOE has spent on cleanup-related
activities, the purposes for which the money has been spent, and the
estimated total for the site, we interviewed officials from DOE's Oak
Ridge Operations Office, which is responsible for managing costs for
the Paducah site, and reviewed budget documents including appropriation
data related to the cleanup. During two visits to the Paducah site, we
interviewed the representative from Bechtel Jacobs responsible for
finance, reviewed expenditure and project data from 1988 through 2003,
and estimated out-year expenditures. Specifically, we obtained and
analyzed historic and estimated expenditures for the major expenditure
categories of the cleanup--remedial and removal actions, environmental
risk assessments, base operations, and their subcomponents--as well as
cost estimates for other activities required to close the site,
including final decontamination and decommissioning of the uranium
enrichment process plant, and long-term environmental monitoring at the
site. We reported all 1998-2003 expenditures in 2002 dollars. To assess
the reliability of the DOE cost information, we interviewed Bechtel
Jacobs staff responsible for the databases containing the data that
were provided. We obtained and reviewed descriptions of the databases,
how data are entered into the databases, quality control checks on the
data, and testing conducted on the data. We also reviewed in detail a
year's coding of the data into the categories of interest to us. After
taking these steps, we determined that the data provided to us were
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report.
To assess the status of DOE efforts to clean up the contamination at
the site, we had Bechtel Jacobs representatives provide a written
status of what actions have been taken to address waste and
contamination for each cleanup category: groundwater, surface water,
surface soils, legacy waste stored at the site, DOE material storage
areas, waste burial areas, and contaminated unused building and
structures. We also reviewed various documents, such as an evaluation
of a new technology for removing TCE from groundwater, to further
document actions taken in the various categories. In addition, during
two visits to the Paducah site, we interviewed representatives from
Bechtel Jacobs responsible for finance and planning, as well as other
activities regarding the status of DOE's cleanup. We also interviewed
DOE's Office of Environmental Management site officials regarding
progress achieved. During the two visits to Paducah, we toured the site
to get a further understanding of how these cleanup actions were
undertaken and implemented. We also interviewed officials from DOE's
Office of Environmental Management in Washington, D.C.
To determine which of the challenges we previously identified continue
to be issues for DOE at Paducah, we interviewed the Assistant Secretary
and other headquarters officials from DOE's Office of Environmental
Management to obtain a high-level perspective on these challenges. We
also interviewed DOE's Office of Environmental Management site
officials regarding progress achieved under each category. During our
two visits to Paducah, we toured the site to develop a firsthand
understanding of the cleanup challenges. Furthermore, on each visit we
interviewed representatives from Bechtel Jacobs responsible for the
cleanup, finance, and planning regarding the status of the challenges
and actions taken to address them, and reviewed site-specific
documents, including the September 2002 life cycle baseline, the
federal facility agreement, and the May 2003 and November 2003 site
management plans. To obtain a complete perspective on the four
previously identified challenges, we interviewed officials from EPA
Region IV, the Commonwealth of Kentucky's Department for Environmental
Protection, and the Governor of Kentucky, and reviewed related studies
and correspondence. We also interviewed the Chairman of the Paducah
Site Specific Advisory Board, attended one of the board's monthly
meetings, interviewed the Chairman of the Greater Paducah Economic
Development Council and the Chairwoman of the Paducah Chamber of
Commerce, and consulted with GAO's Chief Technologist on these
challenges. We reviewed studies of various cleanup technologies, site-
specific progress reports, DOE's Top-to-Bottom report, and testimony
from congressional hearings.
To identify potential solutions to the challenge of a lack of
stakeholder agreement on the cleanup approach, we interviewed officials
from DOE's Office of the Inspector General and reviewed relevant
reports, interviewed DOE and state officials at other cleanup sites
where DOE has worked successfully with regulators to implement an
accelerated plan such as Rocky Flats, Colorado, and reviewed National
Academy of Science reports regarding the benefits of technical peer
review.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Energy, the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Secretary
of the Kentucky Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Cabinet.
We will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition,
the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions on this report, please call me
at (202) 512-3841. Other staff contributing to this report are listed
in Appendix IV.
