The U.S. Department of Energy Welcomes You to the Portsmouth Site
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The U.S. Department of Energy Welcomes You to the Portsmouth Site 2 SITE OVERVIEW The Site’s CurrentCurrent SiteSite OperationsOperations Changing Mission The DOE Portsmouth site (PORTS) is located in Pike County, Ohio, in south central Ohio approximately 20 miles north of the city of Portsmouth, Ohio. PORTS was one of three large gaseous diffusion plants initially constructed in the 1950s to produce enriched uranium to support the nation’s nuclear weapons program and later enriched uranium used by commercial nuclear reactors. Decades of uranium enrichment included the use of special industrial chemicals and materials. Plant operations generated hazardous, radioactive, mixed (both hazardous and radioactive), and nonchemical (sanitary) wastes. Past operations also resulted in soil, groundwater, and contamination at several sites located within plant boundaries. Today, several missions are under way at the site including decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of inactive and unneeded facilities, environmental remediation, depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion (DUF6), as well as uranium enrichment activities through Centrus Energy Corp’s American Centrifuge Plant (ACP). DOE OFFICE OF EM 3 MISSIONMISSION The extensive environmental through the American Centrifuge Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC, are cleanup program began in 1989 Technology Demonstration and performing environmental cleanup of as a result of a Consent Decree Operations project, operated by the plant to remove contamination signed between DOE and the state Centrus Energy Corp. for UT-Battelle so the land can be used for new of Ohio and an Administrative LLC, operator of DOE’s Oak Ridge purposes by DOE or the community. Consent Order with DOE and the U.S. National Laboratory (ORNL). Nearly 1,900 workers are part of this Environmental Protection Agency. More than five decades of massive undertaking that will take Multiple missions are carried out at uranium enrichment operations at decades to complete. the site including decontamination the former Portsmouth Gaseous Three major projects encompass and decommissioning (D&D) of Diffusion Plant generated millions of the majority of the site’s cleanup inactive and unneeded facilities, cubic yards of waste and resulted in mission: decontamination environmental remediation and some soil, groundwater, and surface and decommissioning, waste depleted uranium hexafluoride water contamination within the management and environmental conversion (DUF6), as well as plant’s boundary. remediation. uranium enrichment activities DOE and its D&D contractor, Portsmouth/PaducahPortsmouth/Paducah ProjectProject OfficeOffice The U.S. Department of Energy project. maintains a strong presence at the (DOE) established the Portsmouth/ The Lexington, Kentucky Office sites on a daily basis through the Paducah Project Office (PPPO) on opened in January 2004, and is Portsmouth and Paducah Operations October 1, 2003, to provide focused located mid-way between the Oversight Groups. The PPPO goal is leadership to the Environmental Kentucky and Ohio facilities. This to accelerate the site cleanup at the Management missions at the centralized location allows the DOE Portsmouth and Paducah Gaseous Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Lexington Office Manager frequent Diffusion Plants, eliminating potential Kentucky Gaseous Diffusion Plants and routine site interactions with environmental threats, reducing the as well as the Depleted Uranium both the Portsmouth and Paducah DOE footprint at each of the sites, Hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion sites’ operations. Additionally, DOE and reducing life-cycle cost. 4 DOE OFFICE OF EM Focus Areas EnvironmentalFocus Remediation distribution.Areas contains both DOE is performing cleanup of hazardous groundwater plumes contaminated Waste and radioactive primarily with the degreasing solvent Management components; and trichloroethene (TCE), which was DOE manages sanitary waste. used during production years to clean the safe disposition More than process equipment used to enrich of waste generated 1.3 million cubic yards uranium. More than 680 million during the plant’s uranium of waste is expected to be gallons of groundwater from four on- enrichment operations as well as generated from future D&D at the site plumes have been treated and are building debris, contaminated soil, Portsmouth Site. Some of this waste managed by pump and treat and slurry and other materials generated during may be disposed of in a proposed wall technology. A fifth plume is being the D&D and environmental cleanup. engineered, lined and monitored onsite treated by phytoremediation using Approximately 581 million pounds disposal facility. As part of the D&D planted hybrid poplar trees. of total waste