Waste disposition plan approved

By Wayne Allen

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The United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced late Tuesday that plans have been approved for waste disposition at the DOE Portsmouth site.

In 2014, Fluor-B&W Portsmouth and area officials were encouraging members of the community make comments on proposed disposition plans. The plans discussed various ways that more than two million cubic yards of generated waste from Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) work could be disposed. By the time the public comment period ended thousands of comments were received.

According to released information, the plan calls for a combination of on- and off-site waste disposition and the construction of a 100-acre on-site Waste Disposal Facility in the northeast corner of the DOE reservation in Piketon.

In recent years, President Barack Obama included increased funding for D&D contractor Fluor-B&W Portsmouth to oversee the construction of an on-site disposal facility. In previous interviews, Dennis Carr, Fluor-B&W Site project director, said Fluor-B&W Portsmouth has been working with the EPA on Records of Decision (ROD) regarding a cleanup path.

“The issuance of this ROD marks an important milestone in the PORTS D&D Project as it brings to conclusion a more than three-year effort to support and technically underpin an analysis of the available disposal options,” Carr said in a released statement. “It puts in place the most important remaining puzzle piece in the final definition of the scope of the D&D project.”

The Waste Disposition ROD allows the compliant on-site disposal of all waste materials generated from the cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant that meet the waste acceptance criteria approved by Ohio EPA for the facility. Waste not meeting the requirements will be shipped from the plant for compliant disposal at appropriate, off-site federal or commercial disposal facilities. Recycling of waste materials from non-radiological areas is also considered in the decision.

For more information about Fluor-B&W Portsmouth visit, www.fbportsmouth.com.

Wayne Allen can be reached at 740-353-3101 ext.1933 or on Twitter @WayneallenPDT

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