Signed by:
Robin M. Nazzaro:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
List of Congressional Committees:
The Honorable Ted Stevens, Chairman:
The Honorable Robert C. Byrd, Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Pete V. Domenici, Chairman:
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman, Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
United States Senate:
The Honorable C.W. Bill Young, Chairman
The Honorable David R. Obey, Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Joe Barton, Chairman
The Honorable John D. Dingell, Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Energy and Commerce:
House of Representatives:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Energy:
Department of Energy
Washington, DC 20585
March 12, 2004:
Ms. Robin M. Nazzaro:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Ms. Nazzaro:
We appreciate the opportunity to review and comment on the General
Accounting Office (GAO) draft report entitled NUCLEAR WASTE CLEANUP:
DOE Has Made Some Progress in Cleaning Up the Paducah Site, but
Challenges Remain. We have reviewed the draft report twice and are
disappointed that this second version neither fully reflects the extent
of the comments and concerns we previously shared with the GAO staff,
nor does it fully acknowledge recent significant progress at the site.
We disagree with the GAO's findings regarding our decision to stop
participating in the Core Team process. The report characterizes DOE's
decision as cutting off a "collaborative" process with the regulators,
which is not accurate. The Core Team was collaborative in concept, but
in practice, resulted in staff making decisions without senior
management policy input. DOE discontinued its participation on the Core
Team to ensure that decisions for the site were made based on risk and
regulatory requirements, and that actions were being taken consistent
with policy set forth by senior management. Although the Core Team was
disbanded, DOE continued to collaborate with the regulators, albeit at
the senior management level. Staff was encouraged to continue
collaborating and exchanging information as appropriate. DOE and the
regulators have made significant progress and working relationships
have improved since the signing of the Agreed Order with Kentucky in
October 2003. This fact is not properly reflected in the report.
DOE is concerned that, while the draft report states that the GAO's
review covers a time period from April 2003 to March 2004, most of the
strides taken in the past six months at the site are not adequately
represented. For example, DOE has successfully accelerated its cleanup
on two of the five sections of the north-south diversion ditch.
Excavation and construction to remove contaminated soils from Section 2
is complete, and Section 1 excavation is projected to be completed this
fiscal year, a year ahead of schedule. Your report fails to indicate
completion of the Section 2 work and states that DOE is planning to
complete the work by 2005.
In other areas of concern, the report continues to include post-closure
environmental monitoring with cleanup costs. Post-closure costs should
not be
included in comparisons of past cleanup estimates or schedules. Also,
although we accept our share of the responsibility, the report does not
balance the responsibility for damaged relationships and delayed
progress on all parties.
Enclosed are our specific comments addressing our concerns. We agree
that DOE still faces many challenges to accomplishing a safe, cost-
effective cleanup at the Paducah site. DOE remains committed to meeting
our responsibilities and complying with the terms of its agreements
with the regulators.
If you have any further questions, please call me on (202) 586-7709, or
Mr. William Murphie, Manager Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, on
(859) 219-4001.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Jessie Hill Robeison
Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management:
Enclosure:
The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Energy's letter
dated March 12, 2004.
GAO Comments:
1. We disagree. We believe that the report accurately describes DOE's
decision to discontinue the Core Team process. This approach,
established as a result of congressional hearings held in 1999, was
designed as a collaborate process to advance progress at the site.
Furthermore, EPA and Kentucky viewed this effort as a collaborative
process. As we state in the report, DOE became concerned about the
growing scope of the cleanup and the associated increase in costs, and
believed that the Core Team's recommended actions were excessive. While
discussion of the cleanup did continue at the senior management level,
according to Kentucky officials and DOE site staff and contractor
officials, DOE staff at the Paducah site were instructed by DOE
headquarters not to continue discussing the cleanup with regulatory
officials.
2. Our report does reflect the progress DOE and Kentucky have made in
addressing near-term cleanup impediments, such as the signing of the
agreed order that resolved outstanding regulatory violations. However,
the long history of mistrust and lack of shared vision on the cleanup
approach at Paducah, and the inability of the three parties to agree to
and sign the fiscal year 2004 Site Management Plan, issued in draft in
November 2003, indicate that the parties' relationship remains a
challenge.
3. We have modified the final report to reflect DOE's recent progress
on the excavation of the north-south diversion ditch.