have been shipped/ effort to date, about three-fourths disposed offsite to date. of process gas equipment has been Decontamination and The plant’s waste streams removed from one of the large process Decommissioning include solid and liquid radioactive buildings that together cover nearly DOE is responsible for the materials; hazardous wastes such as 100 acres. This waste is being shipped decontamination and decommissioning toxic, corrosive, reactive or ignitable offsite to approved facilities. (D&D) of 415 facilities and structures materials; mixed waste, which that supported uranium enrichment operations at the Portsmouth Gaseous Table of Contents Diffusion Plant for more than 50 Table of Contents Page 19 . .Regulatory Agreement years. More than 700,000 square 2 . Site Overview 20 . D&D Operations feet of buildings, including 36 inactive 3 . DOE Office of EM 21 . D&D Operations facilities, have been demolished, 4 . DOE Office of EM 22 . D&D Operations eliminating contamination sources, 5 . Site Overview 23 . D&D Operations improving worker safety, and reducing 6 . .Site Interfaces 24 . D&D Operations surveillance and maintenance costs. 7 . Timeline 25 . .Asset Recovery The gaseous diffusion plant at 8 . Timeline 26 . .DUF6 Conversion Plant Portsmouth includes three massive 9 . Timeline 27 . Centrus Energy Corp. process buildings that house the 10 . .Timeline 28 . Public Involvement gaseous diffusion process equipment 11 . Informational Ad 29 . .Community Involvement and span an area the size of 158 12 . Environmental Cleanup 30 . .Education Outreach football fields. The plant also includes 13 . Environmental Cleanup 31 . .Education Outreach various support structures that provide 14 . Environmental Cleanup 32 . PORTS Virtual Museum feed and transfer operations and site 15 . Environmental Cleanup services such as maintenance, steam This informational booklet has been 16 . Environmental Cleanup generation, cleaning, process heat produced for the U.S. Department of 17 . ARRA Work Energy by the Fluor-B&W Public Affairs removal, electrical power distribution, 18 . ARRA Work department (2015). and water supply, storage and SITE 0VERVIEW 5 SITESITE LOCATIONLOCATION && SURROUNDINGSURROUNDING COUNTIESCOUNTIES The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) former corporation named Centrus Energy Corp. Centrus is Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (GDP) was built near headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Piketon, Ohio between 1952-56 as the last of three plants constructed to enrich uranium for the nation’s nuclear The plant operated to produce low-enriched uranium defense program and later for commercial nuclear (about 3 to 5 percent enriched Uranium-235) for use in reactors. It is located on a 3,777-acre federal reservation commercial nuclear power plants until May 11, 2001 in south central Ohio, about 75 miles when Centrus ceased enrichment directly south of Columbus, and The DOE facility in Piketon operations at the Portsmouth facility. employs approximately 2,600 workers. is the largest employer in That year, the plant was placed in Pike County, which has a interim Cold Standby for potential Highly enriched uranium production restart within 24 months, if needed. At was suspended in 1991 following the population of approximately the end of FY 2005, DOE determined end of the Cold War. In July 1993, the 27,000 residents. the plant would not be restarted production facilities were leased by and facilities were placed into cold DOE to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), shutdown. DOE awarded a contract in August 2010 to which was created by Congress under the Energy Policy Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC for the Decontamination and Act of 1992. In July 1998, USEC was privatized through an Decommissioning (D&D) of the GDP facilities. Initial Public Offering and is now operating as a private 6 SITE INTERFACES U.S. Department of Energy Washington, D.C. DOE Environmental Management DOE RSI Oak Ridge Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Office Environmental Technical Services Wastren-EnergX Fluor-B&W B&W Mission Support Portsmouth Conversion Services Facility Support D&D and Remediation DUF Services 1,900 employees 6 170 employees and subcontractors 180 employees Site Responsibilities Centrus Energy DOE Environmental Management Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Corp. • D&D of gaseous diffusion plant • Depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) Private Enterprise • Environmental remediation cylinder management Working To Demonstrate • Waste management • Surveillance and Maintenance (S&M) activities American Centrifuge • D&D waste disposition • Landfill management Technology in Leased • Surplus uranium storage in Uranium Management Center DOE Facilities at PORTS Restoration Services Inc. (RSI) - 280 employees • Provides support to DOE for the environmental remediation and D&D project