Page 89 - Beyond Decommissioning

70 Beyond Decommissioning

3.2 Decommissioning to greenfield for sale or
redevelopment (Raimi, 2017)

In some cases, plant owners may wish to remediate a plant site to greenfield status.
Although in principle owners could advance redevelopment up to a greenfield site,
most owners are not interested in moving away from their core business, for example,
producing electricity and toward commercial or residential development. As a result,
greenfield sites typically are sold to developers with knowledge of decommissioning
and local real estate markets or donated to local communities for use as parkland or
other recreational activities. World Nuclear News (2010) describes how the Zion NPP
license was transferred from the owner Exelon to decommissioning specialists Energy
Solutions; however, following completion of decommissioning, the site will be
returned to Exelon for redevelopment.
After decommissioning, plant sites may require decades of monitoring and mitiga-
tion of any negative impacts to groundwater sources as needed. For example, owners
may have to install a groundwater monitoring system. Typically, this program requires
owners to establish baseline groundwater quality levels (based on sampling from wells
up-gradient of the site), then monitor for statistically significant changes to water qual-
ity at down-gradient locations over a defined time. If changes are detected above
groundwater quality criteria, owners are required to take corrective action.
The property transfer is the next phase of redevelopment. A large-scale scheme is
discussed in the following document (US Department of Energy, 2015). Following
Congress authorization, DOE established in 2013 the Asset Revitalization Initiative
(ARI) to address the Department’s portfolio of assets and opportunities. ARI is a
DOE-wide effort to further the beneficial reuse of its diverse mix of assets; to stim-
ulate a more efficient business management within DOE; and encourage collaboration
between public and private investors/developers and DOE sites. One objective of ARI
is to support the transfer of redundant DOE property. Over 57 years DOE has effected
209 transfers of land and real property assets tantamount to 100,000ha. These trans-
fers include sales, grants, and donations to other federal, state, regional, local, and
tribal governments or nonprofit redevelopment organizations for beneficial reuse.
The redevelopment histories of DOE sites or details of some projects thereof are
described in this book or are readily available in the technical literature, including:
l 90 nuclear sites originally developed in the cold war have been closed and decontaminated,
and many of these either have been transferred to economic development organizations or
are eligible for beneficial reuse. To name a few, some of these sites are: Grand Junction, CO;
Oak Ridge, TN; Los Alamos, NM; Mound, OH; Monticello, UT; Hanford, WA.
l Several DOE defense nuclear sites have been redirected toward environmental and wildlife
reuses through access to natural habitats such as at SRS, SC; Hanford, WA; Rocky Flats, CO;
Oak Ridge, TN; and Grand Junction, CO.

Land and asset transfer for beneficial reuse is economically significant. Extending the
useful life of many DOE redundant facilities over long periods increases the return on
investment. The sunk costs in the design and construction benefit local communities
and businesses that can take advantage of reused facilities at lower costs than by