4. We disagree with DOE's statement that we included post-closure costs
in our comparison of past cleanup costs and schedules. For example,
post-closure costs are not included in the comparison of current and
past cleanup estimates and schedules presented in table 2. However,
because we believe that it is important to provide a complete picture
of DOE's financial responsibilities at the Paducah site, we did include
post-closure costs as part of our discussion of DOE's total financial
responsibilities at Paducah. We have also revised our report to more
clearly indicate that post-closure environmental monitoring costs are a
separate activity from cleanup activities and related costs.
5. We disagree with DOE's statement that our report does not provide a
balanced presentation of all three parties' responsibilities for the
past poor working relationship and delayed progress. We cite throughout
our report examples of disagreements between DOE and the regulators,
providing each side's position on these issues. For instance, we
describe the disagreement over a sampling plan for soil excavation at
the north-south diversion ditch. We also present DOE and Kentucky's
positions over whether available data was adequate to warrant the
installation of sedimentation basins at the site.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
REGION 4
ATLANTA FEDERAL CENTER
61 FORSYTH STREET
ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30303-8960:
MAR 11 2004:
Ms. Robin M. Nazzaro:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment
U. S. General Accounting Office:
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Nazzaro:
Thank you for the opportunity to review a draft of the forthcoming
General Accounting Office (GAO) report entitled Nuclear Waste Cleanup:
DOE Has Made Some Progress in Cleaning Up the Paducah Site, but
Challenges Remain (GAO-04-457). I would like to commend the GAO for a
fair and balanced analysis of the challenges the Department of Energy
(DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Commonwealth of
Kentucky (KY) face in the environmental cleanup at the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant (PGDP) . I would also like to note that the report is
based on a November, 2003, draft DOE Site Management Plan (SMP) about
which EPA had serious concerns. The current version of the SMP,
delivered as a final draft on February 27, 2004, addresses many of our
concerns, and indicates that DOE, EPA and KY may be close to agreement
on the overall plan for environmental assessment and cleanup at the
PGDP. Reaching consensus on this plan would provide important stimulus
to progress of cleanup at this site.
Another significant issue addressed in your report concerns cost and
schedule uncertainty in the cleanup of the PGDP. EPA believes that if
DOE plans and implements site studies, whereby actual data will replace
estimates and assumptions about the scope of cleanup, uncertainty in
cost and schedules can be reduced. The recommendations in the report
that DOE involve the regulators earlier and establish an external peer
review group would also expedite the implementation of site studies and
cleanup activities.
Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
J. I. Palmer, Jr.
Regional Administrator:
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC PROTECTION CABINET:
ERNIE FLETCHER:
GOVERNOR:
LAJUANA S. WILCHER
SECRETARY:
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
CAPITAL PLAZA TOWER
FRANKFORT KENTUCKY 40601
TELEPHONE: (502) 564-3350:
March 11, 2004:
Ms. Robin M. Nazarro, Director
Natural Resources and Environment
United States General Accounting Office
441 G. Street NW, Room 2J27
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Nazarro:
The Commonwealth of Kentucky's Environmental and Public Protection
Cabinet (Cabinet) has received your draft report to Congressional
committees regarding the progress of environmental clean up at the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. I appreciate the opportunity for
review and input that GAO has afforded the Cabinet in the formulation
of this document.
The Cabinet finds the draft report to be a fair and accurate assessment
of both the progress at the site and the working relationship among
DOE, USEPA and the Cabinet since 2000. The taxpayers of the United
States and the stakeholders of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
deserve much better than the disputes and cleanup delays chronicled in
your report. Please know that a priority of this Cabinet is to work
effectively with DOE and USEPA to improve the working relationship
described in the draft report.
The Cabinet is encouraged by and agrees with GAO's recommendation that
DOE involve Kentucky and USEPA early in the development of both overall
cleanup plans and specific projects in order to resolve concerns and
reach timely consensus on cleanup decisions. The Cabinet also
recognizes
the merit of GAO's recommendation that DOE, in conjunction with
Kentucky and USEPA, identify external technical peer review groups with
environmental cleanup expertise who can facilitate timely resolution of
any future differences. To that end, I will direct my staff to explore
this recommendation with DOE and USEPA. Lastly in this regard, the
Cabinet believes that any peer review group so engaged should be free
of any contractual agreements with the agencies, beyond the agreement
necessary to conduct the peer review.
