U.S. Reaches Landmark Pact With Ohio on Waste Cleanup

The state has reached a landmark agreement with the U.S. Energy Department for a $50-million cleanup of hazardous wastes at a federally owned uranium enrichment plant, Gov. Richard F. Celeste said Tuesday.

Celeste and Ohio Atty. Gen. Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. said the agreement covering the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon in southern Ohio was significant because the federal agency would be bound by state law and regulation.

“The Department of Energy is now voluntarily, without court action, declaring itself, in effect, free from sovereign immunity,” Celeste said at a news conference. “They’re acknowledging that they must be accountable under the environmental laws of the state of Ohio.

“It’s a good arrangement, and I would hope that it could become a model for other tough cases that we’re wrestling with, like that at Fernald,” Celeste said.

The government-owned Fernald plant near Cincinnati has dumped radioactive waste improperly, possibly contaminating ground water, since it began processing uranium for nuclear weapons in 1951, according to environmental officials.

The Piketon plant, which processes uranium for fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors, generates toxic wastes such as polychlorinated byphenyls, or PCBs, solvents and metals, as well as radioactive materials.

The Piketon settlement provides for the Energy Department to be subject to newly issued orders from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency requiring a comprehensive cleanup under state supervision. Details still must be incorporated into a federal court consent decree.

Piketon site manager Gene Gillespie said the department agreed to clean up roughly 6 million pounds of wastes, and that it may cost the government more than $50 million over five years. The department’s fiscal 1989 budget sets aside $10 million for the first phase.