DOE Scopes Long-Term Stewardship study

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

At many Defense Department sites, cleaning property to levels that are
suitable for unrestricted use is difficult. "Remediated" property often
contains serious levels of contamination, and long-term management is
necessary to protect people and/or the natural environment.

At nuclear weapons production sites now controlled by the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE), the problem is even greater. While much of
the contamination at Energy Department sites is similar to that found at
military bases - solvent plumes, fuel spills, landfills, and even
unexploded ordnance - they also contain difficult-to-address
radionuclides. Many of those substances are almost impossible to render
harmless, so they will require attention not just for decades, but for
generations. 

Protecting the public and the environment from exposure to all forms
contamination, in the long run, is known as "long-term stewardship." It
is defined as "the physical controls, institutions, information, and
other mechanisms needed to ensure protection of people and the
environment at sites where DOE has completed or plans to complete
'cleanup' (e.g. landfill closures, remedial actions, removal actions,
and facility stabilization). The concept of long-term stewardship
includes, inter alia, land-use controls, monitoring, maintenance, and
information management."

Under a legal settlement between DOE and 39 environmental and community
group, DOE has promised to conduct a  study of long-term stewardship to
"inform decision-makers and the public about the long-term stewardship
issues and challenges facing DOE, and the potential options for
addressing those issues." While the study will focus specifically on
Department of Energy facilities and policy, much of it should be
relevant to the long-term management of sites being addressed under the
Defense Department's environmental restoration programs.

DOE published a notice of the study in the October 6, 1999, Federal
Register (pp. 54279-81). Following a scoping process similar to that
used for environmental impact studies, the Energy Department will accept
comments on the scope of the study through January 4, 2000. DOE will
publish information on the study of long-term stewardship as it becomes
available, on the worldwide web at http://www.em.doe.gov/lts.

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org