[CPEO-MEF] FORMER SITES, RADIATION: GAO says FUSRAP cleanup "has risen nearly $1 billion since 2016"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Cleanup cost for nuclear contamination sites has risen nearly $1 billion since 2016, report says

By JIM SALTER AND MICHAEL PHILLIS  
ASSOCIATED PRESS 
October 17, 2023

ST. LOUIS — The estimated future cost to clean up 19 sites contaminated by nuclear waste from the Cold War era has risen by nearly $1 billion in the past seven years, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The GAO report urges the Army Corps of Engineers to improve management practices for cleaning up contaminated sites under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, or FUSRAP. The recommendations include improved planning so resources can be better shared among sites and developing more comprehensive cost estimates.

Officials say inflation is partly to blame for the cost increase, along with uncertainties about the cleanup. The report found that four sites with “complicated cleanup remedies or large amounts of contamination” are responsible for about three-fourths of the cost increase. Two of those sites are in New York state — one near Niagara Falls and one in Lockport. The others are in Armstrong County, Pa., and in the St. Louis area.


For the GAO report, go to 
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105968

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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