LESSONS-LEARNED FROM THE 20-YEAR URANIUM MILL TAILINGS REMEDIAL ACTION SURFACE PROJECT

摘要

In 1978 Congress directed the Department of Energy to clean up 22 inactive uranium processing sites.rnIn late 1998 the Department of Energy’s Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) SurfacernProject completed the cleanup of the last of these 22 sites and the last of more than 5,300 associatedrnvicinity properties. The Project disposed of more than 40 million cubic yards of material, which isrnabout 80 percent of the volume to be cleaned up by the Department’s Environmental ManagementrnProgram.rnAlthough, the tailings contained small amounts of radioactivity, they posed a real risk because theyrnwere located at numerous facilities that were not under DOE control. This marks the completion ofrnthe first major cleanup program by the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Program.rnOver the 20-year span of the Project, important technical and management lessons have been learnedrnthat can be applied to other cleanup programs. The Project provides many valuable case studies fromrnthe variety of situations addressed over the past 20 years.