Oak Ridge, Tenn. – On Feb. 21, Tennessee’s third district Representative Chuck Fleishman visited the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) to receive updates about cleanup projects happening and planned across the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Reservation.

During the Congressman’s visit, OREM Manager Mark Whitney and Jason Darby, an OREM senior project manager, principally discussed the program’s need to construct a new disposal cell for waste generated from demolition activities on the Oak Ridge Reservation. If constructed, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility would become the new low-level hazardous waste acceptance site on the Oak Ridge Reservation. The current disposal cell, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF), has 2.2 million cubic yards of capacity, and is nearly 60 percent full. Current projections estimate the EMWMF will reach capacity in the early 2020s.

OREM employees are in the planning stages of the Environmental Management Disposal Facility project, and they are coordinating closely with environmental regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, as well as local government, to identify the most suitable location for the disposal area. The new facility is expected to provide 2.5 million cubic yards of capacity to meet the demands of future demolition and cleanup activities planned at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Onsite disposal has saved Oak Ridge’s EM program hundreds of millions of dollars in shipping and security costs, while greatly increasing safety by avoiding transporting waste on public highways across the country.