United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2000-04-28 monographic deposited born digital 50 p. GA 1.13:RCED-00-96 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96 P0b002ee18039fb22 f:rc00096 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96 RCED-00-96 Nuclear waste management Radioactive waste disposal Radioactive pollution Strategic planning Occupational safety Obsolete facilities Industrial facilities Uranium Water pollution control Paducah (KY) EPA National Priorities List Letter Report RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) Paducah plant cleanup plan, focusing on: (1) the planned activities, cost, and schedule DOE has for cleaning up the site; (2) the challenges that exist in accomplishing the current cleanup plan; and (3) whether the cleanup plan includes all areas at the site requiring cleanup.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) DOE's plan for addressing the contamination at the Paducah site focuses on six major cleanup categories; (2) four of these address the physical contamination on the site: (a) groundwater; (b) surface water; (c) soils; and (d) buried waste; (3) two other major categories of cleanup work include treating and disposing of the equivalent of about 52,000 barrels of waste stored on site and decontaminating and removing two unused, contaminated uranium process buildings; (4) the cleanup plan includes cost and schedule estimates for characterizing the contamination in each cleanup category and for using technologies to treat, remove, and dispose of the contamination; (5) the current plan estimates the cost of completing the cleanup at $1.3 billion from fiscal years 2000 through 2010; (6) DOE faces many challenges to completing its cleanup as planned; (7) uncertainties about the extent, source, and nature of contamination yet to be cleaned up could affect the cleanup plan; (8) DOE also faces several technical risks, including the planned use of technologies that are unproven or perhaps not well suited to the site's conditions; (9) also underpinning the plan are assumptions that annual federal funding will increase to an average of $124 million through 2010; (10) if the planned increase in funding does not occur, the project could take longer to complete; (11) these issues make it uncertain that DOE will be able to accomplish the cleanup within its estimated timeframe and cost; (12) even when the planned cleanup has been carried out, billions of dollars and many years will be needed to address areas at the Paducah site that are not in the cleanup plan; (13) four areas at the site that will need cleaning up are: (a) large amounts of waste and scrap materials; (b) various unused buildings and structures; (c) thousands of tons of depleted uranium; and (d) the buildings and equipment that are now being used in the enrichment process but that will have to be cleaned up when the plant closes; (14) the additional materials, buildings, and structures are excluded from the cleanup plan because they fall under the purview of a different departmental program; and (15) according to the DOE official responsible for these areas, they are not in the cleanup plan because DOE is hesitant to transfer any more areas to the Office of Environmental Management, which already has a large workload and limited funding for cleanup. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96.pdf GAO/RCED-00-96 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-96 Letter Report GAO/RCED-00-96; Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE's Paducah Plan Faces; Nuclear waste management Radioactive waste disposal Radioactive pollution Strategic planning Occupational safety Obsolete facilities Industrial facilities Uranium Water pollution control Paducah (KY) EPA National Priorities List