FEATURE
U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Shows Signs of Progress REBECCA RENNER
Department of Energy plans promise to speed cleanups, but concerns about reducing risks remain.
T
he U.S. Department of Energy's program for dealing with the radioactive and hazardous wastes at its former nuclear weapons production sites and at the national laboratories has been criticized for its expense and slow pace of cleanup {1-4). The largest environmental restoration and waste management program in the world faces formidable technical and scientific problems and these, according to numerous investigative committees and commissions, have been compounded by poor management, misuse of technology, and failure to appreciate the need for new basic scientific knowledge to solve many of the cleanup problems. In the past three years, DOE's Office of Environmental Management (EM), often spurred by congressional action, has begun to trim costs and accomplish more. New measures have been introduced to improve contract efficiency, better utilize existing remediation technologies, renegotiate compliance agreements, and begin basic research. Environmental Management Assistant Undersecretary Alvin Aim, appointed in May 1996, is seeking to solidify these changes into an ambitious plan to clean up most of DOE's 130 sites by 2006. But there are widespread doubts that EM has the money, skill, and will to turn itself around. There are also concerns that, in the name of efficiency and economy, EM may be negotiating lower cleanup standards and postponing some difficult cleanup tasks. EM is responsible for managing the nuclear weapons complex, which includes more than 120 million square feet of buildings and facilities and 2.3 million acres of land that were used for the research, production, and testing of nuclear weapons (2). The department's cleanup challenge is huge in scope, with contaminated sites in 34 states and territories. There are more than 100 million gallons of radioactive and mixed waste stored in 322 tanks, 3 million cubic meters of radioactive or hazardous buried wastes, 250 million cubic meters of contaminated soils, and more than 600 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater. On the basis of the use of existing technologies and cleanup approaches, DOE estimated in 1996 that cleaning up the sites would cost $189 billion to $265 billion over 75 years (5). Of this total, DOE estimated that $111 billion will be spent for waste management, $63 billion for environmental restoration, $21 billion for nuclear material and facility stabilization, and $12 billion for science and technology development. But even this estimate is not the final
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price tag: It does not include costs for problems that have not been adequately characterized, such as how to separate and dispose of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste. When DOE created the Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management in 1989, since renamed the Office of Environmental Management, the office inherited a vast, disorganized mess. Disposal practices for radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes from the start of the Manhattan Project of World War II, with the exception of high-level waste, consisted of shallow burial, injection underground, the use of cribs or setding ponds, or direct release to rivers and streams (i). Until 1984, DOE maintained that it was exempt from compliance with the bulk of environmental legislation. But 3. successful court C3.se and subsequent legislation forced the agency to acknowledge that it was responsible for compliance. Amendments to major pieces of federal environmental legislation now explicitly require DOE compliance But the department found that it was far behind industry in EPA compliance In addition much of the states' environmental legislation is binding on DOE but it is not always consistent with federal rules A poor track record EM has, until the past few years, accomplished little, according to many government reports. A General Accounting Office review concluded that although "DOE has received about $23 billion for environmental management since 1989 . . . little cleanup has resulted" (3). A1994 Congressional Budget Office Study stated that DOE "has been criticized for inefficiency and inaction in its cleanup efforts . . . and has been severely criticized because of the small amount of visible cleanup that has been accomplished" (4). A 1995 report by the Galvin Commission (i) on the future of DOE's laboratories described the management behavior that generated essentially no results. "Its symptoms are an unwillingness to alter familiar behavior patterns, to stick with unproductive or failing procedures, to enhance tendencies for excessive resource allocation and regulation, and to oppose innovation. It is an important element in sustaining unproductive patterns of work." Over the past three years, largely under the direction of former EM head Thomas Grumbly, things have begun to change. According to the 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report (5), a congressionally mandated annual status report on the cleanup program, EM improved the efficiency of its contractors, resulting in a reduction in personnel of 17% or 17,000. Performance-based contracts were introduced, and compliance agreements renegotiated with the involvement of community groups and site staff saved, more than $1 billion as of 1996. New ten-year cleanup plan Last July, Aim introduced his Ten-Year Plan to continue this improvement and reduce as much of the risk and maintenance costs as possible by completing work at sites as soon as possible. The plan provides guidance to site managers to help them develop innovative, more efficient approaches to
The Department of Energy's nationwide cleanup With more than 130 sites in 34 states and territories, DOE's cleanup is expected to cost up to $265 billion and take more than 75 years (5). The majority of the contamination from the nation's nuclear weapons complex is located in five large sites.
