On June 12, 1997 Al Alm, U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, released for public comment a discussion draft of Accelerating Cleanup: Focus on 2006, a report proposing strategies to clean up as many contaminated Department of Energy sites as possible by 2006, including Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The national planning process is designed to accelerate cleanup, reduce overall costs and maintain DOE's commitment to meet federal and state regulations and compliance agreements. The discussion draft evaluates cleanup goals under two scenarios based on annual funding of $5.5 and $6.0 billion. Cost estimates to complete the cleanup range from $110 to $117 billion.
DOE has established a formal process to gather public comment on the discussion draft, including site-specific workshops and national and regional televideo conferences. The 90-day public comment period for the plan ends on September 9, 1997.
Submit written comments to: Gene Schmitt, U. S. Department of Energy, P.O.B. 44818, Washington, D.C. 20026-4481, or Caroline Polanish, DOE Site Manager/Environmental Management, P.O.B. 5000, Upton, NY 11973. For copies of the draft, call: Center for Environmental Management Information, 1-800-736-3282 or e-mail FocusOn2006@EM.DOE.GOV. Access the discussion draft on the "web" at http://www.em.doe.gov/acc2006/.
The completion of investigations of two areas of Brookhaven National Laboratory has been delayed while additional data are being collected and analyzed.
The Operable Unit III Remedial Investigation Report, focusing on groundwater contamination originating from the central portion of the Lab site, was originally scheduled to be available for public review and comment this spring. It has been delayed in order to incorporate data relating to the recently-discovered HFBR tritium plume and an underground collection tank (see story, page 5). The report is now expected to be released in early 1998.
The Operable Unit V Remedial Investigation Report, which focuses on the Peconic River and contamination in the area around the Lab's Sewage Treatment Plant, was originally scheduled to be available for public review and comment last fall. It has been delayed until late summer to address a N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation request for a bioaccumulation study of Peconic River fish, and a Peconic Estuary Program request for a river sediment study to help explain why metals found in river sediments are detected at lower than expected levels in fish collected at the same locations.
The two reports had been submitted for review to the regulatory agencies overseeing the Lab cleanup (U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation), but once these additional issues were raised, the decision was made to collect more data and revise and re-submit the reports.
This spring, the Environmental Restoration Division completed the remediation of two World War II-era waste settling tanks at the Lab's Sewage Treatment Plant.
Located in the northeast quadrant of the site, the Imhoff tanks were used between 1947 and 1967 for the separation of sewage solids from wastewater. After the tanks were abandoned in 1967, all access pipes leading in and out of the tanks were filled with concrete. In 1992 a roof was built over the tanks to minimize the accumulation of rain water.
In 1995 and 1996, 64,000 gallons of sludge containing some low levels of radioactive material were removed from the tanks, then shipped to an off-site, permitted waste disposal site. The remaining concrete structure was demolished in March 1997, and the area was backfilled with clean soil. The piping was removed from the tanks and is now being checked for contamination.
The Operable Unit V Imhoff Tanks Closeout Report, documenting the final work on this project, will be included in the more comprehensive Operable Unit V Remedial Investigation Report, expected to be available this fall at the Lab's information repositories (for locations, see page 11).