Continued Piketon plant demolition work gets OK

PIKETON – The second of two Records of Decision regarding decontamination and decommissioning work on the Department of Energy site in Piketon was issued this week favoring continued demolition of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The move announced by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy comes as little surprise as there were only two options for moving forward being considered. One involved not doing any more work on the process buildings and complex facilities on the site, leaving them standing without any future cleanup. The second involved going forward with demolition work on the process buildings, which are each about 30 acres in size.

“These are some of the largest buildings ever constructed,” said William Murphie, manager of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. “Their size and function during production years make decontamination and decommissioning of this plant a complicated endeavor.”

The plan including the two options was put forward in November and included a four-month public comment period and a public meeting. According to the Department of Energy, several hundred comments were reviewed.

The first option, to do nothing, was determined to create a risk to human health and the environment. The approved option includes the controlled removal of stored waste, materials, hazards, process gas equipment and process piping, as well as demolition of the buildings that were part of the Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility.

The plan also allows for installed portions of the infrastructure that could be used to reindustrialize the site to remain and for materials that could be safely recycled for reuse to be preserved.

The first Record of Decision that was approved recently calls for creation of an on-site waste disposal facility that would deal with more than two million cubic yards of waste from the decontamination and decommissioning work deemed acceptable for storage on the site with more contaminated material sent off-site for disposal.

While the two Records of Decision have helped chart a vision for moving forward with cleanup, lobbying continues to ensure that enough funding will be available to keep the project on track. Earlier this week, the Pike County commissioners sent a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Shaun Donovan of the Office of Management and Budget on behalf of commissioners from Pike, Ross, Scioto and Jackson counties and labor unions affiliated with work expressing disappointment with funding figures in the 2016 budget and with a recent decision regarding a reduction in the barter program that provides the bulk of the project’s funding.

Lobbying efforts both from those locally with a stake in work continuing uninterrupted and from members of Ohio’s congressional delegation has been ongoing since a last-minute influx of funds for 2015 work was appropriated by Congress late last year, staving off hundreds of potential layoffs. Officials for Fluor B&W Portsmouth, the lead site contractor for the work, have indicated they cannot comment on the budget for 2016 work at this time.