Agreement reached to cleanup water table around Paducah plant

[struggle4progress]

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday agreed to spend nearly $41 million to help clean up contaminated groundwater around the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.


The agreement signed between the state and two federal agencies requires the installation of a system to remove contamination caused by a cleaning solvent long used at the plant, where uranium has been enriched for atomic energy plants.

Design of the system will take 15 months. The system is expected to become operational in the fall of 2006 and will be active for several years.

Federal authorities learned in 1988 that pollution from the plant had leaked into aquifers and residential wells. The pollution included the degreaser trichloroethylene and technetium 99, a water-soluble radioactive contaminant. <snip>

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3701850


<edit>: Feds agree to spend $41 million on groundwater cleanup

FRANKFORT, Ky. The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday agreed to spend nearly 41 (M) million dollars to help clean up contaminated groundwater around the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The agreement signed between the state and two federal agencies requires the installation of a system to remove contamination caused by a cleaning solvent long used at the plant.

Uranium has been enriched for atomic energy plants in Paducah. <snip>

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3701773

[ridgerunner]

1. Fucking Lockhead Martin got us again

For Immediate Release
Monday, August 12, 2002


Grassley Looks Out for Taxpayers
Senator Questions Energy Department's Foot Dragging on Costs of Paducah Cleanup


WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Grassley says it's time for the Energy Department to make a formal recommendation in a dispute over who is responsible for more than $1 billion in cleanup costs at the uranium plant in Paducah, Kentucky, the site of some of the worst environmental contamination anywhere in the country.

Grassley asked the Secretary of Energy for extensive records of the agency's dealings with the Lockheed Martin Corporation to determine if the Energy Department has fully cooperated with the Justice Department in the pending case and if the Energy Department has been too cozy with the contractor.

http://grassley.senate.gov/releases/2002/p02r8-12a.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2003
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
CIV
[phone]
TDD [phone]


U.S. JOINS PADUCAH GASEOUS DIFFUSION PLANT SUIT
AGAINST LOCKHEED MARTIN



WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States is intervening in a lawsuit against Lockheed Martin Energy Systems for submitting false claims in connection with the operations of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky announced today.

The suit, originally filed in June 1999 by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an NRDC scientist and three plant employees, alleges that Energy Systems submitted false claims for millions of dollars while failing to store properly and dispose of radioactive and hazardous wastes. The company operated the plant for DOE from 1984 through 1998.

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/May/03_civ_316.htm

The DOE plans to clean up contaminated ground water, surface water, and soils associated with the site, to treat and dispose of buried wastes and the equivalent of 52,000 barrels of waste, as well as tear down two processing buildings.
The current plan may be hindered by not knowing the true extent and sources of contamination, the scheduled use of unproven/unsuitable remediation technologies, the assumed increases in the project's future funding, and uncertainties in EPA remediation levels that will need to be met.
The current plan does not include the cleanup of thousands of tons of scrap metal, depleted uranium, 16 unused buildings, and the removal of active buildings and equipment when the plant is eventually closed.
Jones closed by saying: "The Congress and stakeholders undoubtedly have expected that when the current cleanup plan has been accomplished, the site will be clean. It will not." When questioned about the most serious challenges facing the cleanup project, she added that the closure of the Portsmouth plant might divert funding from Paducah in the future. The current estimate is that the cleanup will cost $1.3 billion from FY 2000 through FY 2010, but Jones stated that remediation of the unscheduled areas along with other uncertainties could raise that figure to $3.5 billion.

http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis106/uranium.html