Attached please find specific comments on the draft report provided by
the Cabinet's Division of Waste Management. These comments are
primarily offered to clarify factual information in the draft report.
However, there are some comments, particularly pertaining to the burial
grounds at the PGDP that speak more broadly to the Cabinet's position
with regards to those areas.
I hope you will find this correspondence and the attached comments to
be helpful, and again I thank you for the opportunity to review and
provide input on this important document.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
LaJuana S. Wilcher:
Secretary:
LSW/arh:
c: Jessie Roberson, Assistant Secretary, DOE
Allen Barnes, USEPA Region IV
Anthony R. Hatton, KDWM:
Mike Welch, KDWM:
[End of section]
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Robin M. Nazzaro (202) 512-3841 Sherry L. McDonald (202) 512-8302:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individual named above, Nancy Crothers, Chris
Ferencik, Kerry Dugan Hawranek, and Kurt Kershow also made key
contributions to this report.
(360339):
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE's
Paducah Plan Faces Uncertainties and Excludes Costly Cleanup
Activities, GAO/RCED-00-96 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 28, 2000).
[2] H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-10, at 895 (2003).
[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Waste Cleanup: Preliminary
Observations on DOE's Cleanup of the Paducah Uranium Enrichment Plant,
GAO-04-278T (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 6, 2003).
[4] Prior to the Energy Policy Act of 1992, cleanup activities were
funded through the normal DOE budget process.
[5] According to the DOE site manager for Paducah, DMSAs and legacy
waste are not included in the draft 2004 site management plan in order
to provide the department flexibility in deciding how best to conduct
the overall cleanup.
[6] Final decontamination and decommissioning could begin shortly after
the plant ceases operations in approximately 2010 or be deferred to a
later date.
[7] Department of Energy, A Review of the Environmental Management
Program (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 4, 2002).
[8] The 2019 completion date represents completion of phase I of DOE's
proposed cleanup plan.
[9] The proposed cleanup approach is outlined in DOE's draft fiscal
year 2004 site management plan.
[10] Depleted uranium hexafluoride is typically stored in large steel
cylinders. Although there are different sized cylinders in use, most of
the cylinders contain 14 tons (12 metric tons) of uranium hexafluoride.
[11] Our earlier testimony stated that these costs, in addition to the
money already spent on the Paducah cleanup, would total over $13
billion. These preliminary results were represented in actual dollars.
Since then we have converted the estimated future costs to fiscal year
2002 constant dollars.
[12] DOE and Kentucky resolved this and other disputed violations in an
October 2003 settlement agreement. As part of the settlement, DOE
agreed to pay Kentucky $1 million.
[13] In its comment on this report, DOE provided updated information on
actions taken for the surface water and DMSA categories which we have
included in the report.
[14] A plume is defined as the area occupied by a groundwater
contaminant after it has begun to spread, through diffusion or other
forces, away from its point of origin.
[15] According to DOE, this estimate is based on the assumptions that
TCE was used at the site from 1953 to 1993 and that a fixed amount was
released to the ground each day. A high degree of uncertainty surrounds
this estimate, and the actual amount of TCE released cannot be
verified.
[16] DOE estimates that about 810,000 cubic feet of material and
equipment are stored in the 160 DMSAs at Paducah. About 180,000 cubic
feet of this volume is fixed equipment.
[17] Using permeable treatment barriers involves injecting a
gelatinous, gummy substance called guar gel into the aquifer (an
underground geological formation or group of formations that contain
water and a source of groundwater for wells and springs) to treat
groundwater as it flows through the treated area.
[18] According to DOE officials, Paducah currently has the largest TCE
contamination source in the United States. They speculate that if the
estimated 180,000 gallons of TCE contaminating the groundwater and
associated soil were left untreated, it could take 7,000 years for the
contamination to completely dissipate (attenuate) into the environment.
However, DOE contractor officials told us that if the TCE is treated
aggressively, complete attenuation could occur in roughly 700 years.
[19] DOE expects to request a 2.5 percent increase for inflation
annually.
[20] According to USEC's director of communications, for planning
purposes USEC assumes that the plant will be in operation until about
2010.
[21] Department of Energy, A Review of the Environmental Management
Program (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 4, 2002).
[22] National Research Council, Peer Review in the Department of
Energy--Office of Science and Technology: Interim Report (Washington,
D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997).
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