Page 317 - Beyond Decommissioning

298 Beyond Decommissioning

Industrial space for a range of sizes and operations. The Turbine Building’s two overhead
l
cranes can work together to move 500ton from the loading bay to the upper floors. There are
doors at each side of the loading bay allowing trucks to drive straight through. The Turbine
Building was occupied by a tank manufacturing company in 2010–15.
The site also contains massive, sturdy reactor buildings that could well be reused for com-
l
puter data storage or telecommunication colocation facilities.
However, comments on this redevelopment project are not all positive. For example,
Satsop (2014) reads: “The business park has been moderately successful and has
attracted several tenants that occupy the administrative buildings of the plant as well
as a more recently constructed building. The Satsop business park’s location has hel-
ped make redevelopment a challenge. The site is nearly 10 km miles from the nearest
highway and further away from the nearest small town (Elma). The closest city to
Satsop is Aberdeen which is quite far away and already has an abundance of underused
commercial and industrial sites.” This comment highlights location as a generic factor
impacting on redevelopment.

7.3 The Superfund program

Superfund is a US federal program meant to financially support the cleanup of con-
taminated sites, including also radiationareas.The programoriginatedin1980as
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CER-
CLA). Federal agencies, mainly the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state
organizations and Native American communities were mandated to remediate con-
taminated sites. Most Superfund cleanup operations have been funded by those
responsible for the contamination (“the polluter pays principle”). In a number of
cases, however, no responsible party could be found or they were unable to
pay. Historically, the program has been plagued by underfunding, and Superfund
cleanups have decreased significantly over the years. As a consequence, the
EPA normally negotiates activities with the responsible parties and local
stakeholders.
EPA and state organizations employ the Hazard Ranking System to estimate the
current or potential impacts of hazardous substances on a given site. The Hazard
Ranking System generates a score that dictates priorities. When a site is attributed
a score exceeding a predetermined value, it is inserted in the National Priorities List
(NPL) and becomes a candidate for Superfund assistance. As of 26 February 2018,
there were 1184 NPL sites; 382 sites had been delisted, and 52 new sites had been
put forward for NPL inclusion. From these figures, one can easily see that the Super-
fund legacy is huge. More statistical data are given in the US Environmental
Protection Agency (2018). An overview of the EPA’s achievements in cleanup of con-
taminated sites is given in Boyd (2016). A comprehensive presentation of the EPA’s
cleanup criteria is offered in Walker (2015) including a comparison with the site
release criteria promulgated by other organizations.
Attention to future land uses is an integral part of Superfund ranging from the selec-
tion of cleanup strategy and techniques to long-term surveillance and maintenance of