Source: DOE Environmental Restoration Program.
remediation. These include directing money away from characterization studies and toward cleanups, centralizing and consolidating nuclear waste management, and negotiating less stringent cleanup standards. Caretaker activities, such as surveillance and maintenance, which contribute nothing toward cleaning up the weapons complex, cost close to $4 billion a year, Aim explained in a recent interview with ES&T. Reducing these emortgage" "osts, aa they are labeled by DOE, is the rationale behind the Ten-Year Plan. Aim's appointment brings him back to DOE, where he served as the first assistant secretary of energy of policy and evaluation when the department was created in 1977. He men moved to EPA, where he was deputy administrator from 1983 to 1985, before becoming an environmental consultant. From 1989 until his appointment, he was vice-president for environmental business at Science Applications International Corporation, McLean, Va. Aim, former co-chair of the Environmental Management Advisory Board, credits Grumbly with beginning die EM turnaround and said that he wants to continue Grumbly's goals and directions. Aim acknowledged Grumbly's contribution in a speech last August. "Over the last three years, the EM program has made significant progress in accelerating cleanup schedules, increasing efficiency, and working more cooperatively with our regulators and other stakeholders." Aim is building on these improvements with the Ten-Year Plan and the EM Science Program. In 1995 Congress, concerned by DOE's failure to invest in basic research, directed the department to initiate a $50 million research program this past year. "With the Ten-Year Plan we first want to clean to die point where we reduce the risk and stabilize sites. This reduces the 'mortgage' costs and generates a dividend that can be spent on further cleanup," said Aim. VOL. 31, NO. 3, 1997 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 3 5 A
"After ten years we will still have problems, including what to do about high-level nuclear waste, pump-andtreat sites, dense nonaqueous-phase liquids, and how to isolate longlived radioactive materials. These are problems of concern to the Science Program." However, many groups who work with EM have doubts about whether these and other reforms can achieve far-reaching changes. "Upper manEnvironmental Management Assistant Underagement has a new visecretary Alvin Aim, appointed in May 1996, sion, but the line staff hopes to continue DOE cleanup progress made take quite a while to by his predecessor, Thomas Grumbly. Aim's plan change," according to to complete most of the cleanup by 2006 has drawn praise and criticism. David Shorr director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Shorr characterized the state's experience with EM as mixed "We have one exceptional project and one detestable one." Until last year, he said, one Missouri site was "a dismal mess. Not only was there inaction, but there was also a terrible waste of resources. Money was being spent for endless studies. Recent events have been very positive, but I think that it will be difficult to change the work philosophy within the ranks." But Aim said that current activity at sites like Rocky Flats, Colo., is demonstrating the potential of EM's strategy. In July, after three years of negotiations between DOE, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and EPA, an agreement was signed to expedite cleanup at the site. The agreement sets deadlines for removal of fissile materials from the sites and addresses cleanup standards for water, soil, and buildings. It also streamlines the regulatory process by establishing cleanup milestones and delineates the regulatory responsibilities between EPA and the state. The agreement was praised by Aim, who said, "Rocky Flats is setting a standard for other DOE facilities in getting the job done within 10 years." It was labeled a "landmark agreement" by Fred Hansen, deputy administrator at EPA, who added that, "Many of the concepts incorporated in this agreement are being used as models in other federal facility agreements and in national guidance." Regulatory responsibility at the site is divided between