Page 83 - Beyond Decommissioning

64 Beyond Decommissioning

Fig. 3.1 The decommissioning timeline.
Courtesy of NRC.

resulting from environmental circumstances, for example, past operations and reme-
diation works at Downey. This indemnity included claims accruing both before and
after the property transfer. In other words, the broad scope of cleanup and liability was
transferred to the private sector. To the federal budget, cost savings included earlier
elimination of expenses to maintain excess property and greater efficiency as reme-
diation is beyond NASA’s core business. In addition, the privatization of the property
cleanup obligations replaces actions by the Federal Government with local coordina-
tion and control of remediation works (International Risk Group, 2008).
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which enriched uranium for national
defense purposes beginning in 1954 and later for fuel for commercial nuclear power
generation, has been subject to environmental cleanup since 1989. Uranium enrichment
ceased in 2001, and the ongoing decommissioning project started in 2011. In a recent
development, DOE-EM transferred 32ha of the site to Southern Ohio Diversification
Initiative (SODI). SODI is the community reuse organization representing four counties
around the former nuclear plant. EM provided the environmental clearance for the
transfer in 2017 following a public review process and consultation with the Ohio Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA). The public review identified community’s
overwhelming request to see land turned over for reindustrialization (DOE, 2018).