Retrogression in Public Participation in the DOE/ORO/EM Program

Retrogression in Public Participation in the DOE/ORO/EM Program

Starting in 1983 with the revelation of the contamination of Lower East Fork Popular Creek by mercury released from the Y-12 Plant, there had been a steady improvement in the public participation by the DOE/ORO/EM program as documented elsewhere in these web pages. Briefly, the Oak Ridge public had become involved in all appropriate stages of CERCLA planning and the remediation plans and the public acceptance have been the better for it as was freely admitted by DOE management. The relationship of DOE/ORO/EM reached a high level in about 1998 and continued high until the change of the administration in 2001. The decline in public participation has been manifest is several different ways:

1) Budget Information – Over several years, the Oak Ridge public had devised a budget format for the meaningful comparison of the annual ORO/EM budget. Suddenly, budget information, easily obtained earlier, became “secret” and unavailable, even in retrospect. This was by DOE/HQ fiat not by ORO management. No longer could the friends of DOE actively explain or champion the DOE/EM budget in any meaningful way. Secondary information dependent on the budget, such as the list of scheduled priority cleanup projects also became unavailable and the public was slowly shut out of the planning process.

2) CERCLA Planning – The issuance of the “Top to Bottom” report (Review of the Environmental Management Program, 2/4/2002) issued by DO/HQ introduced a major sea change in the DOE/ORO/EM public relations: it restructured the entire CERCLA remediation plans without public input. The report made claims for major changes in the basis for the priority of and implementation of the CERCLA cleanup projects. The report was prepared and issued without prior public involvement which would have revealed the use of dubious assumptions and claims that were the subject of earlier public debates and resolved in the previous plans to the public’s satisfaction.

Not only was public comment requested too late to have a positive influence on the new plans but the follow-up planning to compete for additional funds was equally secret. Only a limited number of redacted copies (Oak Ridge Comprehensive Closure Plan Proposal, 3/11/2002) were available to the public but the “meat” was carefully eliminated. Public presentations were similarly “love and motherhood” promises and the new constraints on the release of information to the public was acknowledged. Again, the secrecy was imposed by DOE/HQ not by DOE/ORO and the Oak Ridge public feels unwanted in the process.

3) Residential Sampling – An old request for residential soil sampling has been effectively placed on “indefinite hold” by referring the matter to ATSDR whose interest in the matter is limited to public health matters where the original sampling requests were related to the more nebulous question of the “image of Oak Ridge”. It appears that DOE has no interest in supplying the data that could establish, once and forever, the safety of the Oak Ridge residential environments.

4) The cloak of secrecy surrounds the new FFA appendix E being negotiated and which sets the EPA and TDEC acceptance of deadlines for the completion of specific DOE CERCLA tasks. It is this tri-party agreement that sets the enforceable timelines for the Oak Ridge cleanup. Earlier versions were affected by a wide range of public discussions followed by public acceptance.

There are many more instances of the reduced level of public participation. The change is noted by both the ORR SSAB and the LOC/CAP and is admitted by the DOE/ORO/EM managers. The degree of regression is severe dropping all the way back from level 8 to level 2 (Level 9, sharing the OREIS data base, remains). Level 8 was an automatic inclusion of the public in remediation matters well beyond the legal requirements and Level 2 is the minimal CERCLA requirement without post-ROD consultation.

Let there be no mistake, the majority of the great effort spent by the Oak Ridge public on the CERCLA and related programs has been devoted to making the DOE/ORO/EM program more effective, less costly, more expeditious, better described and better accepted by the public, in short, a success. The contributing public has comprised retirees, contractor employees, waste management experts and just plain citizens all interested in a safer, future Oak Ridge. Their efforts are measured in the many thousands of hours and their contributions include such well-known reports as the End Use Working Group Report and the Stewardship Reports. Their contribution has been acclaimed by DOE management. It is a shame that DOE will be deprived of all the technical knowledge and advice of the Oak Ridge public which has been freely given to make the DOE EM program a success. No less important, the attitudes and skills within DOE so necessary to successful public participation so carefully nurtured by past DOE/ORO/EM managers will rapidly disappear.

If DOE were to change its mind about public participation, the change should come soon before all the knowledge so necessary to public participation and support is lost and the process must begin anew.