EPA, Colorado, and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. However, the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board is concerned that the cleanup standards included in the cifijreement which tire being used to speed up the first steps toward cleaning the site, might become the final standards for the site "We are concerned that in its quest to be done with Rocky Flats in 10 years the Department will leave an 'administratively clean' site that does not meet the community's definition of clean " said chair Tom Marshall Community groups are also concerned about 1 3 6 A • VOL. 3 1 , NO. 3, 1997 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
DOE's poor track record and are skeptical of the TenYear Plan. The Military Production Network (MPN), a coalition of nuclear waste watchdog groups, gave DOE "bad grades" for its cleanup efforts in a report published in January (6). MPN gave the department "Ds" for cleanups over the past four years under former energy secretary Hazel O'Leary. According to MPN, DOE has tried to weaken cleanup standards and undermine regulations that force the agency to comply with environmental laws. Funding for cleanups was also cut, the report claims. Although it welcomes the Ten-Year Plan's promise of faster, more efficient cleanups" MPN is skeptical because of DOE's record to date. In a December 1996 letter to Aim, MPN stated that "there is little opportunity for meaningful input from community groups to the first draft of Ten-Year plans. " The coalition is concerned about stakeholder involvement, regulatory compliance, changing cleanup standards, and assumptions about future land use. The coalition points out that EM guidance for sites preparing Ten-Year Plans advises them to consider "optimum regulatory flexibility," but some sites have developed plans that violate existing agreements. For example, the new plan for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assumes a 25-ppb standard for total volatile organic compounds in groundwater, rather than 5 ppb as stated in the Record of Decision. The issue of cleanup levels "has become purely political," according to Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Takoma Park, Md., and a long-time DOE observer. "Since EPA has failed to set any standards for the cleanup of radioactive materials, what happens at each site is not based on technical issues, environmental or health issues, but is purely related to competing pressure from interested groups," he said. Although acknowledging the lack of 3. national standard, DOE and EPA officials maintain that the sitespecific risk assessments carried out at DOE sites are preferable to any national standard. Concerns about future land use Community groups are also concerned that EM is too quick to restrict future land uses in order to justify cheaper, less stringent cleanups. The Ten-Year Plan also looks to achieve savings by shipping waste from sites for centralized treatment and storage. But the Military Production Network notes that interstate transportation of radioactive waste may prove so unpopular that it is infeasible. Also overly optimistic, according to the coalition, are EM's predictions for improvements in contractor efficiency and the use of new technology, a view shared by Gene Peters of CleanSites, a Virginiabased consulting firm, who specializes in the use of innovative technology. EM has a good program for introducing promising innovative technologies, he said but it accounts for only a few cleanups. "Innovative technologies could be used at many of EM's sites and would save money in the long run. But the initial capital investment is high," Peters said. This would require substantial additional funding, he said. The savings of time and funding hoped for in the Ten-Year Plan are largely the result of targeting
cleanup standards to uses other than residential or agricultural, and decisions about nuclear waste storage. "These changes have been talked about for a long time," said one veteran DOE staffer commenting on the plan. "But Aim is really serious. He has pushed the Ten-Year Plan, and he is not backing down. Things are happening, and it is obvious in money, people, and programs. He is pushing hard."
