Energy Dept. Agrees to Pollution Penalty : Environment: Agency will pay fine for delay in cleanup of toxic byproducts, radioactive waste at Fernald, Ohio, nuclear plant site.

The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to pay a $100,000 fine levied by the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to meet timetables and formal commitments to clean up a nuclear weapons plant contaminated by uranium and toxic byproducts.

Sources said that the precedent-setting agreement, expected to be announced early next week, will require the federal government to spend an additional $150,000 for environmental projects in the vicinity of Fernald, Ohio, where the plant is located.

Radioactive pollution has been blamed for an increase in cancer rates among residents of the surrounding area. Ground water and well water used by farmers have been seriously contaminated by seepage and runoff from the plant.

Last year, the EPA threatened to slap the Energy Department with a fine of $10,000 per day but the energy agency questioned the EPA’s authority to levy a monetary penalty.

The ensuing months of negotiations, led by Deputy Energy Secretary Henson Moore and Deputy EPA Administrator Henry Habicht, ended Friday. Sources said the EPA compromised on a smaller fine and agreed to renegotiate target milestones for the Fernald cleanup, while the Energy Department accepted additional cleanup requirements and recognized the EPA’s authority to impose fines in the future.

Officials of the two agencies will have four months to negotiate new schedules for the cleanup activities.

For 37 years before operational and environmental problems shut it down in 1989, the Feed Materials Production Center at Fernald produced uranium fuel elements for reactors and other uranium products for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

The wastes left behind pose not only some of the most vexing problems of the federal government’s multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons plant cleanup program but require one of the largest toxic waste cleanup efforts under the EPA Superfund program.

In a formal consent agreement with the EPA last year, the Energy Department agreed to spend more than $1 billion on the toxic and radioactive cleanup at Fernald. But sources said that the expected cost has continued to escalate.

Silos where radium was stored at Fernald now constitute one of the country’s largest sources of radioactive radon. Waste ponds and pits have contaminated ground water beneath the site and runoff has spread far beyond the 135-acre production area and the 1,050 acres of government property surrounding it.

Under the consent agreement signed with the EPA in April, 1990, the Energy Department agreed to remove contaminated ground water from beneath the plant site, to collect contaminated rainwater runoff from the waste pits and to stop the movement of contaminated ground water into a stream that flows through the property west of the production area.

Although Fernald is relatively small compared to some nuclear weapons facilities, its plight has been one of the most dramatic.

Shortly after the plant was closed, former employees filed a class-action lawsuit seeking $300 million from National Lead of Ohio Inc., which operated the facility until 1985, when the contract was awarded to Westinghouse. The Energy Department then agreed to government damage payments totaling $73 million.

Besides the fine and revised cleanup schedule, the agreement to be announced next week is expected to set up an independent technical advisory group, composed of independent experts as well as Energy Department and EPA scientists, to monitor the cleanup effort.

In an interview with The Times earlier this month, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins said that the struggle to settle the standoff with the EPA had been “healthy” because it had resulted in new ground rules where there had been none. But he contended that any fine assessed against the Energy Department should be put into the cleanup effort.