Scientists Advocate New DOE Policy to Avoid Environmentally Destructive Remediation

3/22/2004

Scientists from Argonne's Environmental Assessment Division (EAD) joined with colleagues at Colorado State University and the University of Georgia, writing in the journal Science, to advocate a recent environmental management policy by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The "risk-based end states" policy calls for sites contaminated by activities of the Cold War era to define expected end states and reflect actual plans for future use, to frame more appropriate cleanup decisions. These end states are simply the conditions that will exist when the cleanup is done. Many sites expect to continue operating as federal research facilities. By encouraging a stronger consideration of realistic risks in determining cleanup needs based on planned (versus unlikely) future use, the policy will help protect many natural areas from needless damage.

This emphasis represents a change from past practice for the Department's environmental management program, which has already spent more than $70 billion and could ultimately top $300 billion. Across the DOE complex, roughly 10% of the combined 2 million acres has been used for science and technology activities. The remainder essentially serves as buffer zones, which support thriving ecosystems established during 50 years of protection from human disturbance. These natural areas contrast sharply with adjacent private lands that have been highly fragmented by increasing urbanization and agricultural use. The authors emphasize that the focus of the paper is not on concentrated wastes in tanks, drums, and burial grounds in industrial areas of these sites, for which the need for active management is obvious. Rather, it deals with environmental contamination - the radionuclides and chemicals found at relatively low levels in water and soil - for which the need is not clear.

Those cleanups have historically been founded on protecting highly unlikely future residents who are assumed to move on-site and grow gardens and drink from wells. Because of conservative assumptions underlying these hypothetical analyses, very low levels of environmental contamination have been removed from sites without clear justification. This has involved unnecessary excavation with transport and disposal elsewhere, which has damaged the environment and put workers at risk from construction-related accidents. More importantly, in many cases the levels of contamination have not been shown to harm plants, animals, or humans. Thus, a number of environmental cleanups have adversely affected workers and the environment with no actual risk-reduction basis or benefit to public health.

According to the authors, one approach to solving the problem of unreasonably restrictive cleanup criteria would be Congressional action that ensures continuing Federal control of certain sites, thereby eliminating the hypothetical resident scenario. This would also allow time for natural processes to exert their effects. Hazards at sites with short-lived isotopes such as tritium will be significantly reduced within several decades simply through radioactive decay, and environmental processes such as sequestration will also continue to reduce risks over time. Preserving such areas through federal control would benefit wildlife, biodiversity and regional air and water quality.

The authors encourage DOE's pursuit of cleanup decisions based on sound risk analyses that reflect actual site conditions, because this will protect humans and spare valuable ecosystems from unnecessary damage, as well as saving billions of taxpayer dollars. The paper reflects insights gained from nearly 20 years of EAD technical risk support to the Department's cleanup program, incorporated in recommendations from an environmental risk workshop co-sponsored by Argonne and the DOE Center for Risk Excellence in 2001, and collaboration with university colleagues whose field research at these sites spans many decades. In fact, DOE has long aimed to strengthen the role of science and achieve sensible decisions for its environmental program through such research. However, that aim has been thwarted by common risk perceptions and misconceptions among oversight groups and the public, as well as pressures from those with vested interests in continuing traditional large-scale excavation and pump-and-treat projects that do little to reduce real risks. Implementing this DOE policy with realistic, scientific risk analyses that consider both health and the environment can lead to better decisions, and the authors encourage sustained momentum toward the shared goal of cleanups that achieve genuine overall protection.

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Citation: Whicker, F.W.¹, T.G. Hinton², M.M. MacDonell³, J.E. Pinder III¹, L.J. Habegger³, Avoiding Destructive Remediation at DOE Sites, Science, 303:1615-1616, March 12, 2004.

¹Colorado State University, ²University of Georgia, ³Argonne National Laboratory

For more information, contact:

Margaret MacDonell (630)252-3243 macdonell@anl.gov