Initial investment in basic science With a strategy in place for reducing costs in the short term, the Environmental Management Science Program aims to tap basic research to generate new knowledge that will lead to less costly, more innovative cleanup technologies in the future, according to Aim. Right now, as part of the Ten-Year Plan to expedite remediation, EM has a program to find ways to take advantage of cleanup technologies that are currently at the demonstration stage. EM also anticipates that applied research based on existing scientific knowledge will continue to generate new technologies to improve cleanup strategies over the next five to 10 years. But Aim also recognizes that the basic scientific knowledge for tackling many of EM's responsibilities is lacking. The EM Science Program is looking for the breakthroughs to solve those problems, he said. Such problems are found at all levels of EM's cleanup task, from handling high-level nuclear waste to analyzing the composition of some of the thousands of hazardous mixtures at the sites. Frank Parker, an engineer at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who chairs Aim's new science advisory panel, said the task of fostering breakthrough research is more art than science. "The best prescription we have is to get the best people, give them the toughest problems, provide littie interference, and ensure stable funding." Parker's panel took over from a National Research Council committee mat had been advising Aim on the program. But the 1997 EM Science Program budget indicates that stable funding may prove difficult within a restricted DOE budget. Last year, in the first year of the program, DOE promised to fund 138 threeyear projects for a total of $112 million (7). But only $47 million was funded in 1996. The remaining $65 million mu$f come from future EM Science Program budgets. In fact, $23 million of the 1997 funds has already been committed to funding 1996 projects, leaving just $20 million for new research. In an Oct. 8 letter to Carol Henry, who manages the program within EM, the National Research Council committee described this commitment as "a significant challenge to the future viability of the program." More money is desirable, said Henry, but constraints on the total DOE budget are the limiting factor for science program funds. In addition, she said, the $20 million in new funds should be seen as part of a total cumulative program funding of $132 million, a substantial research program. Overall, recent developments indicate that EM is headed in the right direction, but questions remain about how far it will be able to travel down this road. Innovative technologies are expensive to implement in an era of static or diminished funding. Some community groups fear that the Ten-Year Plan is an attempt to cut and run instead of a bold commitment to ac-
Rocky Flats: From mistrust to cleanup model The recent agreement on the cleanup of the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver is an indication of how much improvement has been made in EM operations and management, according to Rocky Flats spokesperson Patrick Etchart. The site has a legacy of mistrust dating back to 1989, when it was raided by EPA and the FBI following charges of criminal violations of environmental laws. A "temporary" shutdown that followed the raid lasted until 1993. A former nuclear weapons facility, the 6550-acre site began operation in 1952. The site holds the biggest stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium in the United States (more than 14 tons), as well as numerous contaminated buildings, facilities, and surface hot spots. Today, Rocky Flats is a National Priority List site under Superfund. The Rocky Flats cleanup budget peaked at more than $700 million in 1994. The budget for 1995 was $573 million. Stabilizing the nuclear materials and placing them in safe storage is the top priority. Activities currently under way include draining tanks and pipes containing plutonium-bearing solutions, venting waste drums and tanks that have dangerous buildups of hydrogen gas, and repackaging metal parts and raw materials. There is also soil and groundwater contamination at the site, and plutonium contamination has been found off-site. Rocky Flats was already analyzing the consequences of various accelerated cleanup scenarios and so had a head start on the Ten-Year Plan process. The Rocky Flats plan assumes that a new vault will be built for interim plutonium storage and that much of the nuclear waste will be shipped off site. There is strong community support to safely store the radioactive materials, build a new plutonium storage vault, and decommission the site buildings. But other strategies are more controversial. In August, the regulatory agencies agreed to set interim soil cleanup levels based on a dose of 15 millirems per year to a person on site. Acknowledging community concerns, the regulators have agreed to review these action levels each year. —R. R.
tion. The plan is still largely a list of proposals, and it is too soon to judge its success. As one state regulator said, "To succeed, the plan must quickly show some concrete results. By the end of 1997 we should know whether it's real or rhetoric."
References (1) U.S. Department of Energy. Alternattve Futures for the Department ofEnergy National Laboratories; Prepared by the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (Galvin Commission). Department of Energy: Washington, DC, 1995. (2) U.S. Department of Energy. Closing the Circle on the Splitting of the Atom: The Environmental Legacy yf Nuclear Weapons Production in the United States and What the Department of Energy Is Doing About tt, Deparrment of Energy Office of Environmental Management: Washington, DC, 1995. (3) General Accounting Office. DOE Needs to Expand Use of Cleanup Technologies; GAO/RCED-94-94 (4) Congressional Budget Office. Cleaning Up the Department of Energy's Nuclear Weapons Complex; The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, May 1994. (5) U.S. Department of Energy. "The 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report"; Office of Environmental Management: Washington, DC, 1996; DOE/EM-0290. (6) Military Production Network. "The Department of Energy's Bridge to the 21st Century: Path to Peace or Road to Ruin?"; Military Production Network: Washington, DC, 1997. (7) Renner, R. Environ. Sci. Technol. 1996, 30, 431A. Rebecca Renner is a contributing editor of ES&T. VOL. 31, NO. 3, 1997 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 3 7 A
